beyond the ballot
SPECTRUM COMMITTEE; 4c; 50 ag; Separation; BUTTON
brianvarga By SCOTT SCHMIDT 2007 and 2010. T
Born in 1961 in Regina, it was hockey that eventually brought Varga to Medicine Hat. He spent his first 19 years in the Queen City, going through all his schooling and minor hockey there, eventually winning a Memorial Cup with the WHL’s Regina Pats.
As is often the case in junior hockey however, a 20-year-old Varga found himself shipped to the Medicine Hat Tigers for his overage season in 1981. Leaving the only home he’d ever known, Varga likely didn’t expect his next one would be where he’d call home for most of the next three decades.
And he surely didn’t anticipate being elected to this city’s governing body 32 years after simply falling victim to hockey politics.
There’s a good chance it would have all worked out a different way but while playing for the Tigers, Varga met his eventual wife. It didn’t take the pair long to fall in love and, with Varga trying to pursue some sort of professional hockey, not long to tie the knot.
“I finished hockey in April of ’82, and we were married in November of that year,” he says. “I started driving truck for Mike’s Transport because I didn’t get
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he third time was as charming as ever for Brian Varga, as the rookie councillor found his way to City Hall this past October after previous attempts in
signed by anyone (to play hockey), and I did that for about three years.”
After those three years, an old hockey buddy of Varga who was playing professionally in Germany came home to Canada for the summer and solicited his eager friend to accompany him back for the upcoming season.
“He said they needed a player over there, and so after three years of not playing, I got a chance to go to Germany,” Varga says. “I ended up playing there for six years.”
In 1991, the last of Varga’s three children was born and the young family of five moved back to Canada, choosing to set up in Medicine Hat where the couple felt solid roots could be formed.
“Even when I first came here (to play for the Tigers), the people were so friendly,” Varga says. “It was never hard to meet people and become part of the community. When I was finished playing, I still got to know people in the community and the vibe here was so laid back.
“I just really like the people here. And the weather, of course … it was a no-brainer to stay here, to live here.”
Varga steered away from the trucking industry and got into landscaping, a business he would spend more than two decades a part of.
He started out taking care of condominiums around Medicine Hat, while playing some senior hockey in both Kindersley and Leader, Sask., the latter of which is where his wife is from.
2014 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA
Hockey was always close to his heart and so in 1998 Varga began coaching bantam hockey, but stepped aside in 2000 when he became the head of landscaping for Medican. He spent 10 years with the company, leaving in August 2010 to get back involved with the sport he never seems too far away from.
For the past three years Varga has been the general manager of Medicine Hat Hockey, a job the 52-year-old performs with an immense sense of pride.
“I’ve done a lot of things in my life but I always come back to my love, which is hockey,” he says. “This job is probably the most fun I’ve had though. I’ve got 850 kids to worry about and make sure they’re on the ice and playing, and going through their development at the minor hockey stage.”
Varga admits the job of overseeing such a large group can be challenging at times, especially with the constant evolvement of rules and regulations through Hockey Canada. He says the game itself is the easy part but that it’s extremely rewarding to be involved in the process and knowing he has a hand in the development of hockey talent in the city he loves.
That same commitment to the community is what led Varga to run for city council in the first place, a process he would have to learn the hard way. On election night in 2007, Varga missed out on the top eight and was left out of City Hall. In 2010, the result was the same except he only missed being elected by 184 votes.
Varga was not about to let such a small gap keep him from being a part of the community from a political perspective and he has sat on several boards and attended many council meetings.
And in 2013, with another three years of getting his name out around town, especially through his job in minor hockey, Varga decided to give it one more try.
“I felt from the start that I had something to offer but going back to hockey, it’s sort of like you shoot and don’t score, you try again. It was a little devastating the second time because I was so close.
“But as it got closer again I just started to feel like I needed to give it one more go. I never gave up, and I think people took a look at that and realized I had the drive to get things done. I think people believed in that.” ■
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