This past weekend we celebrated Hockey Day in Canada. The event was created a number of years ago simply to honour the true national pastime of the Great White North. Yes, we play other sports up here in Canada -- and we are even good at many of them -- but hockey continues to be the mainstay and is the backbone of many communities.
I had a very busy Hockey Day in Canada. Actually, it was a busy weekend celebrating the sport in various communities.
The focus of the day is the NHL and its seven Canadian teams, but the main storyline is community life in this country and how much hockey means in thousands of towns and cities from coast to coast, spanning every province of our land. Not only are the Canadian NHL teams playing each year on Hockey Day, but several hundred if not thousands of hockey games are played throughout the day all across Canada. It is a wonderful day for those who love the game and appreciate its role in our heritage.
Canada is a big, diverse country but one constant, pretty much everywhere, is hockey. Big cities transform into tight knit communities when its citizens are at the arena. Small-town life revolves around the rinks. Of course we play hockey games in these centres but we also have our wedding receptions there, we celebrate life and sometimes even death when wakes take place in the community hall.
In fact, I attended the wake of my godfather, Bill Smith this past year in Lucan, Ontario, a small town outside of London, at a community centre where I played a great deal of my minor hockey.
The Hockey Night in Canada broadcast crew, led by Ron McLean and Don Cherry, set up in the selected community and did the Hockey Day broadcast from there. Additionally, they set up in several other communities across Canada with each community telling its story and bragging on their hometown kid(s) that made it all the way to the NHL.
This year the CBC Hockey Day crew set up in Lloydminster, Alberta and Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. The city straddles the provincial border and is the birthplace of NHLers Scott Hartnell, Clarke MacArthur, and Braden Holtby to name a few.
Canadian teams playing against each other are always big games. There are some fantastic rivalries and the teams all have rich traditions. As such, the games are always highly anticipated locally. On Hockey Day in Canada, all the Canadian teams face off against each on the same day.
Ever since the current-day Winnipeg Jets relocated from Atlanta, one Canadian NHL team has to take on a US opponent so this year the Senators played the Rangers. The rivalry between the two teams is pretty good after the 2012 first round playoff matchup where the eighth seed Sens took the Rangers to seven games.
The matinee game must’ve been special for Clarke MacArthur. He received a lot of attention with the broadcast being based in his hometown.
The Oilers vs. Jets is a neat rivalry that many current hockey fans don’t recall the history of, but the original Jets and Oilers had a rivalry spanning back to the the World Hockey Association. In the 1980s, after the NHL and WHA merged, the Oilers won four Stanley Cups. Their road to glory often seemed to have to pass through Winnipeg.
The Oilers were led by Wayne Gretzky, of course, but the Jets had a young Dale Hawerchuk and they were a very, very good team at least on the offensive side of the game. The two teams usually met in the first round and this first playoff round was quite often the best one of the entire playoffs.
In my opinion, Toronto vs. Montreal is perhaps the best longtime rivalry in all of Canadian sports and one of the best in any pro sport regardless of country. It goes back a long, long way and it is perhaps more unique than any other rivalry.
A rivalry quite often begins with a victory by one side in a big championship game and then its game on….Then there is the cross town rivalry or the state rivalry. The Toronto vs. Montreal rivalry goes way back, and their games often divided a nation.
Up until 1970, there were only two NHL teams in Canada; so you cheered for one and hated the other. I grew up in a Leafs-loving household and took great pleasure in beating Montreal my entire career regardless of the team I was playing for at the time. It didn’t always happen but I was up and ready for those games.
The Vancouver vs. Calgary rivalry has, in a few shorts years, become one of pro sports hottest rivalries. Not only do the fans hate each other but so do the cities! The bars in both cities are packed when these two teams play.
Well, I am sure that everyone knows what happened last Saturday and now that intense rivalry just got a little more heated. I’d like to be a scalper outside the building next time these two teams face off! More on this a little later…
Here's how I participated in Hockey Day in Canada. I was in Barry’s Bay, Ontario on Saturday. On Sunday, I was in Shady Nook, Ontario playing in an outdoor charity hockey tournament with my Senators Alumni buddies. Both days were great!
In Barry’s Bay, the focus was on hockey clinics, clinics that were lead by a former player and that player was myself. I taught them all how to skate (once again, insert your Brad Marsh bad skating joke here!). The CBC had a crew there and they did regular live cut ins to the clinics, which made it real easy to motivate the kids!
The 120 kids that were registered were divided into 4 different groups depending on their age. After the clinics, I spoke to the kids, their parents and anyone in the town that wanted to come out. I think the whole town was there!
I really enjoy this and the highlight was the question and answer portion, which is always fun. The questions held true to form they were basically all the same as I described in last week's blog.
At the end, I was asked who I thought was going to win the cup this year. Hmm, good question. Basically we are just past the halfway part of the season so you can see trends and teams really starting to separate themselves.
Here is how I answered the question. I'll stick my neck out publicly with my predictions for how I think the playoffs will shake out.
Eastern Conference
Final 4 – Boston, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Philadelphia Final 2 – Boston, Pittsburgh
Western Conference
Final 4 – Anaheim, Chicago, LA, St. Louis Final 2 – Anaheim, Chicago
Stanley Cup Final
Anaheim vs. Boston
Stanley Cup Champion
Ummmm, I'm not sure yet!
This debate will heat up and go on and on until the playoffs begin and then it will continue with each passing round. The unfortunate part of my predictions there are no Canadian teams that will advance past the first round – I sure hope I am wrong. My son, Erik, is still a Flyers fan at heart so I hope for him they get further, too.
Anyway, back to Hockey Day. I sat in the dressing room after the game in Shady Nook with my Sens Alumni buddies and the top fundraisers from the charity tournament (they got to play with us). The conversation immediately went to the Vancouver vs. Calgary game and I think that our new teammates were surprised at our comments.
While John Tortorella was clearly in the wrong for going into the Calgary dressing, we liked his passion in sticking up for his players in the first place.
The bulk of the criticism and comments was focused on Bob Hartley; he was 100% wrong for the starting line up that he decided to start the game with. He was the one that made a mockery of the game and basically he got off without any significant. Yes, he got fined but he was not suspended. I think he should have been, too, because he was the one basically setting the table for a brawl. I suppose he can start any lineup he wants to, but sending out Kevin Westgarth as the center on the opening faceoff made the intentions very obvious.
The Alumni players told stories about coaches from past years sending messages to the opposition, but never this way. I think it was cowardly of Hartley to do this and the book should have been thrown at him, as well as at Tortorella for his stunt of trying to go into the Calgary dressing room.
As we stood around and talked hockey, there was a knock at the door. The tournament organizer stood there with a tray of freshly poured draft beers for us.
It was a perfect Canadian way to end our Hockey Day in Canada. I had a blast and I can't wait to do it again next year.