Snowstorm threatens hockey wedding
In spite of a winter storm that left about 150 people stranded at the Honeywood Arena last Friday night, a wedding set to take place at the venue the next day went off without a hitch.
In a first for the arena, the wedding of avid hockey players and fans Amber Soper and Sean Gallaugher was to take place on Saturday, January 25, followed by a skate on the ice.
Cheryl Soper, the bride’s mother, said the group set up for the wedding in the arena’s upstairs room on Thursday before returning for the rehearsal on Friday evening.
That was when Mother Nature intervened with “the worst snow snowstorm my husband and I have ever seen in our lives,” Soper said. “One of my sons drove into a ditch on the way to the rehearsal.”
After the rehearsal, the wedding party planned to drive to the groom’s parents’ house in Mulmur for dinner. But they did not get very far in the wind and blowing snow before 10 of them – including Soper and her daughter, the bride – turned right around and came back to the arena.
By that time, the Mulmur-Melancthon Fire Department had already started ferrying stranded drivers from their cars to the Honeywood Arena.
Heather Hayes, Councillor for Mulmur Township, received a call from Mayor Paul Mills at 7:45 pm. “He said his road was completely blocked and someone needed to get to the arena and the people there.”
So, Hayes drove through whiteouts to the arena at about 8 pm, where she said about 30 people had arrived.
Together with Matt Boss, who works at the arena, Hayes helped settle people down, filled out registration cards, organized equipment from the arena’s emergency bin and helped set up cots and blankets the Red Cross had left after a similar snowstorm in Honeywood last March.
“The upstairs, which was decorated for the wedding, looked spectacular!” she noted.
By 10 pm, the arena was so full that they were running out of space and supplies. Hayes decided to relocate a group of about 60 people to the neighbouring Fire Station. Then, she went home to get some blankets and camping gear. The Red Cross brought extra cots at 11 pm and 3 am. Community members also dropped off blankets and food.
Bride-to-be Amber, who is a paramedic for Simcoe County along with two of her bridesmaids, started helping take care of the people at the arena, too. Amber’s mother spent three hours in the arena canteen cooking hamburgers, cheeseburgers and French fries for weary travellers.
To help calm the evacuees, Hayes provided hourly updates after speaking to Orangeville Emergency Services, Simcoe County, the Ministry of Transportation and the OPP via conference call at Fire Chief Jim Clayton’s office at the Fire Hall.
By 1 am, 150 people had registered at the arena, Hayes said. One group of people had left their cars at the Redickville store parking lot. A second group had stopped driving on Highway 124 and left their cars there due to the weather conditions. A final group had been directed to drive off of Highway 124 to the arena.
Boss spent the night making 80 breakfast sandwiches, which were hot in the oven at 6 am. That morning, John Willmetts, Mulmur’s Director of Public Works, arrived with muffins and orange juice from Shelburne.
On Saturday, people left in stages, with the final “guests” out the door by about 2 pm, Hayes said.
Although Soper had planned to spend the night before her daughter’s wedding taking care of last-minute details and getting her dress ready, she said the change in plan did not worry her. “I knew everything was going to be fine.”
And indeed it was. At 5 pm on Saturday, the wedding party was back at the Honeywood Arena with 100 guests for an event Soper could only describe as “perfect.”
Photo by Amanda Urbanski Creative Photography
