THis event looks to be pretty cool, interesting part will be if Chris Pronger shows up.
It's going to be Canada's own personal Olympic Winter Games Closing Ceremony.
A June 28 gala slated for Commonwealth Stadium started out as the seventh-annual Hockey Canada Foundation champions golf tournament and banquet. It's developed into the astounding event, revealed in detail Thursday, to celebrate all of Canada's 26 Olympic medal winners and a chance to salute the Canadian military as well.
In a matter of days, as ticket sales began yesterday, expect it to be heralded as another total triumph for Edmonton.
”I believe it's going to be like the Heritage Classic, that it will be of that significance,” said Doug Goss, the man who chaired the outdoor hockey event in Commonwealth Stadium and chairs this one as well.
“It's something that will be once in a lifetime and we want to do it right.
It's going to be two and a half hours you don't want to miss,” said Goss.
Titled “Canada Celebrates” for short and “For The Love Of Country And For The Love Of Hockey: Canada Celebrates Our National Heroes” officially, the intention is to fill Commonwealth Stadium with 60,000 fans for the multi-pronged tribute June 28.
But it's not only to parade the men's and women's gold medal winning hockey teams into the stadium and present them with their championship rings as previously revealed in the Edmonton Sun. It's also to celebrate the other medal winners.
That's the greater challenge to organize at this late date. And there's significant expense involved with the extent of the plans which the provincial government has agreed to underwrite to make it happen.
The event, the Sun has also learned, will now be televised nationally on TSN.
Hockey Canada has received confirmation from almost all members of its teams — from Olympic overtime goal-scorer Sidney Crosby to captain Scott Niedermayer (no word yet from ex-Oiler Chris Pronger), as well as captain Hayley Wickenheiser and the members of the women's team.
“What a spectacle it's going to be with 60,000 people waving Canadian flags. It's going to have the whole country saying 'Why Edmonton? How did they get this? How did they pull this off?',” said Don Metz, the award-winning Aquila Productions executive who will produce the event.
“I've been part of a lot of wonderful projects, but this one has me as excited as I can get. It's going to show the country the magic of Edmonton and show the world what a great Canadian city Edmonton is.
“I'm so bloody proud to be part of this city. It really is the City of Champions and this will trumpet that to the rest of the nation.”
Metz says it's already happened that people are asking how Edmonton ended up with this event.
“It's gone from people thinking we were crazy to believe we could fill Commonwealth Stadium to people, like the executives at TSN for example, wondering how in heck it ended up here.”
Bottom line, as was the case with the Heritage Classic which has become the annual NHL Winter Classic on New Years Day, is that Edmonton invented it.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before,” said Hockey Canada president and CEO Bob Nicholson, who reports that Steve Yzerman and all members of Mike Babcock's coaching staff intend to be here, as well as the players.
Back last fall when deciding where to take the annual Hockey Canada Foundation golf and dinner fund-raiser Nicholson said they were thinking of holding it in the Olympic city.
“We were looking at Vancouver. But then I got to know Doug Goss ...”
Goss said the idea of holding the event, which was held in Montreal last year and previously in Toronto and Calgary, made him drool from the beginning because of the possibilities following the Vancouver 2010 if the teams being honoured were gold medal winning Olympic teams.
“We felt we couldn't bring the two teams to Edmonton on this special year following Vancouver 2010 without doing something involving the public and we felt if we were going to do something public, let's design an event fitting for the entire nation and to make it one for the ages,” said Goss at the press conference Thursday.
Nicholson said Oilers owner Daryl Katz played a part behind the scenes, as well, and this is an unplanned payoff in a way for what he did, too.
“What Daryl Katz did for us under the radar in Vancouver was very special,” he said of using private jets to fly in Team Canada players after their last regular season games prior to the Olympics.
terry.jones@sunmedia.ca
Winter Olympic celebration/closing cerominies canadain version
