{"id":954702,"date":"2026-11-01T20:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T20:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/954702\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T20:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T20:08:09","slug":"relentless-scammers-target-hockey-teams-wanting-to-play-at-wickfest-in-surrey-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/954702\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Relentless\u2019 scammers target hockey teams wanting to play at WickFest in Surrey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Surrey\u2019s annual WickFest female hockey tournament is the target of scammers looking to take money from teams wanting to play here this winter.<\/p>\n<p>Administration with Surrey Falcons, host association of the annual gathering, are warning teams not to fall for the fraud.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese scammers are just relentless!\u201d the Falcons posted on Instagram. \u201cThey are now advising teams they have been removed from the waitlist and are now accepted. Any emails coming from WickFest will have Wickfest.com in the email address. PLEASE DO NOT SEND MONEY!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Registration is full for Surrey\u2019s 2027 edition of Canadian Tire WickFest, held Jan. 28-31 at rinks in North Surrey, Fleetwood and Cloverdale. <a href=\"https:\/\/surreynowleader.com\/2026\/01\/23\/wickfest-draws-over-1800-young-female-athletes-to-surrey\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Last year\u2019s youth tournament<\/a> involved 1,800 female players on 85 teams from around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Michelle McRae, Falcons communications manager, says there\u2019s \u201ca huge scam going on right now for hockey tournaments and fake registration sites coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Scammers send teams an acceptance letter and request payment by e-transfer, which isn\u2019t unusual, \u201cbut then the team is out the money and no way to get it back,\u201d McRae emailed the Now-Leader. \u201cI have received many emails.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In early October, Hockey Alberta warned families about a scam targeting minor hockey associations in the province by using seemingly legitimate channels to request money for fake tournaments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s despicable,\u201d Angie Thiessen, a tournament co-ordinator with McKnight Hockey Association in Calgary, told CBC News. \u201cYou\u2019re scamming these kids that are trying to play hockey and have to do bottle drives to play in tournaments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Founded by Hayley Wickenheiser, a four-time Olympic gold medallist, WickFest was launched in 2010. A Surrey edition of the tournament was first held in 2019, with others played in Milton (Ontario), Calgary and Las Vegas in 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surrey\u2019s annual WickFest female hockey tournament is the target of scammers looking to take money from teams wanting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":954703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-954702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=954702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/954703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=954702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=954702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=954702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}