Something fishy about this memorial
Joey Smith threw a salmon on the Rogers Arena ice out of dedication to a lost friend
Nanaimo hockey fan Joey Smith tried to act casual as he headed into a Vancouver Canucks game with a fivepound salmon strapped to his stomach.
The fish was vacuum sealed and flattened beneath his sweater and jeans, but it was heavy and awkward. He heard his friends’ wrapped fish had started leaking and security guards were doing pat- downs.
“I was a little worried getting caught” he said. “But there were three of us with salmon taped to our chests so I knew we wouldn’t fail ... and a lot of what I was thinking had to do with getting the fish off.”
Throwing sea- creatures onto the ice is a long- standing National Hockey League tradition and a fad Smith and a group of Nanaimo fans wanted to bring home to Rogers Arena. It was in memory of Garrett Paquette, a 30- year- old hockey fan who had planned to do the toss before he died in an ATV accident in November.
His friends and family bought tickets for the game against the Toronto Maple Leafs Saturday, including dad Roger Paquette who inspired his son after performing the first salmon toss during a playoff game in Calgary last year.
The latest toss was done with four- minutes left on the clock in the third period, shocking a referee who kicked the salmon aside with his skate “like it was poison,” as one commentator joked.
The fish has been the butt of jokes since the weekend game, earning spots on Youtube and TSN highlights. People are still stymied about how the fish was smuggled in and once there, how it remained undetected by neighbouring fans.
The success could have been a combination of perfume and vacuum wrap, according to Paquette.
“We were prepared,” he said. “The fish even had a special perfume bath beforehand.”
Paquette, an avid hockey fan and owner of Hub City Fisheries, had seen the traditional NHL toss happen in Detroit and San Jose for years and decided in 2011 it was time the Vancouver Canucks have its own westcoast symbol on ice. He hoped the team would “get inspired” by a B. C. salmon, the symbol of strength and speed. He kept the fish underneath his jersey for nearly three periods before the big throw. He was caught by security and escorted out as the Canucks secured a 4- 3 victory over their rivals.
His son, Garrett, watched the whole thing from home and was “so pumped” his dad was able to launch the tradition that he vowed to do the same when the Canucks played a home game against his favourite team, the Leafs. He died on Nov. 11 in a late- night ATV crash in Lantzville before he could go through with his plan.
On Saturday, just before the game his friends and family gathered in their Fairmont Hotel room to tape the vacuum sealed fish and run through the rules of the throw. It had to be done safely, when the hockey players were at the far side of the rink and thrown in the third period, in case security tossed them out. The group was laughing as they covered up the salmon with their jerseys and walked towards G. M. place, “hoping like heck [ they] weren’t patted down by security,” Paquett said.
Once inside the three salmoncarrying fans carefully tore off the tape, leaving a couple of the fishes in the bathrooms to stymie fans and wrapping the third in a hoodie that they stashed underneath their seats until minutes were left on the scoreboard. Simpson grabbed the fish by the gills and whipped it onto the ice. Fans cheered from their seats. Some thought it was a tuna or flounder that’d landed on the ice. A commentator questioned the symbolism, which he thought might have meant “somebody should sleep with the fishes.” The boys that quickly changed outfits and smoothly blended into the crowd, knew they’d finished what they went to the game to do.