HITTING THE SKIDS IN PRIME TIME
Hometown Hockey lands in Edmonton with Oilers in their post-break funk
The timing could be a lot better.
If it could have been held on NHL All-Star Game weekend, when the Edmonton Oilers won seven of eight and took away a loser point from the other, that would have been perfect for a hockey celebration in Edmonton.
But wherever it was the Oilers went on their break, they definitely went south. Returning with a bunch of passengers, a lack of jump and intensity other than for a short span in the second period, when Connor McDavid grabbed the game by the throat, they lost their third straight game, this one 2-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes.
In the three games before the all-star break, the Oilers won them all by a combined 15-4. They’ve lost all three games since returning and have scored all of three goals.
It’s hardly the time for a festival in Edmonton.
But good timing or not, here it is, the 64th edition of Hometown Hockey on Rogers Sportsnet featuring two days of activity at Winston Churchill Square, beginning at noon Saturday and 9 a.m. Sunday with the live telecast beginning at 10:30 a.m.
The show is basically a weekly spinoff of the Hockey Night In Canada institution Hockey Day In Canada, which used to bring Ron MacLean and Don Cherry to an interesting location somewhere in Canada and combined programing from on-site and various other locations in the nation, while showing games featuring all seven Canadian franchises.
Cherry doesn’t join MacLean for his new gig, but it has become a pretty good puck festival on its own and MacLean might move the dial with this one.
While -13 C temperatures aren’t ideal, big crowds are expected to spend hours at what MacLean refers to as “the circus,” which will open with bands, various hockey-themed tents and programing.
MacLean himself never shows up for his own show until the last minute with the valid excuse that he spends Saturday night in Toronto playing host to Hockey Night in Canada and doing the Coach’s Corner segment with Cherry.
“This one is tight,” MacLean said. “I’m on a 10:15 p.m. WestJet flight coming off the air in Toronto. I get to the hotel in Edmonton at about 1:30 a.m. Because it’s Super Bowl Sunday, our game this week is way earlier than normal and our show goes on the air (at) 10:30 a.m.
“Knock on wood, I haven’t missed one yet. Earlier this year, I had to fly a really tricky one leaving Sunday morning from Toronto to Halifax to St. John’s to Gander and then drive for 90 minutes.”
Tara Slone, MacLean’s co-host, has been in town for a few days already doing the background stories and interviews. The game itself will feature the legendary Bob Cole handling the playby-play of the Oilers game in Montreal.
MacLean embraced the show when Sportsnet took over the hockey rights and George Stroumboulopoulos was chosen to host a new Hockey Night in Canada while retaining MacLean to host Coach’s Corner. Now MacLean is back hosting HNIC and has retained the Sunday Hometown Hockey project.
“I’d done Hockey Night In Canada for 32 years and I loved it,” he said. “But it was 32 years. And I thought, ‘Don and I can’t go forever. Maybe Tara Slone and I will build a brand with Hometown Hockey.’
“This has become a kind of a national game,” he said of what HNIC was on CBC back in the six-team NHL. “These days on Saturday evening at 5 p.m. local time in Edmonton, you have three games you could watch and then you might have two games you could watch later on that evening. It is kind of neat to have a game again that everybody can be part of from coast to coast.
“We’ll have Ray and Floyd Whitney featured on Sunday. That’s just the kind of story that I find is so great,” he said of the kid who used to be the Oilers stick boy and had a 17-year career playing 1,330 games and producing 1,064 points in the NHL, while his dad, for years, was the Oilers practice goalie.
Slone’s to come (in Thursday) for interviews with Mayor Don Iveson at Hawrelak Park and Clare Drake at the University of Alberta. They are also doing a piece on Sportsnet Central.
“We have Mark Messier and Ryan Smyth live on the property on the show. Marty McSorley is one of the players joining alumni in Edmonton to sign autographs,” MacLean said.
“The show is all about being community orientated and celebrating the place you go to. Edmonton is spoiled by all the big events that have been held there, but when you take a Mark Messier to Petawawa, (Ont.), or Moose Jaw, (Sask.), it’s pretty neat to see people have that first-hand experience. With this show, we have great content, the Oilers and Canadiens and all their history and Connor McDavid, who right now is appointment television.”
On the ground at Winston Churchill Square or on the television set, MacLean is probably right. This one might move the dial. Despite the three-game skid.
With this show, we have great content, the Oilers and Canadiens and all their history and Connor McDavid, who right now is appointment television.