Cranbook becomes home to a community-minded hockey club
On a cold winter day, there’s one sure way to bring up your heart rate and generate some heat: bundle into an arena with thousands of other fans and cheer on your local hockey team. In Cranbrook, this scene is currently possible thanks to the Cranbrook Bucks.
This BC Hockey League team was established shortly after the previous club, the Kootenay Ice, announced in 2019 that it was moving to Winnipeg. Nathan Lieuwen, a former player of the Kootenay Ice, stepped in with partners Scott Niedermayer, Adam Cracknell, Craig Shostak, and Steve King. With support from Columbia Basin Trust, they established the new Cranbrook Bucks.
“My partners and I really believe that Cranbrook is a hockey town, and that there are true hockey fans here that really care about their community,” says Lieuwen, Majority Owner and President. “We found ourselves in the unique position to bring a club here, so we went to work immediately.”
Lieuwen himself is committed to the city. Originally from Abbottsford, he moved to Cranbrook at age 16 to play for the Kootenay Ice. He met his wife there, and then they left for Lieuwen to pursue professional hockey with the National Hockey League, a career that was unfortunately cut short due to injuries.
Cranbrook, though, was where they continued to spend summers, and where he and his family decided to settle down.
“We love the community,” he says. “We love the geography. We’re very fortunate to have the community that we have here. It’s such a nice size and the East Kootenay as a whole has been a good fit for us.”
It’s also a great fit for the club.
The start, however, was a little rough. With financing in hand, including a loan from the Trust’s Impact Investment Fund, the club was able to take essential steps like signing up players and hiring a head coach and general manager. But by the time the first game rolled around, the pandemic had thoroughly hit.
“I watched our first official game in a pod season in Penticton,” says Lieuwen. “It was special, but also super bizarre. Obviously our bread and butter is having people come together and watch, which is something they couldn’t do efficiently for quite a long time.”
By the next season, though, the world had opened up enough for the team to have its home opener before a real-life crowd. “It had been a long time coming, and extended because of everything was happening in the world. But it was a very special moment and it was great to see Cranbrook rally around this team.”
The rallying has continued ever since. Sure, there are ups and downs as the team wins…or doesn’t. But between folks streaming into the arena and local businesses lending support, “It’s been a very positive reaction from the community.”
This all-for-one sentiment is also why Lieuwen felt the Trust was a great organization to partner with. “They also saw the vision for this,” he says. “They also want Cranbrook to succeed, not just in the economic sense but in the social sense as well.”
Based out of what Lieuwen describes as a “beautiful building” (Western Financial Place), the club also integrates itself into the community in other ways. “We’ve become quite diverse. We offer the hockey school; we’ve done that since the beginning to try to help with the younger generation of talent in the area. And now more recently we started a hockey academy, as we saw a big gap in the need for development for kids around the ages of 15/16/17.” In addition, the club runs the food and beverage facilities in the building.
It’s a community-minded path that Lieuwen and the club intend to keep following. “We don’t have any plans of going anywhere else. Hopefully we can continue to grow this thing into something even bigger than it is today.”
Impact Investment FundThe Impact Investment Fund provides loans to First Nations organizations, social enterprises, non-profits and businesses that are not able to secure conventional financing to support credible investment opportunities which have significant positive and measurable community benefits.
The Impact Investment Fund provides loans to First Nations organizations, social enterprises, non-profits and businesses that are not able to secure conventional financing to support credible investment opportunities which have significant positive and measurable community benefits.
