extreme weather shelter opens
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gas enviro-villain of 2013?
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port seeking page industrial reserve
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JANUARY 4 2013 www.burnabynewsleader.com
the holiday period is also hockey tournament time. Burnaby minor hosted its 50th annual Bantam international tournament, which wrapped up monday. page a10
Burnaby property valuation increases BC Assessment Authority puts city overall at $66.68 billion
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
matthew Coyne of tourism Burnaby says residents won’t recognize Copeland arena when it hosts the esso Cup national hockey championship for midget-aged women in april. the tournament is another feather in the city’s sporting cap as it forges its reputation for hosting amateur sports events.
Sports tourism pays off, a tourney at a time Burnaby facilities popular logo. Special banners will hang places to play provincial, from the rafters. The scuffed dasher boards will be gleaming with signage national championships Mario Bartel
photo@burnabynewsleader.com
Rink rats will barely recognize Copeland Arena in April. That’s when the Esso Cup, the national championship for midgetaged female hockey teams, hits the ice. A Hockey Canada event, the building’s entrances, windows, floors and ice surface will be emblazoned with the organization’s distinctive red, black and white maple leaf
from national sponsors like Esso, Royal Bank, McDonald’s. TSN will broadcast the final, possibly live if the NHL season is canceled. It’s the kind of big-ticket event Moe Velji, the first vice president of the Burnaby Minor Hockey Association, never thought his group could pull off. But with a can-do spirit and the cooperation of Tourism Burnaby and the City of Burnaby, he’s confident it will be better and bigger than the five
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previous championships, which have all been held in eastern Canada. “It’s huge,” says Vejli, the tournament’s chairperson. “For us to get it was pretty big.” While global events like the Olympics, World Junior Hockey Championships, Davis Cup tennis and Skate Canada are the glamour children of the sports tourism business, Burnaby has quietly positioned itself as a leading destination in Canada for amateur sports tournaments, regional and national championships. It didn’t just happen, though.
“If you develop a proficiency for active sports tourism, over the years you wind up building the infrastructure in the community that allows you to bid for bigger events,” says Tom Mayenecht, a sports business analyst who’s worked with the Toronto Raptors, Vancouver Grizzlies and Tennis Canada. From its genesis as the host for the Canada Games in 1973, successive Burnaby councils in the last 15 years have adhered to a vision of the city’s Central Valley as a sports mecca. please see BURNABY, A3
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Burnaby’s property assessments jumped by $300 million to a total value of $66.682 billion as of July 1, 2012. However, according to figures released by the BC Assessment Authority on Wednesday, Burnaby’s most expensive residential single-family neighbourhood dropped in value. A typical 1970s home in Buckingham went from an assessment of $1,842,000 on July 1, 2011 to $1,820,000 in 2012. The second-most expensive area, though, did go up with North Burnaby’s Kensington area going from $1,500,000 to $1,542,000. Other singlefamily examples cited by the authority in Burnaby show Forglen, just north of Metrotown, jumping from $998,000 to $1,014,000, Vancouver Heights rising from $933,000 to $977,000, and Westridge nominally increasing from $939,000 to $945,000. please see cITY, A5