A group of minor hockey players is looking for answers after a trailer carrying nearly $4,000 worth of bottles collected from a fundraiser was reported stolen last week.
The Pense Grand Coulee Minor Hockey Association holds a bottle drive every year to help cover some of the costs.
They said the bottles raised were loaded into a trailer outside the hockey rink in Grand Coulee, Sask., by some parents on the night of Sept. 19, including Grand Coulee Mayor Wally Botkin.
“I came by Friday morning at 8 a.m. and sent a message right away to members of the recreation board and the organizers of the bottle drive to see if somebody else had taken them in,” Botkin said.
“Nobody else had, it had been stolen the night before around 3:30 in the morning.”
The bottles were scheduled to be taken into Sarcan Recycling that morning.
“It’s one of the biggest fundraisers of the year, everyone in the community donates all their recycling. We send out notices a month or two in advance and people save up their recycling,” Botkin said.
“The kids go door-to-door picking it up.”
Botkin said the players were extremely disappointed when they heard the news.
“The kids were pretty heartbroken when they saw that. They put a lot of work into it and it was all gone,” Botkin said.
“It was really difficult for the kids to fathom that somebody would steal this from them.”
The money lost will certainly be missed, Botkin said.
“Hockey isn’t a cheap sport to play. It really helps subsidize the cost of hockey so the kids can go to tournaments and away games,” he said.
“You don’t have to rely on the parents to flip the entire bill. It’s pretty crucial.”
Botkin said they plan on holding another bottle drive in the next couple of months.
The stolen trailer, carrying the bottles, is a dual axle 2011 Rainbow Dump Trailer with license plate number 681 LNL.
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