Joey Payeur
The legends were everywhere, the atmosphere was electric, and the passion for Canada’s game was omnipresent.
Kenora hosted “Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada” last week–culminating in Saturday night’s SIJHL game between the Fort Frances Lakers and English River Miners before a sell-out crowd of more than 2,000 spectators.
Both teams received a shout-out during “Coach’s Corner” on Sportsnet nationwide, with host Ron McLean and legendary coach/broadcaster Don Cherry on hand in Kenora to take in the festivities.
Cherry performed the pre-game face-off and the two icons posed for a group photo on the ice after the game.
“I felt a hand in my shoulder when I was kneeling for the picture and I looked up and it was ‘Grapes,'” said Lakers’ forward Jaden Gustafson.
And what does one do in that situation?
“I put my hand on his hand,” smiled Gustafson.
“The day was a lot of fun.”
Lakers’ head coach and general manager Wayne Strachan complimented the host community.
“Kenora did a great job of putting it together,” he lauded. “It was a first-class show.
“It was quite an experience for the players, be it the Midget or junior players,” added Strachan.
“You don’t get that opportunity every day.
“To meet with Canadian hockey icons like Ron and Don, and get to see people like Lanny McDonald, those are memories they will never forget,” he remarked.
Longtime local hockey P.A. announcer Jim Fowler had missed two earlier chances to meet Cherry while in Toronto and wasn’t about to miss a third one–but nearly did except for a family connection realized at the last second.
Fowler was trying to make his way to where McLean and Cherry were broadcasting to join SIJHL Commissioner Bryan Graham, who was going to have Fowler present the duo with a pair of specially-made hockey sweaters.
“I went to the area where I needed to enter to get there and the female security guard wasn’t going to let me in,” he recounted.
“Now I’m not really a religious man, but I’ll tell you something happened because when I said I was from Fort, she asked me if I knew Crystal George–my daughter,” Fowler chuckled.
“It turns out she had worked with Crystal in the past,” he explained. “So she said, ‘All right, get down the hallway quick and go up those stairs.'”
When Fowler got there, he gave McLean and Cherry the sweaters and was on Cloud 9 the whole time.
“I told Don on a bucket list, you were one I wanted to get done before I closed it down,” laughed Fowler, referring to the 83-year-old former head coach of the Boston Bruins and Colorado Rockies.
“Boom, like that, it was like we were old best buddies,” he added. “He’s an awesome man.
“We hugged, they called him over to do something quick, then he came back to me and suddenly he had to go do ‘Coach’s Corner,’ so he said, ‘I’ll see you, Jim.’
“I walked out of there bawling,” Fowler smiled sheepishly.
Meanwhile, 10-year NHL veteran Mike Allison was invited to play in the Kenora Thistles’ alumni game last Thursday.
The two teams for the game were picked by McDonald and veteran NHL grinder Darcy Tucker.
On Allison’s team were fellow Fort resident Larry Beck (“One of the top three players ever in Kenora Thistles’ history,” Allison trumpeted unreservedly), as well as Tucker and multiple Stanley Cup winner Mark Napier, along with Sportsnet Central prime-time host Ken Read.
The squad was coached by N.Y. Islanders’ great Bryan Trottier and Leafs’ icon Wendel Clark, who didn’t mind giving an old teammate the business verbally.
“Bryan came up and said we were short one player at forward, and asked if I would play centre behind Darcy and Mark,” recounted a jovial Allison.
“I said I hadn’t been on skates in a few years and so they better put me on left wing, so I don’t have to stop or turn a certain way,” he added.
“Right before the game, I find out I’m on the fourth line and Wendel comes up to me and says, ‘See, Mike, it’s just like the NHL–you’re a fourth-liner.'”
Allison’s squad went up against a team of mostly younger players and also featuring McDonald, NHL veteran and Kenora native Mike Richards, and McLean.
“You’d never guess how fast he was,” Allison said of McLean.
“They got all the young guys so we decided to play the reverse trap–we wouldn’t let them out of our zone,” he roared.
At least two Fort travellers to Saturday’s game became unwitting celebrities of their own.
Muskie girls’ forward Siobhan Mackintosh and assistant coach Hailey Clendenning got to the arena early to watch Clendenning’s brother, Jake, and other Rainy River District imports play for the Kenora Thistles Midget ‘AAA’ team in a game that afternoon.
“We were setting up blankets to save spots and an interview was being done down below us involving Cassie Campbell-Pascall,” Mackintosh said about the former Canadian Olympic women’s team star and current Sportsnet broadcaster.
“People were turning around and telling us, ‘Shh, they’re doing an interview!'” she chuckled.
“We find out from people later that they took a picture of Cassie there that she put on her Twitter feed–and there’s Hailey and I in the background.”
Mackintosh was glad she and Clendenning staked out their territory early.
“The lineup to get in for the Lakers’ game was out the building and around the block,” she noted.
“The evening was really exciting to be a part of,” Mackintosh added. “To get to see Don Cherry, who we see all the time on TV, interacting with players you know was really cool.”
Would it have been cooler if it was the Muskie girls taking on their archrival Dryden Eagles?
“I don’t think I would do well playing in front of that many people,” Mackintosh admitted.
