The town of Boston Bar, 65 kilometres north of Hope, holds the record for the hottest June temperature ever recorded in British Columbia: 42 C, back on June 29, 1987.
On Saturday, it was a complete reversal.
In poor driving conditions caused by snow, the travelling Victoria Grizzlies were held up after a bridge in the area was closed due to an accident, forcing a major delay on a trip from Prince George, where the club had played Friday night.
A 7 p.m. Saturday game against the Chilliwack Chiefs was eventually postponed and will be played at a later date, yet to be determined. The bus had also blown a tire that had to be repaired while the team chowed down at a nearby restaurant.
“We’re at a diner here, Fat Jack’s, about five minutes south of Boston Bar, getting some food, said veteran Grizzlies’ forward Cole Pickup, who added that everyone was in good spirits.
“The guys pulled the Xbox off the bus and we’re playing it in here, just to kill some time.”
That was at 5:30 p.m., two hours after arriving in the area.
“We actually had a snowball fight earlier,” Pickup said with a laugh.
The Grizzlies had pulled in to Williams Lake following their 4-2 win in Prince George on Friday. The bus continued its trip at 10 a.m. Saturday, venturing toward Chilliwack when it was stopped in Boston Bar, near the Fraser River.
“They were coming down the Fraser Canyon,” said team president John Wilson, who also owns Wilson’s Transportation, the bus company that runs the Grizzlies to their B.C. Hockey League trips. “The bridge was supposed to be re-opened at 2:30 — they got there and it wasn’t.
“They were going to turn around [to Merritt] and make their way from there, but they wouldn’t have been able to play until 8 or, more likely 9, and Chilliwack didn’t want to do that, so we will have to re-schedule it,” added Wilson, who was in contact with the bus driver and team staff all along.
Weather conditions had also created havoc on Highway 97 south of Prince George on Friday morning as a Greyhound bus overturned. The Grizzlies had already made their way to Williams Lake on Thursday to cut down the length and time of travel. That accident did not affect their journey.
“I’m just glad everyone is safe from that Greyhound accident,” Wilson said of the bad weather conditions.
The postponement of the game will create some financial difficulties for the team, in that it means an extra trip back to the mainland. “I’m not doing cartwheels here about that. It becomes a costly added expense,” Wilson said.
The team also had to spend an extra night in Powell River earlier this season when a storm caused the cancellation of a ferry trip.
On Saturday, the Grizzlies were slated to pull into a Burnaby hotel about 10 p.m. and will face the Surrey Eagles today at 4 p.m.
“We might be able to tag the Chilliwack game onto our last big road trip to Wenatchee,” Wilson said of the schedule that has Victoria in Wenatchee on Feb. 19, with stops in Penticton and Langley the next two days.
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