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Bruce Hamilton brought the WHL to Kelowna and built a great history of success along with it. We spent some time with this Community Builder who reveals what brought him here, and how the community has helped him make it feel like home.
When Bruce Hamilton needed a way out of Tacoma, Washington for his WHL Rockets, it came down to two possibilities.
"Kelowna was one of the cities, Boise Idaho was another. And thankfully, we chose Kelowna."
Since then the Rockets have represented Kelowna at the Memorial Cup in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2015.
"I like to think now, it's one of the stronger franchises in the Canadian Hockey League," said Hamilton.
But the beginnings were pretty humble with the Rockets spending their first four years in Kelowna at the old Memorial Arena. "It was a wonderful place to watch a game because you were right on top of the play. The problem was, you could only get about two thousand people in there, really and that doesn't do it in the economics of our league. And nor would the league allow us to play in a facility like that for long."
The Rockets spent four years playing at Memorial. At one point, the city spent a regrettable amount of time considering a dubious proposal for an arena with a retractable roof. "Only in Kelowna, laughed Hamilton." But it slowed down the effort to actually build something appropriate.
"Yup, terribly," he recalled, "and it probably cost us two years in that other facility."
But along came another community builder, Graham Lee with RG Properties. "He had the foresight and the wherewithal to build the building and it is what it is today."
Still, for Hamilton, the most important project isn't about building arenas or even championship teams. It's about building future leaders out of the young men who come to play for him.
"When we bring players here, we want them to be good people first and foremost," said Hamilton.
And when he sees them years later and hears how important their time in Kelowna was to them. That's what really makes this community builder smile.
"I just think it's so important that the direction they get from us before they leave here and go into the real world is really important for them."
After all, only a tiny percentage of CHL players ever make it to the NHL. Hamilton knows what that's like. Drafted in the 1970s for the St. Louis Blues, he never put a skate on NHL ice, but he's had a great life in hockey and wouldn't change it for the world. Kelowna is lucky to have him.
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