Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker, thank you. Mr. Speaker, I would like to join you in sending my sincere congratulations to the men and women's hockey team and all of the other medalists and participants of the Canadian team.
Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to see the power of a game of hockey, to lift up a nation's spirit and make us all feel so special. I truly appreciate watching the extraordinary things these athletes do, which can only come with years and years of training their bodies and disciplining their minds. My admiration goes to all of them.
There is also a related, not-so-admirable story that I must make a point of on behalf of my constituents. On Saturday, I received a call from a constituent who was representing a non-profit group who had applied to the Liquor Board for a special license to hold a public gathering, in which liquor could be served for the Sunday gold medal game. They applied for this in February and were rejected on Thursday. I am not advocating liquor sales at any time at all cost, but I am quite mystified by the reasons that were given to them. Apparently, the reason was that the only special sports event that a special license is given is for the Super Bowl and Grey Cup. I guess I could understand the board's predicament, in that gold medal hockey games only come around every 50 years, but even going directly to the board was not able to change this position by late Saturday.
I would just like to make a recommendation to the board that it may be that we may have another gold-winning game in four years. They should make room there for a special event like a gold medal hockey game for men and women to be considered as a special event worthy of consideration. I understand that we lost a very good opportunity to be in the national media as one of the cities joining the rest of the country watching the hockey game and showing our support.
On behalf of my constituent, I wanted to make a note of this in a lighter side of it, but I do want to bring this to the attention of the board and the Liquor Commission. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.