Welcome to Lake Flashback. Reporter James Goldie has been combing through old newspapers with the assistance of the Kaatza Station Museum and Archives so we can jog your memory, give you that nostalgic feeling, or just a chuckle, as we take a look at what was making headlines this week around Cowichan Lake in years gone by.
This week around Cowichan Lake…
10 years ago:
The Appollos Ball Tournament celebrated its 25th anniversary this week at ball parks around Cowichan Lake, hosting 55 teams from across Vancouver Island.
The event started in 1982 as a modest slow-pitch tournament for the Lake Cowichan Appollos hockey team with just eight teams out at the Mesachie Lake Skydome.
Over the years, however, the event exploded in popularity.
“I didn’t think it would get that big,” said Appollos manager Ross Forrest.
“That one year when we had 95 teams, that was too big. We didn’t have enough fields.”
This year, Oak & Carriage became the first team in the tournament’s history to win “A” division four times with a 14-8 win over Victoria Blue in the final.
25 years ago:
This week 50 hockey players from across North America arrived in Lake Cowichan to participate in the Victoria Cougars Western Hockey League Training Camp.
Lake Cowichan player Steve Lingren is among them.
“This is the first time in 20 years that we’ve moved our training camp out of Victoria,” Rick Hopper, general manager of the Victoria Cougars, told the Lake News.
He said cost and the facility were the two main factors behind their decision to locate the event in Lake Cowichan.
Lingren has been signed with the Cougars but, like the other players, will not know whether or not he has made the team until the exhibition games have wrapped.
40 years ago:
Council is concerned about figures from the new census which indicate the village population has declined by 33 people since 1971.
According to the 1971 census, Lake Cowichan’s population was 2,364 however, current data show that the community’s population has dropped to 2,331.
At this week’s meeting, council expressed worries that the decline in population will mean smaller grants from senior government, the amounts of which are based on population.
Village administrator Bill Chappell told council the annual per capita provincial grant will be cut by more than $1,000.
He said he doesn’t know how the census enumerators arrived at their number because 76 single family dwellings were added to the village water supply in the last five years.
Council voted to send a telegram to Ottawa disputing the numbers.
