A friendly bet between two B.C. mayors has resulted in one of them wearing the other city's British Columbia Hockey League team jersey at a recent council meeting.
Hint: it wasn't Surrey Mayor Brenda Locke.
Penticton Mayor Julius Bloomfield was seen wearing the Surrey Eagles' eye-catching green jersey at a council meeting on June 4, after the Surrey Eagles beat the Penticton Vees in the Okanagan to win the BCHL's Fred Page Cup, winning the trophy for the first time since 2013.
After being on the winning side of a BCHL finals bet last spring, Bloomfield proposed to Locke last month that the losing politician will have to wear the opposing team’s jersey at an upcoming council meeting. Locke accepted the challenge.
South Surrey-based Eagles downed Penticton on May 26, in Game 6 of the fourth-round series, to clinch the cup win.
“Before we get going here, you’ll notice I’m wearing a very strange jersey,” Bloomfield said with a smile at the beginning of council’s meeting.
“I’m wearing the jersey as a tribute to a team that’s done what very few teams have done recently and that’s beat the Penticton Vees in a series of seven.”
Surrey Eagles had an outstanding championship season, leading the league in points and winning six of nine year-end BCHL trophies before snagging the ultimate prize: the Fred Page Cup.
Locke said the wager was the result of some "friendly banter" before the end of the Fred Page championship series.
"I was very very glad to send (the Eagles jersey) to him... it was great! Good on the Eagles – they won the cup."
Locke commended the sportsmanship during that last series – where the Vees were looking to win three straight BCHL titles in a row – as exemplary.
"It was a great, hard-fought series with good sportsmanship... just a really great series. Go Eagles!" she said.
"Surrey needs champions and we've got the Surrey Eagles so that's pretty wonderful."
Bloomfield won a similar bet last year after the Vees defeated the Alberni Valley Bulldogs in the Fred Page Cup Finals.
After winning the cup, the South Surrey squad travelled to Alberta for a new, best-of-three series, the Rocky Mountain Challenge, scheduled after the BCHL added five Alberta teams to the league mid-season, officially Feb. 1.
Brooks Bandits, after winning two earlier playoff series, defeated the Eagles
– with files from Logan Lockhart