Our tribute to Hockey Day in Canada
Quintin Laing doesn’t like to brag, but he could put the puck in the net.
He was one of the most fearsome sevenyear-old scorers ever produced in Harris, Sask. – a community of about 169 people roughly halfway between Rosetown and Delisle.
One of Laing’s earliest hockey memories, however, focuses on his short-lived goaltending career.
With his dad as coach, Laing helped his team skate out to a 15-0 lead one fateful afternoon in the local novice league. That’s when dad Bill, himself a veteran of the World Hockey Association, made a bold move.
“He made me play goalie,” said Laing, now the Association Coach for Kelowna Minor Hockey. “We were up 15-0, I think. The score ended up 15-14 and I never wanted to play goal again.”
Maybe that was part of the strategy. After four seasons with the Kelowna Rockets,
Quintin Laing went on to play 13 years of professional hockey, including stints with the Chicago Blackhawks and Washington Capitals.
He won a Calder Cup with the American Hockey League’s Hershey Bears in 2009.
Stories like Laing’s memories of goals and goaltending will be everywhere on Saturday as part of Scotiabank’s Hockey Day in Canada on Sportsnet. All seven Canadian NHL teams are in action, with Winnipeg facing Calgary, Ottawa battling Toronto, Boston in Montreal and Edmonton playing Vancouver.
Sportsnet’s Ron MacLean and Don Cherry are to broadcast live from Corner Brook, N.L. This is the 18th annual Hockey Day marathon broadcast.
Wade Redden played in many Hockey Day games over his 16 seasons of professional hockey.
Redden was a long-time Ottawa Senator defenceman who helped the Sens reach the Stanley Cup final in 2006. He’s now part of the Nashville Predators player development staff and living in Kelowna, but his hockey dreams started out like any other Canadian kid.
Born just outside Lloydminster, Sask., Redden said he can remember spending his winters playing hockey with his brother and sister.
In those days, Redden said, you didn’t need to “book” the ice or register. You just went down and started playing.
“They had an old wooden structure with tin on it. The ‘Silver Dome’ we called it,” Redden said. “I just remember going out on the ice. That’s kind of when the dream started for me.”
Kara Ouellette’s winters in North Vancouver were much warmer, but much wetter, too. Her first memories of hockey are of those spent with her dad on Saturday night’s in front of the television.
The sport made her relationship stronger, said Ouellette, now president of Penticton Minor Hockey.
“My earliest hockey memory is watching Saturday night hockey with my dad when I was probably three or four,” she said. “It was fun. It was something I did with my dad.”
It was a tradition she continued with her kids until they were old enough to play.
“Most of the hockey I watch now is my own children,” she said.
Passing along hockey traditions was once considered in jeopardy, with reports suggesting fewer kids were registering to play our national, wintertime sport.
But Hockey Canada’s most recent annual report suggests the sport has experienced resurgence since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.
An estimated 62,000 men, women and children played hockey in B.C. last year. That’s compared to a decade ago when Hockey Canada counted more than 44,000 players (a 40 per cent increase).
That’s significant considering the choices, and the pressures, families face when choosing Lorne Frey
their after-school activities.
Ouellette said while she’s seen PMHA numbers fluctuate, she’s happy more parents are learning about – and using – financial programs like Kidsport and Canadian Tire’s Jumpstart to help pay for hockey.
When Kelowna Rockets’ director of player personnel Lorne Frey was young, there was a different kind of pressure.
Growing up in Swift Current, Sask., Frey said his family also had trouble affording all the necessities of hockey. That’s why Frey – who has been involved with the Western Hockey League since 1979 – said his earliest hockey memory is especially significant.
“I was five years old when I received my first Toronto Maple Leafs hockey sweater and socks as a Christmas present,” said Frey, 67. “I had 11 brothers and sisters; we did not have the resources for these items. My parents scrimped to buy this. I loved the game and I never forgot that present.”