Nestled amid a landscape ranging from towering Douglas firs and glistening lakes to fast-food outlets and car lots are a string of community rinks that have given the Cowichan Valley a unique and compelling hockey history.
It will be celebrated this weekend when the travelling TV roadshow known as Rogers Hometown Hockey comes to the Island for the third consecutive year. The Victoria Inner Harbour stop in 2016 featured the likes of gold-medallists Simon Whitfield and Adam Kreek in more of a Summer Games theme, while hosts Ron MacLean and Tara Slone parked themselves on the Nanaimo waterfront last year at Maffeo-Sutton Park.
The broadcast location and outdoor viewing party Saturday and Sunday will be outside the Cowichan Aquatic Centre.
The hockey guests to be interviewed encompass the panorama of Cowichan Valley hockey history and will include former NHLers Doug Bodger, Greg Adams and Robin Bawa.
Former blue-liner Bodger, now assistant coach with the WHL鈥檚 Victoria Royals, came out of Chemainus to play more than 1,000 games in the NHL. Adams is a Duncan product who starred with the Victoria Cougars in the WHL, with a high point in 1979-80 of 48 goals and 110 points on Blanshard Street, before his 545-game NHL career with the Flyers, Capitals, Oilers, Canucks and Red Wings. Adams is now one of the area鈥檚 most successful businessmen. His ventures include being co-owner of the annual Sunfest Country Music Festival at Laketown Ranch in the Cowichan Valley, which has been headlined by Toby Keith, Little Big Town, Keith Urban, Carrie Underwood, Dierks Bently, and this year will feature Eric Church.
Duncan鈥檚 Bawa, meanwhile, starred in the WHL for the Kamloops Blazers, with 57 goals and 113 points in his final season of junior, and became the first Indo-Canadian to play in the NHL amid a lengthy minor-pro career.
It鈥檚 a Cowichan Valley hockey tradition that continues with the likes of six-foot-three defenceman Josh Anderson of Duncan, a third-round NHL draft pick of the Colorado Avalanche, currently with this season鈥檚 WHL high-octane Swift Current Broncos.
But could it be ebbing from its heyday?
鈥淚t鈥檚 not as big as it once was because the days of the big mills are gone, so there are not as many young families in the Valley,鈥� said Bodger.
But once a Valley boy, always a Valley boy.
Bodger last week rushed off the ice after Royals practice at Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre to check whether Matt Ellison of Duncan, who starred in the BCHL for the hometown Capitals before scoring 40 goals in the WHL for the Red Deer Rebels, had made sa国际传媒鈥檚 Olympic team for the 2018 Pyeonchang Winter Olympics. Ellison, who plays for Magnitogorsk Metallurg of the KHL, was one of the last cuts.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 too bad,鈥� lamented Bodger, who would have loved nothing more than to see a fellow Cowichan Valley hockey product become a Winter Olympian.
But you get the point. These Cowichan Valley guys feel a familial-type bond.
鈥淲e all grew up playing in rinks around the Valley, mine was Fuller Lake Arena, and spent a lot of time in them,鈥� recalled Bodger, who played 1,071 NHL games for the Penguins, Sabres, Sharks, Devils and Kings before retiring with his home-province Canucks.
Yet, it鈥檚 the outdoor life that Bodger will be featured in during the Hometown Hockey broadcast Sunday.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the outdoor stuff that really makes Cowichan Valley sports. From the ocean, the lakes and mountain biking, you can do it all,鈥� he said.
Slone almost caught a wicked oar backlash to the stomach, known as a crab, when she taped a segment on Elk Lake with Kreek and other Canadian Olympic team rowers for the Victoria Hometown Hockey broadcast in 2016. The Hometown Hockey host is game and will again brave Island waters when she goes kayaking with Bodger off Ladysmith for a segment in Sunday鈥檚 broadcast.
鈥淚 love to get outside, all around the Island, and I love to kayak. My biggest problem now is trying to fit inside one,鈥� quipped the amiable Bodger.
The broadcast will also feature a segment on BCHL defenceman Simon Chen of the Cowichan Valley Capitals. Chen, the son of Capitals owner Ray Zhang, is from Beijing and harbours dreams of playing for host China in his hometown 2022 Winter Olympics. Chen also drew considerable media coverage when he was invited to the Vancouver Canucks development camp last summer.
Hockey is only a curiosity in China at the moment. But Chen became fascinated with it as a youngster, while accidently coming upon a game taking place in a rink mall in Beijing, and he and father Zhang hope to be part of its growth in China leading into the 2022 Winter Olympics.
The Hometown Hockey events will be wrapped around Sunday鈥檚 NHL game featuring the Canucks and Jets. The broadcast begins at 4:30 p.m. on Sportsnet. The big-screen outdoor viewing party begins at noon and will feature live music by 54-40 and Lovecoast with various other activities taking place, including a youth ball-hockey tournament, kids zone, Paz the hockey acrobat, fan hub, autograph session with NHL alumni, an augmented reality photo booth with virtual images of NHL stars, and free hot chocolate. You can even change the tires in a Zamboni pit stop.
The festivities begin Saturday at noon and run to 6 p.m. with those several activities and live music by Wise and Youngblood.
Hometown Hockey will decamp the Island for its next shows from Lacombe, Alta., on Feb. 4, Canmore, Alta., on Feb. 11 and Regina, Sask., on Feb. 18. The season began on Oct. 8 in Niagara Fall, Ont. The last of 24 communities visited will be Montreal on April 1.
