There have been a few small changes to this year's Western Canadian Pond Hockey Championships in Portage la Prairie. The 11th annual event is set to take place on February 12th, and Chair Travis Foster gives some details.

"We're going to be running on the sheets of ice right outside of the PCU Centre. We'll have our beer gardens set up all weekend in the Rotary Room. Up until now we've only ever had one division and everybody kind of plays everybody, but this year we're opening it up to 3 divisions. The Competitive Division, the Non-Competitive Division, and then we're also hosting a youth division."

Foster details the cost per team, and explains why they've partnered with the Potato Festival.

Western Canadian Pond Hockey Championships Travis Foster

"Youth teams are $100, Competitive and Non-Competitive are $300. With that you get all of your food for the weekend --provided by Brown's Dining Solutions out in Southport -- as well as tickets to the social Saturday night. The other announcement we had was we're linking up with the Potato Fest Committee, and we're hosting the 3rd annual Cabin Fever Reliever Social on the Saturday night at Pond Hockey."

Potato Festival Co-Chair Cindy McDonald outlines why they decided to partner with Pond Hockey.

Potato Festival Co-Chair Cindy McDonald

"We usually have our Cabin Fever Reliever the same weekend, and I thought 'why don't we just partner with those guys because they're already having an event.' When you collaborate with other groups it just makes things bigger and better, you get more exposure. We're going to split the proceeds, Rotary uses their proceeds to do amazing things in our community, and we'll use ours to offer all the free events for the Potato Fest."

The tournament is set for February 12th to 14th.