Youth Hockey Exchange Program with Canada Celebrates 36th Anniversary

The kids think its fun and the parents think its a great experience.

And they're both correct.

For the 36th consecutive year, the Tri-County/Kent Cyclone youth hockey organization and the Embro Edge hockey organization from Embro, Ontario, held their annual exchange program.

This year Tri-County recently hosted their Canadian friends.

The event features youth hockey players from Mite level (8 years old and younger) to Bantam level (up to 15 years old) in a "friendship" tournament that features a bit of hockey and a lot of fun times together.

The exchange program's start was a result of a snowstorm following a hockey tournament that stranded Kent youth hockey teams in the village of Embro nearly 40 ago. Local citizens opened their homes and their hearts to the snow-bound families, thus creating friendships that have grown from one generation to the next.

Over the course of the exchange weekend, visiting players billet (are provided lodging) in the homes of host players their same age level. From these billeting experiences, life-long friendships among the players and their families have developed along with a new appreciation for a different culture.

While Kent can be considered suburban in lifestyle, Embro is a farming community, thus providing the players an opportunity to learn about daily routines very different from their own.

Matt Zilke, a bantam-aged player from Embro who has participated in the program for six years, was impressed by the large size of the school buildings in the Kent area, adding that a local high school football stadium looked "bigger than a university's."

Zilke's family farms nearly 5,000 acres of land.

Throughout the weekend each age division of teams play a series of three hockey games, with the final game featuring a "trading" of some players from one team to the other. The mix of American and Canadian players on teams has always been a highlight for the players.

The final event of the weekend is an impressive closing ceremony in which participating teams parade onto the ice led by a bagpipe player and skaters holding the flags of the two countries. Representative families of Embro and Tri-County sing the national anthems and a gift exchange closes out the weekend.