The community will receive $250,000 to help restore the local arena
A rural Alberta community will receive a quarter of a million dollars to help it repair its local hockey arena.
National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman announced Taber, Alta. as the winner of the 2026 Kraft Hockeyville contest on April 4.
As a result, Taber will receive $250,000 from Kraft Heinz to put towards restoring the two rinks at the Taber Community Centre. The town will also have the chance to host an NHL pre-season game next fall.
“It’s incredible all the way around. It’s a tragic event as we lost the arena and everything else that happened to the building at that time, and quite a shock for the whole community and area, for the whole region really,” Taber Mayor Andrew Prokop told MyLethbridgeNow. “Our community and area came together, and there was much help offered from the other communities in the area that offered us rink space if needed.”
The tragedy Mayor Prokop mentioned occurred in December 2025.
A heater ignited leaking propane from a Zamboni causing an explosion.
The blast damaged the roof, shattered glass, brought down concrete walls, and damaged gas lines, forcing the rinks to close.
In March 2026, Taber council supported spending $6 million to repair the damage.
Local officials estimate another $5 million is needed to bring the arena and community centre back to a suitable state.
“The initial estimate was about $11 million to put things back the way they were. That’s not building new, that’s putting things back,” Derrin Thibault, Taber’s chief administrative officer, told Global News.
Tabers connections to hockey also include ag.
Devon Setoguchi, who played 516 career NHL games, grew up on his family’s potato farm in Taber.
“When I got to be a certain age, about 14, my dad said ‘either work on the farm or work out.’ So I was more on the work out side. I wasn’t meant to be a farmer,” he told NHL.com in 2016 while a member of the Los Angeles Kings.
Today the Municipal District of Taber’s ag footprint includes more than 971,000 acres and various commodities.
“Several of the main crops and livestock originating from the Taber area include hogs, beef, sheep, poultry, sugar beets, potatoes, onions, canola, mustard, oats, beans, corn, flax, barley, wheat, carrots, and peas,” a regional business and community profile says.
Kraft started its Hockeyville contest in 2006.
Since then, it has awarded about $6.3 million to more than 100 Canadian communities.
Prior to Taber only one Alberta community, Sylvan Lake, had won the contest, in 2014.