By Adam Donnelly

Kamloops welcomes winter at 2nd annual Downtown Block Party

Dec 10, 2018 | 3:54 PM

KAMLOOPS — The weather was cool, but not too cold for folks to have some fun Saturday afternoon at the second annual Welcome Winter Block Party held in Downtown Kamloops.

If Saturday’s downtown block party was meant to welcome Old Man Winter then someone forgot to invite the guest of honour.

“All I can say is thank you, Mother Nature,” Downtown Kamloops Executive Director Carl DeSantis said Saturday afternoon. “During set up early [Saturday] morning, it was a little bit cool, but it’s wonderful out here.”

While it was far from balmy, the warmer-than-normal December weather made the Welcome Winter Block Party in downtown Kamloops easier for families to enjoy everything the event had to offer.

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The event featured a number of fun activities, like street games, as well as craft beer tasting thanks to BrewLoops

The Block Party also featured a road hockey tournament hosted by the Kamloops Outdoor Skating Association, meant to help raise awareness and build support for a refrigerated outdoor skating rink in the city.

“With the age of climate change we’re in, there are lots of [temperature] fluctuations” which makes maintaining a natural outdoor ice surface difficult, according to James Gordon of the Kamloops Outdoor Skating Association. “A refrigerated rink, and they’re popping up all over Canada, will guarantee you’ll have solid ice for the core three months of the winter.”

For more information on the outdoor skating rink proposal, you can click here.

DeSantis says while getting people to shop local is one benefit of an event like the Block Party, it’s more about members of the community making memories downtown.

“Downtown is the focal point of our city, so let’s celebrate it,” DeSantis said.