By Michelle Poirier [1]
BELLEVILLE – Boston Pizza [2] Belleville is helping to sponsor the Under 19 Women’s World Floorball Championship [3] with a donation of $10,000.
The championship will be held in Belleville from May 3 to 8 at the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre [4]. More than 400 athletes from 16 countries will be participating, according to the Women’s World Floorball Championship website.
“This is an international sporting event that’s going to put Belleville on the map both provincially, nationally as well as internationally,” said Mitch Panciuk, owner of Belleville’s Boston Pizza and member of Belleville City Council.
“We thought it was important to assist them in some way and these are the kinds of things that Boston Pizza does here in Belleville, we try to support our community in ways that we can. This is a very large donation for us but it’s a very large event so we thought it was important to help.”
The donation will go towards providing meals to the officials of the event, Panciuk explained.
http://www.qnetnews.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/selection-from-mitch-panciuk-bp-donation.mp3 [5]This is the first time that an International Floorball Federation [6] championship will be held in North America, according to the Women’s World Floorball Championship website.
“I think it’s wonderful,” Panciuk said. “I think this is the first time that we’ve ever had an international event of any type of this magnitude in the history of Belleville. So it’s spectacular that it’s coming to our city and it’s a great way for us to showcase our wonderful people, our businesses, our facilities that we have as a city, as well as the volunteers and the people that are helping to put this on.”
Since its opening, Panciuk says, his Boston Pizza franchise has done as much as it can to help the community.
“My feeling is that you can not have a good business in a bad community so this is part of our responsibility and we’re happy to be able to do this.”
Tickets for the championship games can be bought on the Women’s World Floorball Championship website [7].