Noëlville, Ontario

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Noëlville is a small community in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is in the Municipality of French River in Northern Ontario.

1 History
2 Holidays
3 Hockey
4 Soft Ball
5 Schools
6 External links
7 Footnotes

[edit] History

Noëlville, formerly Cosby, was founded in 1905 with the arrival of settlers in the region. Noëlville families travelled by boat, to the south-west end of Lake Nipissing, to establish themselves between Lake Nipissing and the French River. To pay homage to Noël Desmarais, the village's first merchant and the first businessman of the region, the town of Cosby became Noëlville in 1911. Noël Desmarais was one of the first to start his family business in Noëlville. Many other families soon followed. Development accelerated with the opening of shops and industries.

Thanks to agriculture, forestry, and tourism, Noëlville rapidly became, and remains today, the economic heart of the Sudbury East region and the newly formed extended town of French River (created in 1999, pop. 3000).

Noëlville celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2005.

[edit] Holidays

Since Noël means Christmas in French, this town is often referred to as "Christmas Town". The town was known for holding festivals and special activites for its "Christmas in July" celebrations.

It is believed that during the Holiday season, some have their mail sent through Noëlville for the "Christmastown" postmark to be added on to their Christmas mail.

[edit] Hockey

Every year, in February, Noëlville hosts the largest and longest running family hockey tournament in Canada^[1]. Five years after the Noëlville Community Centre was built in 1972, the Noëlville Family Hockey Tournament was founded (1977) by Claude Mayer, Gerry Gratton, and Dan Pitre. There were 17 teams. The first game was played on New Year’s night when the Carrière family played against the Mayer family.

This tournament survives to this day and has become a much anticipated event in this small town where families reunite when friends and members of the extended family return 'home' to compete in this annual event.

Over the years, this tournament raised over $150,000 for local charities.

On Sunday, March 4, 2007, Noëlville made the Top 10 communities for CBC Television Kraft Hockeyville 2007^[2] and on Saturday, March 10, 2007, was declared one of the Top 5 communities for CBC Television Kraft Hockeyville 2007^[3] Neighbouring city of Greater Sudbury offered its support to Noëlville ^[4]although it lost out to neighbouring city of North Bay, Ontario.

[edit] Soft Ball

A similar family tournament takes place annually during the summer where families get together to play soft ball. The number of participants often exceed the population of the town and involves hundreds of players and volunteers.