{"id":23105,"date":"2019-03-01T16:19:45","date_gmt":"2019-03-01T21:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23105"},"modified":"2019-03-01T16:19:45","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T21:19:45","slug":"aurora-hockey-president-tagged-for-thank-a-volunteer-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-hockey-president-tagged-for-thank-a-volunteer-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora hockey president tagged for Thank a Volunteer week"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of Aurora hockey\u2019s longest standing tenures is being lauded by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association.
\nAurora Minor Hockey President Joe Bentolila has been named as an initial volunteer chosen by the OMHA for the inaugural Thank a Volunteer Week, an initiative to recognize the lifeblood of minor hockey.
\nBentolila has led the AMHA through a number of major events in his close to twenty years in the role, including Rogers Hometown Hockey rolling through the Aurora Community Centre in December.
\n\u201cHe always says, \u2018hey, how are ya?\u2019 and \u2018hey buddy,\u201d, said OMHA Vice-President Peter Harmsen. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of where it goes with Joe. Once you have met Joe once, you\u2019re a friend for life.\u201d
\nThe longtime executive was one of just three volunteers chosen for the honour from across Ontario, joining a pair of members from the Oakville and Kent minor hockey programs.
\nHis tenure has also included a stint as president of the York Simcoe Minor Hockey League, overseeing 15 minor hockey associations across the area.
\n\u201cHe\u2019s easygoing,\u201d added Harmsen. \u201cHe\u2019s easy to get along with. He\u2019s always there. You need anything, Joe is always there to help you.\u201d
\n\u201cHe finishes a full day of work, probably eight to five, eight to five-thirty, comes home\u2026we eat as a family, and it\u2019s like \u2018ok, got to go, got a meeting,\u2019\u201d said Bentolila\u2019s son Josh. \u201cHe\u2019s just such a busy man, there\u2019s always something to do with hockey\u2026he\u2019s coming out to watch us, or going to help my mom at the arena with some stuff that she needs done.\u201d
\nHow does he get it all done? Harmsen said Bentolila has \u201cendless energy.\u201d
\n\u201cHe\u2019s involved in anything and everything that goes on in that association.\u201d
\nWith the help of Bentolila, the Aurora program was one of the first to be involved with the First Shift program in 2018, an initiative by the OMHA to get young kids into the game of hockey.
\n\u201cHe has developed so much,\u201d said AMHA Head Referee Phil Cosentino. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a development program and a house league program that is bar none, a rep program the same thing\u2026he\u2019s just done a lot of things to innovate it to make it better.\u201d
\n\u201cHe just loves it,\u201d added Josh. \u201cI love it, my mom, my brother, we all love it. It\u2019s just something that we\u2019re always going to cherish.\u201d
\nOver 30,000 people volunteer within the OMHA annually, a ratio of 1:3 in volunteers to players. The average volunteer puts in around 20 hours per month of their time during hockey season.
\n\u201cThe OMHA considers volunteerism the backbone of our operations and without the commitment of time, effort and diligence, the association could not function with the efficiency it does today,\u201d said Ian Taylor, Executive Director of the OMHA in a press release. \u201cThis annual acknowledgement is just a small way to recognize their efforts and encourage others to share in that same passion.
\n\u201cBy profiling these giving people, we hope to highlight their committed efforts, as well as demonstrate the related joy they get out of their work.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of Aurora hockey\u2019s longest standing tenures is being lauded by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-60F","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 19:06:19","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\/23105","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=23105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}