Today our Sport Venture  program in Regina offers four free drop-in sports leagues: hockey, basketball, soccer and football. The Outdoor Hockey League (OHL) has spread to other locations in the province and Sport Venture has grown to include a lending library where sport equipment is lent to more than 100 organizations and individuals. The program also offers specialized after school programming and continues to expand and grow its services every year.

But Sport Venture started with very small roots in a classroom at Rosemont School.

More than they bargained for
In 1992, Russ Mathews, a Ranch teacher at Rosemont School started a project in his classroom to collect hockey equipment, clean it, and give it away to children whose families couldn’t afford it. 

With support from the Regina Pats, the class put containers in local rinks. Their expectations were small – they were hoping for 10 sets of equipment.

At the end of the project they had collected over 400 pairs of skates and 2,000 pieces of hockey equipment.

What’s that smell?
The collected equipment was brought back to Rosemont School and the odor of the used sport’s equipment began to overpower the school. But the class persevered and with corporate and community support, the newly named “Dress-a-champion” program outfitted over 400 hockey players in one year.

OHL was born
Russ knew that the overwhelming support showed a need for this type of programming in the city. He took his idea a step further and contacted the City of Regina who donated outdoor rink time. Now all financial barriers youth would face when playing hockey were removed. All a kid needed was the effort and willingness to play outdoors in cold temperatures.

Since its humble start in a small classroom, the OHL has dressed over 350 youth per year and runs seven rinks in Regina.