Talking Lakeview Arena’s Kraft Hockeyville win with the man who wrote the original essay
By @MichaelCaples –
Fritz Hoenke may just end up being the most popular hockey dad of all-time in Marquette.
The longtime youth hockey supporter quickly wrote something about the hometown rink during the hockey season, and the submission has resulted in a $150,000 donation and the opportunity to host an NHL preseason game for Lakeview Arena.
How? Hoenke wrote the essay for Lakeview Arena’s nomination in Kraft Hockeyville USA 2016, leading to the Marquette facility being one of 10 rinks selected by the event organizers to be voted on by the public.
A few voting rounds later, the Marquette hockey community was watching a live NBC intermission broadcast where Gary Bettman announced that Lakeview Arena had won Hockeyville 2016.
Hoenke – who was interviewed by Jeremy Roenick during the broadcast – spoke with MiHockey the day after the reveal, and he said he thought a jam-packed crowd at Lakeview would be informed of bad news during the broadcast.
“I have to tell you that we kind of thought we hadn’t gotten it,” Hoenke said. “I was prepared for them to cut the switch and I wouldn’t be talking to anybody. There were several things that happened that led us to be suspicious that perhaps we weren’t the choice. We were totally surprised and, I must admit, I felt pretty overwhelmed for a moment. What it meant for our community is enormous, and to have been able to be a piece of accomplishing that was quite humbling.”
The official NBC video from the announcement:
On Oct. 4, the Carolina Hurricanes and the Buffalo Sabres will arrive in Marquette for a special NHL preseason contest, televised live on NBC Sports Network. Leading up to the game, Lakeview Arena staff will have $150,000 to spend on facility upgrades, improvements and repairs.
“It’s enormous. You read the piece, and it really was easily written in just a few minutes by me from the heart,” Hoenke said. “It’s all true. We have an aging facility…the roof leaks, the compressors are shot, all that stuff – it’s a 42-year-old facility. We have been way out-of-proportion successful in hockey for our size over many years, but it’s getting tougher. There are less kids in hockey, it’s an aging demographic to start with, so there is sort of sense of slow reduction of what’s happening in hockey, just because there’s less kids in it.
“To have this happen at this juncture, it just feels like we got an enormous shot in the arm – refocused, renewed, reinvigorated interest in the greatest game in our wonderful, historic rink. It was terribly gratifying to see that kind of turnout and obviously the voting was just phenomenal. I had this sense that we must have taken off in a viral way, just from what I was getting from talking to people.”
Hoenke hopes that the $150,000 in funding from Kraft will be a launch pad for more support for Lakeview Arena from the surrounding community.
“The problem, of course, is as much money as that is, and as wonderful as it is, the reality is that the needs are substantially greater than that amount of money,” Hoenke said. “My personal hope is that it becomes a sort of what you might think of as acting as seed money for the community to throw in additional support to accomplish some of the bigger projects. The things I mentioned are certainly all needed, and on top of that, it’s going to be rather interesting to prepare for an NHL game in that rink, so I would think that some of this money is going to have to be focused towards that alone. Anything we spend it on is good for the rink, as long as it’s for the infrastructure.”
The Marquette hockey community isn’t letting the fact that the Red Wings won’t be coming to town impact their excitement for the preseason game, either. Hoenke said while there is a “tiny bit” of disappointment, they are thrilled to have the Sabres and Hurricanes slated to skate at Lakeview Arena.
“A whole bunch because we love the Red Wings, but the reality was that they have a conflict, and I’m sure the NHL doles this out every year to different teams to take on the responsibility of playing a remote preseason game,” Hoenke said. “Almost everybody I have talked to has the reaction of wouldn’t it be great if it was the Red Wings, but you know what, this is absolutely tremendous. If there’s any disappointment, it’s really tiny. I sure wouldn’t want those two teams to hear that we’re anything less than ecstatic that they’re going to be here, because we sure are.”