One More Hockey Night in Kelowna

Sports are awesome and connect us, that's what it's supposed to be about, right?

Let’s start with a semi-quick personal story.

My first full-time job was at a small-town newspaper in Kerrville, Texas.

I was hired in mid-January 2012 to be the sports reporter on a two-person sports staff at The Kerrville Daily Times, and during my first day on the job, before any orientation, I was told I was going to be promoted to sports editor at the end of my second week since the sports editor had just put in his two-week notice.

I was 22, brand new to Texas, and was now tasked with both learning everything possible from the outgoing sports editor, crash-course style, while also being partially responsible for hiring a sports reporter to work under me in a span of two weeks.

It was a chaotic, “welcome to the business,” moment for me, and I believe that thematically it helped prepare for me a career where, for better or worse, you have to adapt frequently.

We actually hired another Shaun, albeit with a different spelling, for my old role, and his last name also started with an S. It created some pretty confusing moments for people on the phone when they’d call the Daily Times and ask for “Sean/Shaun in sports,” and there would then be series of qualifying follow-up questions about which Sean/Shaun they were trying to reach.

A few months after making that hire, the chaos continued when I arrived to work, the publisher called me into his office and told me, “we are going to cut the sports reporter position,” and that Shaun would be let go when he got into the office later that day.

It was a frustrating and disappointing turn of events, it disenfranchised my desire to stay at the Daily Times and I started quietly looking for my next job, which I eventually found at the Cedar Park-Leander Statesman, a move that unbeknownst to me at the time was the step I needed to get back into the hockey world.

My only regret about leaving Kerrville, and the thing that I struggled with when making my decision, was the fact I never covered a high school football season in that small town. Kerrville was a one-school town, Tivy High School, and it was the biggest show in town. That school famously produced Johnny Manziel and part of me really wanted to stay and live through a small-town high school football season in a beat capacity.

I made the right decision, I actually covered a state championship team instead in Cedar Park, but there was something about small-town Texas and the connection a high school football team that elicits romanticism in my mind.

Getting us back to hockey, and the present day, I got some of that same feeling yesterday in Kelowna.

Now on the ice, the Kelowna Rockets were overmatched hosts in the 2026 Memorial, head coach Derrick Martin said last night that “if goals cost a dollar we only brought 75 cents,” as they finished the tournament without a win.

Off the ice, however, in many ways the Rockets and Kelowna reminded me of what I ultimately missed out on by leaving Kerrville when I did. Between talking to volunteer drivers for the Memorial Cup shuttles, restaurant employees, and others I’ve met in the past few days, you can sense how much the hockey team and the communal gathering a WHL game represents means to this city.

I grabbed lunch yesterday at Wood Fire Bakery, a suggestion from a reader, and the guy taking my order was wearing a Tij Iginla jersey and a Rockets hat while he slung sandwiches. My shuttle driver, yesterday morning, an older gentleman who moved to Kelowna about 15 years ago, told me how for his family, a half-season ticket package to watch the Rockets was family time, how they looked forward to game days not just for the hockey, but what it represented to get everyone together.

And while he wasn’t bullish on Kelowna winning going into the game with Everett, for him that game was going to be another family moment, and a chance to watch the team “earn one more hockey night in Kelowna,” with a potential victory.

The Rockets lost, the season ended, and while they’ll be two more games this weekend in the Memorial Cup, they won’t feature the hosts. It created an odd, but wonderful scene last night after Everett won, with the hosts taking extra time to do a slow lap around the ice to thank the fans it was a loud ovation. Talking to multiple players from the Rockets, both before and after that game, you got the sense of pride in the city, not just the teammates around them. One of those unspoken connections that help define a city and its team.

Kelowna is much bigger than Kerrville, about 10 times the population, and it’s two different sports, but there’s something pretty damn cool about that connective tissue, where the games matter on the field/ice, but they also represent something more off of it.