Shrine game comes to Butte tonight

By PAT RYAN Montana Standard | Posted: Saturday, July 17, 2010 12:00 am
BUTTE — Seven area football players will be participating in the 64th annual Montana East-West Shrine Game.

Helena High gridders suiting up for the Shrine game are linebacker Jackson Lang, kicker Chase Kloker and wide receiver Adam Johnson. Capital High’s representatives will be wide receiver Josh Dirks and linebacker Seth Walton.

Johnson is the fourth member of his family to be selected for the Shrine Game. His two grandfathers, Robert Johnson and Jim Longin, played in 1947 and 1959, respectively.

BUTTE — After a 63-year run in Great Falls, the 64th annual Montana East-West Shrine football game has made the move to Butte.

The game is scheduled for a 7 p.m. kickoff tonight at Bulldog Memorial Stadium. A full parade will also course through Uptown Butte beginning at 10 a.m. on East Broadway.

The Montana event is the oldest continuous game of its kind in the nation, and has raised more than $1 million for the Shrine Children’s Hospital in Spokane.

Net proceeds from tonight’s game and surrounding events help fund the hospital’s operation.

Recently, members of Butte’s Bagdad Shrine Temple made a case for moving the game, hoping to bring back interest in the event and to create more income for the hospital.

It was later decided to put the game on a three-year rotation between Great Falls, Butte and Billings. The Al Bedoo Shrine Temple in Billings will be in charge of the 2011 game, though due to a conflict with the Montana State Games, Laurel will be the site of the actual game.

Certainly, there have been hard feelings about moving the game after such a long time in the Electric City. Still, the Butte Shriners who helped bring about the change are convinced that the move will help raise the game’s image and in the end create more money for the final beneficiary — the kids who receive free medical care at Shrine hospitals.

“The reason this game has run as long as it has is because of the work of the East and the Great Falls Shriners,” said West Shrine team coordinator Jeff Hartwick. “We just felt we could inject new life into the game and help improve it in some areas.”

Butte Shriner R.J. Olson, a member of the Shrine game board, said he was sorry to see the downward trend the game had been taking.

“We felt like the game was dying,” Olson said. “We wanted to get the atmosphere back and make it a premiere game like it used to be.”

A group of Bagdad Shriners had considered the idea for a few years before finally deciding to test the waters with the board in October of 2008.

“We had talked about it a lot, but never went further with it,” Hartwick said.

They mentioned it at a board meeting and the response was such that they drew up a proposal to move the game to Butte on a full-time basis. The vote was 5-4 in favor of the change, though it was later decided that Shrine bylaws required more than a simple majority vote.

Through mediators brought in by the Shrine, it was decided in January of 2009 to move the game to a rotation between the three Montana Shrine Temples.

“We weren’t getting the job done in Great Falls as well as we’d like to,” said Dave Bergeson of Billings, president of the board of directors of the Shrine game. He added that the board’s two goals — gaining publicity for the hospital and raising money for the hospital — weren’t being met.

“We have a young bunch of guys here who are excited about the game, so a couple of us older ones decided it was time to give it a shot,” Bergeson said. “The community here has been very supportive.”

Local Shriners are anxious to see the crowds Saturday and are looking for a successful end to this year’s work.

“Hopefully, with the money we raise and the show we put on here in Butte, we’ll set the bar high for future games,” Olson said.

The game had been played in Great Falls since the inaugural year in 1947.

The West won a 20-17 decision last year in Great Falls in the only overtime game in the history of the event. The win snapped a five game West losing streak, though the East still leads the series 36-27.

For the complete story and more player information check the Montana Standard newspaper.