By Troy Gillard and Sheldon Spackman

ORGANIZERS MAKE TOUGH CALL

No Ponoka Stampede this summer

Jun 23, 2021 | 12:36 PM

There will be no Ponoka Stampede this summer.

Organizers made the announcement cancelling this year’s event in a Facebook statement Wednesday morning.

“The Ponoka Stampede has officially been postponed until June 27 – July 3, 2022,” the brief statement says.

Earlier this month, Ponoka Stampede Board President Bruce Harbin said there were too many uncertainties to host their 2021 event from June 28 – July 4 as scheduled, and that they still hoped to host an event sometime before the end of September.

However, despite their best efforts, Harbin concedes they just weren’t able to bring it all together this year under the time frames presented by the pandemic.

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“It’s heartbreaking, you know? We had to postpone the original Stampede with hopes that we could maybe go forward at a later date, but we found out the hard way that as Christmas Day happens on December 25th, Ponoka Stampede happens on Canada Day and that’s probably the way it’s going to be,” explains Harbin.

“Any date that was available we didn’t have stock contractors for or dates stock contractors were available, we were interfering with other rodeos and other events,” laments Harbin. “It was just a logistical thing. Our regular dates of the July 1st weekend, Canada Day weekend are made in heaven and it’s been that way for 85 years and the world kind of turns that way.”

“All our fans, contractors and support staff are cued up to help us out over those dates and they’re doing other things on different dates,” adds Harbin.

With the Canada-US border not slated to open for a few more weeks still, Harbin notes a lack of contestants available to compete at later dates as well.

“The travel across the border is by no means easy,” says Harbin. “And probably not feasible for the contestants to do so.”

“But we’re going to start new in 2022,” he continues. “And we’ll be as good as we ever were, maybe even better.”