Letter: Take the time to support the Fremont hockey community – Fremont Tribune

I am writing to keep you informed, whether you know it or not, Fremont is a Nebraska hockey.

My name is Jason Bussel. I live in Nebraska now from combined 15 plus years in two different cases after growing up in New England, Montana and parts of Canada. I have lived in Fremont for almost four of them now. One of the many reasons we moved and live in Fremont now is because of the hockey and the sense of community around it on the rink.

Recently, as you may not know, hockey’s parents took it on themselves to save the rink, as it reached an era in which resourceful maintenance threatens to make ice skating and hockey in Fremont, not after close 20 years in Sidner.

The work of the rink by 2029 is already done by Sett, LLC, owned by a parent of hockey children in the family relationship with those from Fremont. Each dollar was raised privately. Much of the construction and work done by local business and people related to the community and hockey. The family operates it only to keep the lights and give the children a place to play locally. As you can see, the rink and sport are a little different than anything else you can imagine. Imagine the fields in the city or gyms, and the only solution would be to make parents create a business and live in neighboring cities to continue playing.

Fremont also has numerous coaches who have currently played junior, college and even a professional hockey at the NHL level. The equivalent of having numerous former Huslasrs players and bosses who train football, for example. That would be a pretty story in itself.

In addition to this perfection and commitment to maintain sports and ice at the most basic level of maintenance of lights, you may or may not also know that the Fremont teams are really good.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic, hitting as soon as the program launched its Varsiti hockey program in 2018, the success continued. Just recently with:

• Fremont Tigers, a recreation team/house at high school level, won Omaha League just a few years ago in 2022.
• In 2023 he hosted the first team for all girls and hosted a game in Fremont. The girls are currently playing Co-Ed, but the program has already created several high-end players, including several collegial players in their short story.
• Nebraska Warbirds, who practice and play from the ice arena of Sidner and under Fremont’s Ice Association, won the US National Championship 14u 1a 1a 1a in 2024.
• Five teams from Fremont’s Ice Association were ranked, winning regional tournaments in Westminster Colorado to attend international silver sticks for the final three years in a row (2022-2024) in Michigan and Ontario, Canada.
• The most important thing is that this year we have achieved a cornerstone for growth to be the biggest after the creation of the program. Now bigger than Siu City and almost equal to Lincoln’s program, both of which have long-standing USHL teams and numerous ice sheets in their cities.

But even without the confessions and good teams, or if you are not even interested in sports, hockey affects the community in ways that other sports cannot. Sidner hosts several weekends throughout the year, where hundreds visit the city and stay. The economic impact of hotels, sales taxes and visits to the restaurant during the slow cold months of the year in winter, a total of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, which would be melted if the ice of Sidner Arena stopped.

All this aside, we are still unfortunately losing some of our players at the high school level to neighboring programs – not for better opportunities, but for those with more fans who show up or different types of support. I can only think of the recent magical magic team of our volleyball, which simply continued thanks to someone like Matt Dalton and teammates, seeing themselves as part of the Fremonth community and sports teams.

I would like to see our younger players have a local option to stay and play with their friends from average school days. Rescue the rink was the first step. The next step continues to improve on the ice, and the finale is prolonged community support and improvements to the rink. As I visit football, baseball, softball, basketball and volleyball, as Canadian, I am always amazed at attendance and reflection! I would like to see this for our hockey players as well.

The aforementioned author Fredrik Becman, author of several books, including “A Man called Ove” and “Bed Town”, was asked “Why Hockey?” For his books he answered:

“If a child plays a hockey, their whole family plays hockey. No one has a child who plays a hockey without the whole family and the community invest in it. Everyone has invested something, including the whole family. They have invested time and energy and money and love, so there is more bet at any time. “

Whether this is the fact that you like our mentality “Pull out of shoe straps” when repairing the rink without any costs for the community, supporting winning teams or helping to build them or just love how the Fremont economy takes advantage of that hockey is here; We will be glad to see you on the rink and if you want to invest in the future, please send us an email to [email protected].

We ourselves and we would be glad to visit, support and embrace this opportunity to transform the community – like the Hocket of Nebraska.

Volunteer Member of the Board of the Ice Association, Coach and Hockey Parent