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The Estevan Bruins have determined their legacy project for the 2022 Centennial Cup national junior A hockey championship, presented by Tim Hortons, and if it goes ahead, it would be quite a legacy. 

The Bruins want to see a new centre ice scoreboard installed above Affinity Place prior to the tournament, to replace the current model, which, while still nice, is now outdated and likely to be obsolete and in need of replacement within a few years. 

If you’ve been to hockey games in larger markets, you can visualize what the Bruins want to purchase. This score clock would have large video panels that could show not only the live feed and replays, but also the score, the time remaining in the period, shots on goal, and, if necessary, time left on the power play.

It's very different from the current scoreboard, where the video panel is part of the unit.  

With this new score clock, it’s almost like a massive, four-sided television at the arena, creating a much better fan experience. Want to see a replay of a spectacular Cody Davis goal or a great hit by Alex Von Sprecken? The panels make it so much easier to watch them.

And surprisingly enough, the scoreboard is roughly the same size as the Bruins current scoreboard, so it’s unlikely to obstruct views or be hit by stray pucks.

Yes, there are some things to work out, such as getting volunteers up to speed on how to operate it. After all, there are other organizations that use Affinity Place besides the Estevan Bruins, and they might want to make full use of the scoreboard.

The initial pitch for the legacy project by the Bruins and the Centennial Cup committee might have been a tough sell for some: Some may not have been thrilled if the city would have purchased a score clock worth more than $262,000 (plus tax) in the middle of the fiscal year, and then have the Bruins pay the city back at a later date. 

Hey, you can’t fault the Bruins for asking, and it would have enabled them to have the clock in place for the start of the 2021-22 season. 

Their new request is far more reasonable – the Bruins will return to the city once half the tickets for the tournament have been sold, and then it will be decided which clock to purchase.

It’s a win-win situation. This purchase won’t come out of the city’s budget, and we’ll see an upgrade on one of the few amenities inside Affinity Place that actually needs to be upgraded.

Certainly it would be nice to have this score clock in place for the Centennial Cup, so that when TSN’s cameras are trained on different parts of the arena during the national final, this bright new piece of great technology is on display.  

And it would be great for people coming from across the country to see what we have here.  

The only concern is that a score clock can be one of those elements that might not age well. Technology is ever evolving, and today’s state of the art unit can be outdated in a couple of years, and eventually obsolete. Some might want to see a legacy project with a little more staying power.

With the current scoreboard at Affinity Place, many of us felt pretty lucky to have it in 2011. A scoreboard with video panels? There were few of those in Saskatchewan a decade ago, but they’re more prevalent now, and more modern.

If you don’t want the new score clock to be the legacy project from the Centennial Cup, then we need to ask what could we add to Affinity Place that it doesn’t already have? It’s still a magnificent venue to watch a hockey game and other events. It’s still one of the best arenas for junior A hockey in Canada, and it’s the envy of communities much larger than Estevan.  

Eventually, that scoreboard will have to be replaced, so do it now, with money from what will be a great tournament.