Nouvelles

By: Charles Musto

Eight years ago when Canada won double gold in ice hockey at Salt Lake City, a story surfaced – a story that non-Canadians would think us "loonie" for celebrating.

Shortly after Canada's Men's team ended a 50 year drought of men's ice hockey gold, The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, revealed the "lucky loonie" to the media. Icemakers from Edmonton, led by Trent Evans, had placed a Canadian loonie at center ice to bring our teams some good fortune.

Regardless of whether or not the coin can be credited with the victories, the story has been celebrated since, and is relived wherever possible.

Case and point, I received a phone call 3 days before our Play On! National Championship was to be held as part of CBC's Hockey Day in Canada. It was from the City of Victoria.

Our tournament, which would see the 30 best teams from across the country competing for street hockey immortality, was to be held on Belleville Street between the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia and the Inner Harbour – one of the most picturesque downtown cores nationwide.

We would set up three rinks right on the road, allowing our players to "take back the streets" to celebrate a cherished national pastime.

In two years of working with Play On! I have heard an array of different questions and requests, but never anything like this.

"I have a question for you and I’d like it not to be repeated to anyone until after the tournament." I was told.

"Ok shoot." I replied.

"There has been a request that we place a loonie at center ice of our municipal rink in support of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Since we don’t have a municipal rink, we were wondering if we could put our coin at the center of your championship rink. We have a special Victoria coin that we would use instead of a loonie. Hopefully it will bring the host Victoria team some good luck!"

I paused for a moment.

". . . That is the coolest request I have ever gotten." I managed to say.

Imagine that. In the middle of Belleville Street, a busy downtown artery, there would lie a Victoria coin to mark center ice for the main rink of the Play On! National Street Hockey Championships. If ever there was an indication that a city was behind our program; that was it.

And it was so. Five hours before we were to close down the street and set up our site, I went down and marked center ice. Two hours later, Victoria road workers came down and placed the coin – pretending to fill potholes. The scene was now set.

At 8AM the next morning, we had our first face-off. The Victoria coin shone up at the players, welcoming them to the capital of British Columbia. The action was incredible. Despite the typical west coast weather, the game play was fast and intense and continued throughout the tournament. One would expect nothing less at a National Championship.

The coin appeared to be working. The host team, Victoria CCCP, looked comfortable in their home setting and earned a #8 seed going into the playoffs. They even knocked off defending national champions, the Oshawa Bulls, in their last round robin game of the day.

Their great play continued on day 2. They won their first three games of the playoffs - the last one, a defeat of the #1 Seed Winnipeg Iceberg in the quarterfinals. The Iceberg were favoured, having lost only to the Bulls in a shootout in last year’s national championship game.

That was as far as the hosts would get though. They fell to the Calgary Phantoms, a perennial powerhouse out of Alberta, in the semi finals.

Winners of the other semi final, the Vancouver Ball Hoggz went on to defeat the Calgary Phantoms in an exhilarating final on a last second goal. It was a fitting finish to such an exciting event.

The love for the game and this program that our players demonstrated was inspiring and drew throngs of support from local Victorians. It was simply amazing to see such a large amount of enthusiasm for such a treasured tradition.

The coin may not have brought Victoria CCCP the Redwood Cup, but it certainly left its mark on an outstanding event. Two weeks later, the lucky loonie was back at work. Scattered throughout many Olympic venues, loonies were placed to bring our Olympic athletes good fortune on the world stage.

And with the flick of a stick, Canada rejoiced in winning the most gold medals by a host nation, the most gold medals by any country in Winter Olympic history, and for the second time in three winter games, double gold in Olympic hockey.

Odd, but funny how Vancouver won double “gold” at our tournament too.

For more information on the "lucky loonie" story, read A Loonie For Luck by Roy MacGregor.

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