The Yukon Broomball Association is pleased to announce that Whitehorse will host to an inaugural tournament championship this November.

The organization has invited Alaska, N.W.T, northern B.C. and Nunavut to participate in it's annual Bob Park Memorial Tournament, which this year will be called the Bob Park Northern Broomball Championship.

Alaska and N.W.T and have confirmed they are coming, but the broomball association still has yet to hear back from Nunavut and Dawson Creek in northern B.C.

The Yukon Broomball Association believes this is a great way to promote the game of broomball throughout Whitehorse and the Yukon.

"People are getting excited once the word gets out that there is going to be teams coming from Outside," said Yukon Broomball Association president Milford Allain.

"The executive feels that N.W.T. will probably have a really good showing. They are very organized over there, they are very high calibre."

With the support of the players and volunteers, Allain believes the Yukon Broomball Association can make this a successful bi-annual event. The reason it won't be held every year is a result of the high cost of travel, he said.

The inaugural tournament is scheduled for Nov. 13-15 and is being promoted as more of a fun event in hopes of promoting the game of broomball and attracting new players to come out and try it for first time.

The focus is to get more players interest in the winter sport.

"Being the inaugural season, we are trying to promote just having fun to see how it goes and then develop which way we want to go," Allain said. "If we want to get more serious or just keep it fun and keep newcomers coming out to the game."

The Yukon Broomball Association will be posting updates regarding the tournament on its website: www.yukonbroomball.com.

As a result of ice time issues, the tournament will have a limit of 10 teams. Out of town teams have until to Oct. 1 to register and then the remaining spots will be open to Yukon teams.

Allain said the N.W.T. have been pushing for this type of tournament for the past few years. However, it wasn't until the spring when it became a real possibility.

After hearing from the N.W.T., an interested group from Homer, Alaska contacted him as well.

The group from Homer wanted to do a road trip with their broomball team around Alaska, and might even bring a couple of teams to the Yukon tournament.

All sides decided to make it a co-ed tournament, open to anyone wanting to play.

Allain hopes six to seven local Yukon teams sign up, which might be teams in the local Whitehorse broomball league.

This championship tournament will change venus each year and already the N.W.T. group have expressed interest to host the next one in two years.

Allain said the championship will help cultivate some relationships with neighbouring northern communities.

"I think if we go in this direction that it will definitely help promote it in the North and if we can get some people from Nunavut and northern B.C. to come up in the future it will definitely promote it."