With the ice now out of the Art Hauser Centre, the riders of the PBR Canadian Touring Pro Division are set to take over.
After being pushed back to a later date due to the Prince Albert Raiders’ successful run to the Western Hockey League title, the 14th edition of the Clunie-Cooper Memorial will be held next Thursday and Friday night.
“Obviously we had to work around the Raiders schedule a little bit, but we got a lot of cooperation from the PBR to get everything set up,” said Rusty Clunie, who is one of the organizers of the event. “The reason that it’s on a Thursday and Friday this year is because most of the guys have a big event in Halifax that they are going to on Saturday, so we want to make sure that everyone is on the road as soon as they can.
“These riders go all over the place during the course of the year, so we tried to make sure that we didn’t interfere with the other rodeos. We’ve been able to pull it off schedule wise, so it should be a good show.”
The event, which is named after Max Clunie and Wade Cooper, has featured a number of top riders over the years and has been recognized as being one of the top competitions in the country.
“We’ve always had great feedback from the riders,” Clunie said. “Obviously having a local boy in Tanner (Byrne) being on the big circuit with the PBR is something that helps out a lot and it’s always an attraction when he’s in town competing.
“We’ve been a good draw for riders over the last few years and we’ve been lucky enough to being named the best show in Canada on two occasions.”
One of the new changes that fans will see when they come to this year’s event are two large video screens that will help to add to the viewing experience.
“We try to change things up a bit each year so we upgraded from the four little screens that we had,” Clunie said.
Tickets for the event, which costs $45 for prime seating and $30 for all other seats, are on sale at the Raiders office and online.
Both nights of competition will get underway at 7 p.m.
