It was a bittersweet Wednesday morning, Aug. 21 for a small crowd gathered at the Cowichan Community Centre.
The group, made up of staff from the community centre and neighbouring aquatic centre, passersby, workers, and those leaving the gym, watched as the World's Largest Hockey Stick and Puck was dismantled, piece by piece before their eyes.
It was sweet because it has sat outside the community centre since 1988, as an homage to the Expo '86 experience and a landmark of Canadiana at its finest.
It was bitter because 'The Big Stick' as it's colloquially known was something they'd grown up with.
"I grew up with that stick," said one onlooker. "I had no idea it was coming down."
The monumental landmark was crafted in Penticton in 1985 for Expo '86 in Vancouver. Since 1988, it's become a tourist stop and has helped form a chunk of the Duncan area's identity.
Ongoing maintenance and extensive repairs in the early 2000s extended its life, but the glulam Douglas-fir structure have decayed to the point it either had to be replaced or removed in order to ensure public safety.
"It's rotten," said Gene Genereux, a long-time employee and volunteer at the community centre.
Rotten that it's coming down, sure, but also quite literally rotten on parts of the inside and out.
"Like surgeons we were drilling and testing and probing so we found the weak areas and the crane plan is adjusted to that so it's just a matter of each lift is critical to itself because of the way it's rotten in between," said Bart Robertson, the owner of Shawnigan Lake’s Genuine Collectibles Inc., the company that bought the 205-foot Guinness Book of World Records-setting structure.
Before deciding to dismantle it, the Cowichan Valley Regional District held a public engagement survey about its future. Results indicated it was not important enough to invest the money to maintain.
Ryan Smith and his boys, Owen 8, and Everett, 6, watched as a massive middle chunk of the stick was removed.
"I'm sad that it's coming down," said Everett.
"I remember when it got here," Smith said. He recallss being 10 years old when the Stick came to town. While he didn't get to watch it erected, he recalls it being a big deal.
"It was a big deal that it was here," he said. "It's kind of sad, but I get it. It makes sense but it's expensive to keep it going and it's not really the identity of the town anymore."
The stick will live on, just not outside for all to see anymore.
Robertson plans to turn The Big Stick into it into collectibles. He said they'll be milling the wood down into sheets and cutting 6,000 shapes of a puck with a stick inside initially. They'll be available for $20 through apieceoftheaction.com
