Taber chosen as Kraft Hockeyville’s Alberta winner

Posted on March 19, 2026 by Taber Times

By Cal Braid and Trevor Busch
Taber Times

On March 14, the Town of Taber broke some great news: It announced it had been named Alberta’s 2026 representative in Kraft Hockeyville. As one of 13 provincial and territorial winners, it secured $50,000 in arena upgrades and a chance to host an NHL preseason game if the town wins one of the top two spots in a national vote.

 When Hockeyville opened its contest on Jan. 1, Taberites rallied and flooded the contest website with hundreds of stories, comments and photos. The response was clearly enough to make an impression on the contest committee that selected Taber as Alberta’s lone recipient of the award. The committee voters saw the merit in Taber’s case for a town and arena worth supporting, and on March 21 it will decide upon the two grand prize winners.

 A Town news release reminded locals that after a Dec. 17 explosion forced the closure of Taber’s Community Centre, “fifteen minor hockey teams and more than 250 young players lost the remainder of their season, not to mention the various clubs and groups that also lost ice time.”

 On Monday, Town CAO Derrin Thibault expressed enthusiasm about the big win that will certainly benefit Taber.

 “It’s really exciting,” he said. “It’s nice to see that all the community rallied enough to make a difference for the provincial thing – $50,000 is not insignificant. It’s not large compared to the actual cost of the rebuild. But it’s nice to be recognized as that, and it’s a real good boost for the community to keep going for the next round.”

 He stopped short of calling the win a consolation prize gifted from Kraft. “I don’t know if I’d frame it as sympathy. We did apply for the Kraft Hockeyville in 2020 as a town to get some upgrades and stuff done, and we weren’t successful in that. I would say what we’re seeing here is the big difference between a want that we had in 2020 and a need that we have today.”

 “People are really clinging to this because of the shape that (the arena) is in. So could there be some sympathy? Yes, but there’s some reality there, too. So people are much more engaged this time around, because it’s a need to have for the community. It’s important.”

 On using the money, he said he’d like to see it go towards a visible upgrade or replacement.

 “I would like to put it towards a score clock or something that we in the community can point to and say, that is what we did with Kraft Hockeyville money. Our scoreboard, for example, got buried under how many tons of rock and so this money could look after a scoreboard, or at least part of a scoreboard,” he elaborated.

 In terms of the current status of repairs and renovations at the arena, he said, “We were able to hit the milestone of March 1 for opening up our auditorium and the lease spaces for Body Masters gym and the archery range. We got our office spaces back and our meeting rooms back.”

 While progress has been a little delayed by water and gas supply issues connecting to the Museum and the Chamber, Thibault hopes to see those problems addressed on March 23.

 The Town divided the project into zones: zone one being the auditorium; zone two the Chamber and the Museum space: and zone three the main lobby for the large rink, the hallway, and the dressing rooms.

 “All of those have all been cleared of asbestos, and they passed all the air quality testing. And so that’s where those spaces are at. Zone four is the heaviest damaged area – that’s the block wall that affected all three ice surfaces, curling small and large, and that’s what’s being worked on now. So they need about 30 working days to get that all cleaned up.”

 Once the proper abatement is done and all the blocks removed, the Town can go in and do a detailed structural inspection. Following that, further reconstruction plans will be determined.

 “That’s what we plan on doing probably around the third or fourth week of April. We should be able to get in there and then have a real good look at it. We do want to get the large ice ready for August, for VerSet (hockey camp). That’s the next milestone, and I plan on meeting that,” he said.

 A feasibility study for a new rec centre will begin soon (see related story), and the study scheduled to be completed and presented to council in October.

 “If everything lines up the way we’re thinking, we’ll have everything in the large ice ready to go for August, and then we’ll have September, October to sort of figure out what are the different options we might have here.”

 He listed two potential unknowns as the small ice and the curling rink. “Council doesn’t want to put any money into the small ice, that’s past its prime. It’s got floor troubles. It’s been a problem for six or seven years, and quite honestly, we already had MPE (Engineering) six years ago do a rendering for us of what we could look at if we were to eliminate that space and turn it into something else.”

 At that time, the Town was considering a second large sheet of ice. However, Thibault said an estimate from about a year ago placed the project at about $10.2 million.

 “I know council doesn’t want to invest any money into the small ice. I think the curling club could go either way. There’s nothing really wrong with it – it’s old, it could use a facelift,” he said.

 Dating back to Sept. 2024, the Town had submitted a grant application for accessibility upgrades and code upgrades for the 55-year old building.

 That grant ultimately shifted from one grant application stream to another when the Federal Deputy Minister of Housing and Community Infrastructure said he would move Taber’s application over to the Building Canada Strong fund if it wished to do so.

 “So we put in a letter to say, yes, we’d like to do that,” Thibault said. “And that’s supposed to be announced here in April or May of this year, because it was 2025 money that they were talking about giving us. So that would be great if that money would come our way.”

 He offered his thanks to Taber residents for their patience in the midst of a complex disruption.

 “They’ve been fantastic,” he said. “I thought we were going to get hounded a lot more than we were, but people have been pretty accommodating. I just really wanted to thank the community, they’ve been super to deal with up to this point.”