By Tarrah Harvey

Volunteers at the heart of the Women’s World Hockey Championships

Mar 29, 2016 | 5:44 PM

KAMLOOPS — You’ve probably been seeing a lot of jerseys around town this week, and maybe even more blue shirts. Those shirts are being worn by more than 500 volunteers that are working behind the scenes at the IIHF Women’s World Championship to make sure everything goes smoothly.

A Majority of the volunteers for the event are from Kamloops, but others have come a long way to be here.

“I spend almost the whole day with the team, I go where they are, like if they have a meal I go eat with them, and whatever the staff or the coaches need, I try to make sure they get it,” said Miina Leathonen, a volunteer who has come all the way from Finland to be the Team Host to the Finnish hockey players.

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Leathonen has sacrificed a lot to be at the event this week, even missing a final exam at school for the chance to take part.

“It’s really kind of nice that they make this part of what they do, they take their vacation time and they put all their time out to help everybody and make everything go smoothly,” said Leahann Cochrane, the volunteer coordinator for the championships.

Cochrane says, there are so many different roles that go into making an event like this go off without a hitch.

“We have our ticket takers, our ushers, we have venue crew set up, we’ve got the fan fest volunteers, so it’s a wide variety of what you can do to volunteer.”

The call for volunteers was put out last year, and many residence were quick to sign up for the opportunity to show the world their city.

“It’s just a really good feelig to be a part of the big event and to try and leave a good impression for the visitors that are coming to Kamloops,” said Peter Findlay, a volunteer from Kamloops.

“Without the big group of volunteers and the orgaizational people that put it on, none of these events would take place, says Ray Phillips, another local volunteer, we just enjoy doing the volunteer work whatever it is, just to help out and make the event sucessful and showcase our city.”