{"id":20215,"date":"2018-03-28T23:23:22","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T03:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=20215"},"modified":"2018-03-28T23:23:22","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T03:23:22","slug":"vivienne-bridgeford-named-ojhl-volunteer-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/vivienne-bridgeford-named-ojhl-volunteer-of-the-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Vivienne Bridgeford named OJHL Volunteer of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vivenne Bridgeford wandered into the arena into her adopted home town one day in the early 1970s.
\nShe\u2019s never really left.
\nA hockey game was on in the Aurora Community Centre. \u201cThis girl from England\u201d fell in love with the sport. She stayed to watch and phoned home. She would be late for dinner.
\nA few years later, she convinced her father \u2013 Alf, now 91 \u2013 to become part of the new ownership group of the Aurora Tigers.
\n\u201cThe Group of Seven,\u201d as she called them.
\n\u201cViv\u201d began volunteering for that team. And save for a few years, when the Tigers were renamed the Eagles under another owner, she\u2019s been there ever since.
\nBridgeford, 65, has been named volunteer of the year by the Ontario Junior Hockey League for her 40-plus years of work with the Tigers.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s simple, Vivienne is Aurora Tigers,\u201d said team president Jim Thomson, who purchased the team in 2015 along with his wife, Rita, and Domenic Tassone.
\n\u201cHer passion and commitment are unmatched anywhere.\u201d
\nShe began working in the booster club room at the ACC, serving beer and sandwiches to thirsty fans during Sunday games.
\nBut for most of the four decades she\u2019s been the box office ticket seller at the rink.
\nAnd while she loves her hockey, most nights she only gets to begin watching midway through the third period.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t do it to see a hockey game, I do it to see the smile on people\u2019s faces,\u201d she said. \u201cThe people are now a part of the family.\u201d
\nShe arrives for home games three hours before puck drop to prepare the dressing and coaches rooms for the visiting teams. It\u2019s a minimum six-hour day.
\n\u201cSome people think I\u2019m part of the arena staff,\u201d she said.
\nAt home, a three-minute drive from the ACC, she\u2019s the only member of her real family \u201cwith any interest in sports,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cAnything on ice \u2013 hockey, figure skating or curling \u2013 I love it,\u201d she said.
\nThe OJHL award?
\n\u201cI was overwhelmed, I was crying,\u201d she said of hearing the news \u2013 while preparing to go the rink, of course. \u201cThere are just so many great volunteers in this league.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t do it to win awards. I do it to help.\u201d
\nShe was in Grande Prairie, Alta, when her Tigers won the RBC Cup in 2004 but couldn\u2019t be there when they turned the trick again three years later in Prince George, B.C.
\nShe\u2019s turned the championship rings the team presented her into medallions she wears proudly.
\n\u201cI told Jim that three would be nice,\u201d she said laughing. \u201cMaybe this is the year?\u201d
\nWith a pair of playoff series already behind them, her Tigers have qualified for the North\/East Conference final.
\nBetty Masterson, ticket sales manager for the Wellington Dukes, was named runner-up for OJHL volunteer of the year.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vivenne Bridgeford wandered into the arena into her adopted home town one day in the early 1970s. She\u2019s never really left. A hockey game was on in the Aurora Community Centre. \u201cThis girl from England\u201d fell in love with the sport. She stayed to watch and phoned home. She would be late for dinner. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5,24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/2018-03-29-12.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5g3","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-20 11:29:40","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}