Our
History
Modest beginnings for the Mousquiri Tournament
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The year 1963 marks
an epic in minor hockey’s history not only in Richmond but in all of the Eastern
Townships, because it would be the organization of the first tournament for the mousquito
catergory under the name «Regional Mousquito Tournament». The tournament in that era added up to
only one, that being the International
This
innovation also represented a challenge of sorts for the organizers because the
availability of halls, meals for the players, lodging and the recruiting of volunteers to
assure the presentation of this tournament in the closeness of the old premises of the
Richmond Coliseum had to be forseen.
These
difficulties resolved, Roger Martel, Paul-Emile Lefebvre, Albert Dunn and Jean Dion would
each personally invest $25.00 so as to start up a fund to pay the first expenses and then
after were joined by volunteers who also believed, such as Oscar Thibault, Loyd Tibbits,
Charles Gendreau, Jean Beaudoin and Arthur St-Sauveur.
This group
of volunteers had the wind under their wings and their hearts full of motivation because
the Richmond Mosquito formation had just won for the fifth year running the championship
of its catergory in the Townships and the Richmond Pee-Wee team would get to the finals at
the Quebec Tournament from where the idea came to past on a tournament to the image of
that of the Old Capital.
In order
to prepare the teams of the region for the competition to the Quebec Pee-Wee Tournament it
was finally a total of 13 teams that would be participating in the first Mousquiri
Regional Tournament of Richmond that was held March 7th and 8th
1964. The successes were immediate more than a 1000 people were present at the games and
the organizers registered a net profit of $108. The organizers operating in an arena offering little commodities however would restrain the number of teams wishing to participate in the tournament. Moreover up until 1969 the maximun total of teams that the organizers could receive was 16 and the competition stretched out on a period of three days.
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