Sobeys Liquor in the Civic Centre Plaza received their first shipment of Moose Jaw Warriors Crushed Can Lager on Friday afternoon, part of a venture that will see $2 from every four-pack sold donated to the Western Hockey League team’s education fund.
“When we started thinking about new angles for what we could do for brewing, we thought teaming up with a WHL team would be great,” said Grady Schuett, general manager of Warehouse Brewing. “One of the first things that happens when times get tough for hockey teams, education is one of the things that gets cut. So we wanted to give back to the education fund and do what we can to support the team and their players.”
The beer -- a 5.5 per cent German lager carrying a 17 IBU (international bitterness unit) -- is being sold exclusively through Sobeys and the Warehouse Brewing taproom through the first month and will branch out to wherever their product is sold after that.
The Warriors were chosen for the project through an interesting connection: Grady’s dad Garth Schuett played for the Moose Jaw Canucks back in the early 60s, taking the ice in the early days of the legendary Civic Centre arena -- aka the Crushed Can -- and where the Plaza is located today.
“Moose Jaw kind of has a special place in my family’s heart, my dad grew up here, my mom grew up here, my dad played for the Moose Jaw Canucks and went on to get his masters in education,” Schuett explained. “So to give back to the Warriors education fund was something cool, and the more beer we can sell to help them out, the better.”
Moose Jaw Warriors manager of sales and marketing Pete Iatridis couldn’t be happier with how the partnership has turned out -- from the design of the cans to the quality of the product, the match-up has worked out well right from the start.
“It’s a great partnership,” Iatridis said. “I was very excited when Grady approached me, it was already something we were looking at possibly doing and it came together really well… The product is amazing, I was one of the lucky ones that got to try the samples before labelling and it’s great, so we’re hoping it sells really well.”
While the Warriors education fund received a nice boost from the Saskatchewan Hockey Harvest Lottery this past fall -- to the tune of just over $37,000 -- any help after a winter with no games at Mosaic Place will be gladly accepted.
Players receive a year of education paid for by teams for each year they’re a member of WHL club. In the 2019-20 season alone, the Warriors had 16 players activate their scholarship fund and spent $98,501.43 on dozens of scholarships to post-secondary institutions all over Canada and the United States. The Warriors’ education fund balance sat at just over $154,000 at the time of the team’s annual general meeting last September.
“During tough times, every dollar counts, especially for the education fund and for these boys that give everything on the ice for us, so it’s a no-brainer for us,” Iatridis said, adding that this will ideally only be the beginning of future partnerships. “Every dollar counts. Every year they play with us they get a year of education so that adds up and this will definitely help out.”
