The Carlyle Cougars Comeback Season is official as the Big Six League approved the re-entrance of the team into the Big Six for the 2016-17 season at a league meeting on Tuesday, March 29. The announcement was made by the Carlyle Cougars social media sites following the meeting.
“Now that we’re officially in the league we’ll be nailing down the details,” Dallas Lequyer, President of the Carlyle Cougars Board, explained. “We’re finalizing the jerseys, talking a lot about putting together a fundraiser this summer, whether that’s a golf tournament or a ball hockey tournament, and in the next couple of weeks we should have a decision made on that.”
“We’ve also been in talks of redoing the Cougars dressing room at some point in the future.”
The team folded following the 2012-13 season due to a lack of players. The season saw 20 individuals sign up to play, but were reduced to eight to 10 players by playoffs. With the re-emergence of the team, however, there has been a lot of interest shown with approximately 37 guys saying they would like to be part of the #ComebackSeason – as it’s been dubbed on social media.
The team has found great support in local businesses already and have taken on a title sponsor, who has been working with the team to cover the initial costs of starting up the team. Next season the team will be known as the Carlyle PureChem Cougars.
One of the big items, which has drawn interest from players and has catapulted the Cougars’ Comeback Season into reality was the determination of those wanting to bring the team back to form a board of directors, which would alleviate the pressure of playing and organizing. This came together quite quickly with an interest meeting held on Wednesday, March 2, and volunteers coming forward for the board and to become the coaching staff.
Although final positions hadn’t been decided when the board first formed, they have since come together with Dallas Lequyer (President), Dean Lequyer (Team Manager), Tim Lequyer (Head Coach), Brian Hagel (Secretary), Deb Chalus (Treasurer), Todd Brady (Player Rep), Mike Brown (Marketing), Jared Riddell, Wade Robertson, Kirk Himmelspach, and Steve Mossing as members at large.
“From the time we started this all in early February to now, so two months, it’s unbelievable,” Lequyer stated. “Everyone has been super supportive and we haven’t ran into any issues, all we’ve heard is about how happy everyone is that we’re doing this. A shoutout to our board who has been putting in a lot of work and thank you to everybody for supporting us; we really appreciate the support.”
“Sometimes you need a break from something to figure out just how much you miss it.”
Follow the Cougars’ progress as they retain player commitments and for other developments regarding the Comeback Season on Facebook www.facebook.com/CarlyleCougars and Twitter @carlylecougars.
The Cougars will be putting on an informal skate for those players who have already shown interest in playing with a “pretty good game of shinny,” according to Lequyer. The team is bringing in refs to facilitate the game which is being planned for Friday, April 8 at 8:15 p.m. Lequyer says if people are interested in coming out to show their support of the Cougars Comeback Season that they’re more than welcome to come enjoy the game.
