Irvine’s 20 Mile Post offers chilling new feature
By Collin Gallant on August 31, 2018.
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com @CollinGallant The 20 Mile Post weekend in Irvine will this year feature a free public skate and pick-up shiny — a seemingly strange addition to the end-of-summer event, but one made necessary when the ice plant at the town’s arena was turned on earlier this year. Organizers are promoting it as a way to beat the heat and another offering at the annual Labour Day weekend of exhibits, steak diner, parade and pancakes that kicks off on Saturday. “We’ve sent out word on the hockey hotlines,” laughs Judy Winquist, an organizer with the annual event. “We don’t usually have the ice in until after 20 Mile Post, but this will be the first year we’ve had skating.” This fall, the Irvine Ag-Society complex will be one operating base for a new hockey academy program in the Prairie Rose School Division announced this summer. As such, the facility needs to operate for the start of the school year. Operators also want the facility running well when the Western Hockey League Tigers host the Moose Jaw Warriors in an exhibition game on Sept. 8. The 20 Mile Post’s usual exhibits, craft fair and commercial displays at the complex shouldn’t be affected, said Winquist, and the weekend will have all the traditional trappings of summer celebrations. A Lions Club pancake breakfast begins the festivities on Saturday prior to an 11 a.m. parade, events at all public buildings in the hamlet, then steak dinner and evening entertainment at the Irvine Hotel. At the rodeo grounds, a gymkhana will be held in the afternoon on Saturday, with team-roping slack underway Sunday morning, before the Border County Rodeo at 1 p.m. Peddle tractors, bouncy castles and other family events will be staged until about 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. 11
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