Well-known local couple Angela and Braden Lee, and their young ones, 8 and 6, leave Arrowtown today to live in Canada for at least a year, and probably longer.
A lifelong local, Braden’s a former Ice Black who played 187 games for the SkyCity Stampede ice hockey side and had his no.12 jersey retired at the Queenstown Ice Arena when he retired two years ago.
The 41-year-old recently also sold Industrial Fitness, Queenstown’s largest private gym which he opened in 2009, after earlier running a boot camp business.
He and Angela, 42, have lived in Arrowtown since 2019 so their two children could go to the same preschool and primary school he attended.
Angela’s originally from Vancouver Island where she met Braden in a bar in 2012 "for a whole of five minutes, and that’s all it took, as they say".
She moved to Queenstown the following year and they married in Hawaii in 2015.
She says their move back to her home country came about "with me presenting the fact I missed my family, and Braden saying ‘I absolutely love Vancouver and Vancouver Island and I’d love the opportunity to take the kids back"’.
Braden: "I felt like it was always on the cards at some stage, just seeing the fact I’m married to Angela from Canada.
"With not having the gym, we sort of have the agility to be able to give the kids a different experience."
Both also play ice hockey, "so that gives them an opportunity to play in Canada — I played for a bit over there but not like I wanted to".
He says they’ll stay at least a year then reassess, "but Queenstown’s always home".
As for work, "I’m going to take a year to find something I’m passionate about — it’ll be something in health and wellness."
