by Sheldon Birnie
Hockey is fun. Music is great. It’s a pretty simple formula.
Last night, fans of both were treated spirited evening at the MTS IcePlex in Headingley. The Juno Cup Rockers fell 10-9 to the NHL (& Olympic) Greats over two periods of play and a skills competition. Thousands filled up the stands, while a hundred or so more watched from the licesnsed lounge as Canadian “rock stars” went head to head with two members of the 2014 Olympic Women’s Gold Medal team and a motley crew of former NHL grinders and greats.
The friendly annual match-up between Rockers and NHL Greats is in benefit of MusiCounts, a music education charity associated with the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. MusiCounts mission is to ensure that every Canadian child has access to musical education, and they provide grants to schools to develop or sustain music programming.
This year’s Rockers’ roster included the perennial captain Jim Cuddy, his sharp-shooting son Devin, country star Gord Bamford, as well as local radio personalities Ace Burpee and David Wheeler alongside hometown troubadours (and Stylus faves) Del Barber and JP Hoe. The roster had so much depth that after the intermediary “skills competition” following the first period, the bench more or less changed over entirely. Many of the Rockers had gigs to get to, but it also seemed like a way to cram as many Juno related types onto the team as possible. With Grant Clitsome, James Wright, and Mark Scheifele on as coaches for the Rockers, they also managed to put up a good fight throughout, especially in the second period.
The NHL Greats featured a roster including Thomas Steen, Mike Keane, Trevor Kidd, Wayne Babych, Mike Pelyk, Brad Dalgarno, and captain Mark Napier. The welcome addition of Canadian Women’s Gold medal winners Natalie Spooner and Rebecca Johnston — who received the loudest cheers upon introduction and lit up the evening with relaxed, yet consistently spectacular, play throughout — for the Greats and Juno nominee Amanda Rheaume for the Rockers (who also potted their first goal of the evening) made for an inclusive, well rounded roster for both ends. It also helped that Trevor Kidd took the net for the Rockers, though folky David Francey stood on his head in the second to lead to Greats to victory.
The fusion of hockey and music is one that certainly appeals to Canadians across the country. As a subject of song, there’s almost no greater a pool to draw from. From Stompin’ Tom Connors to the Tragically Hip, the Hanson Brothers to Propagandhi, Del Barber himself to Tim Hus, great hockey songs abound in the great white north. And as any rec hockey nut knows, musicians love hockey just as much as high school teachers, personal trainers, Hydro workers, or criminal defence lawyers.
“It’s exciting,” Bamford, wearing #32, told Stylus before a pre-game skate at the IcePlex Thursday. It was the second time for the Albertan with a rifle of a shot competing in the Juno Cup. “I’m a big hockey fan so I’m just happy to get the invite.”
“I feel like it’s my last big break,” Barber, wearing #24, joked with Stylus during the pre-game skate. A lifelong Jets fan, Barber has fond memories of hockey growing up.
“I was a Mario Lemieux fan as a kid,” he recalled, “but as soon as I saw Teemu Selanne skate, I’d never seen anyone so fast. I remember that Tie Domi flip pass like it was yesterday, for that 76th goal. That was the biggest thing I’d ever seen in my life.”
“The sport is great for the camaraderie,” the honourable Ron Lemieux, minister of tourism, culture, heritage, sport and consumer protection and one-time Pittsburg Penguins draft pick, told Stylus with a big grin. “That’s the reason I wanted to come out. To have a chance to sit down and talk to the other players. To talk about the old days, the new players coming up, and also to talk about the Junos.”
As a born and bred Dauphin boy — and a key part of the 1972-73 provincial champion Dauphin Kings — Lemieux was quick to highlight the great music culture not only in Winnipeg, but across the province.
“Growing up in Dauphin there was lots of music going around,” he said. “And this year is the 25th anniversary of Countryfest!”
But when the puck dropped, the music became a memory. For two 25 minute periods, with a skills competition in between, both teams got right out on the ice and had fun with the Juno Cup, as Canadian a spectacle as could be mustered for a music industry event, be it on the frozen prairie, the cold Maritimes, the Mountains of the West, or the heartlands of Upper and Lower Canada.
Of course, there were a few interesting omissions on the Rocker’s roster. Interesting, but not surprising. Some of the most outspoken hockey fanatics in Winnipeg’s music community make up a good portion of local secular rock legends Propagandhi, who skate regularly in Winnipeg’s ASHL as part of Caress of Steel. So I asked Chris about this *glaring* omission:
@badguybirnie they looked up my penalty minutes and that was that. #preemptivesuspension
— Propagandhi Ⓥ (@propagandhi) March 28, 2014
@badguybirnie you’ll be SHOCKED to hear the Juno’s have NEVER contacted us to be involved with this celebration of industry–I mean music.
— Propagandhi Ⓥ (@propagandhi) March 28, 2014
Shocked, I wasn’t. But it does get me thinking how a Juno Rockers team would match up against a team sourced Winnipeg’s underground puck-rockers, a la Exclaim! Cup’s of the early 2000s? Certainly, beer sales among the onlookers would be higher. But I digress.
Overall, the evening was a fun one. And judging by the grins — pained at times, but still broad as a prairie skyline — of the Rockers doing their darnedest to overcome the Greats, it was a thrill just to be on the ice givin’er. For the Greats, young and old, who played through the ribbing of the MC and the boos of the crowd for the love of the game, it seemed like a hoot. And for the thousand odd fans of all ages who packed the place just to see a good old hockey game, well, they got one alright.
“This is the way hockey should be,” one elderly woman told me, with a wink, as we watched the final minute of play. Skaters on both ends giving it their all to come up on top when the buzzer sounded, but they were doing so with smiles on their faces and little, if anything, but a pure love of the “game of our lives” in their hearts.
“Fuckin’ eh,” I replid, with a wink of my own. The lady just laughed. What a beauty. Hey ho, let’s go!