The Picton Pirates Junior Hockey Club have skated forward with an in-kind donation for the Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation to help Back the Build for a new hospital.

Committed to assisting the goals of the foundation, the Picton Pirates gifted the PECMH Foundation with space on-ice to showcase their Back the Build logo for the 2021/22 season.

Over the summer, the Picton Pirates set out to secure sponsors for the upcoming season through selling local businesses advertisement space on the rink boards, hanging banners and new this year –  logo placement on the ice surface.

The Picton Pirates believe that a strong community makes the hospital greater, and a great hospital makes a community stronger. With this in mind, Dr. Cliff Rice, secretary for the Picton Pirates Hockey Club and director on the PECMHF Board put forth an idea for the Pirates to consider – offering the PECMH Foundation an in-kind donation of the logo placement on the ice surface to help raise awareness for the Back the Build campaign. The committee unanimously agreed to place the logo on the ice as a way to show their support for the building of The County’s new hospital.

“We are grateful to the Picton Pirates Hockey Club for helping to keep our Back the Build campaign top of mind in our community,” said Shannon Coull, executive director of the PECMH Foundation. “We’re blessed to have a great hospital here. But we’re also blessed to have a diverse population that supports it, including the Picton Pirates Hockey Club. For anyone who wants to be involved in this exciting project, there is a role for you to play.”

With a shift in management and the threat of the possibility of the team being picked up by an outside group and possibly moved, a local group stepped up to take over the team. 

The new board consisting of Ron Norton (who started the team originally in 1991), Mike Millington, Adam Smith, Chris Rice and Cliff Rice, along with General Manager Jason Parks, stepped up to keep the team going in Picton.

Having less than three months to get ready for the new season, Parks set out to get a team together and the management sought out sponsors for this year. The Picton Pirates are a not-for-profit community corporation that relies almost entirely on sponsors and fundraising to finance the team. 

As one of the Pirates’ supporters says, “It’s all about community.”

When Cliff Rice proposed putting the PECMHF’s I Love the County, I Back the Build logo in the ice as an in-kind donation, the response was swift, enthusiastic, and unanimous.

“As many others in our community have, my family, friends and colleagues have benefitted from the care provided at our County hospital. It’s an important cause as it is here for everyone in our community. The Picton Pirates Hockey Club are proud to give back to our hospital through this in-kind donation,” said Cliff Rice.

The Picton Pirates Board encourages the community to come out and support the Picton Pirates this season. Game time is 7:30 p.m. on Thursday evenings at the Huff Arena located at the Prince Edward Community Centre in Picton.

The Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital Foundation is a charitable organization whose mission is to raise money to advance health care for the patients of the hospital and the people of Prince Edward County.