Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada: 13 Hours of Hockey

John Biehler is currently reporting from Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada in Whitehorse for Miss604.com.

By the time you read this, Hockey Day in Canada will be over so I thought I’d give you a run down of my day full of activities surrounding the event. After a good night’s sleep after the Gala Banquet, it was off to the main hub of Hockey Day, Canada Games Centre. This was where CBC Sports had setup outside on an ice rink made just for the event:

The first event in the morning was the Scotiabank Women’s Hockeyfest clinic, which had numerous NHL and Olympic athletes holding hockey clinics for community women.

Even Canada’s Governor General, David Johnston, laced up his skates and joined in. After the game I headed back outside to watch CBC’s Ron MacLean do his magic:

He was outside a lot longer than anyone and just kept going – signing autographs, talking on air and prepping for the next segments. He would occasionally go for a quick skate around the crowd to warm up:

The rest of the morning was filled, as you may have seen on TV, with guest after guest talking about all aspects of Hockey. What was truly cool to see was the passion for hockey that Ron has. It was obvious that it was in his veins by the way he talked to everyone about it, not just on camera either.

I also had the chance to stop by CBC’s iDesk and ended up giving Cassie Campbell-Pascal an update on the score of the “Big Save” contest winners Bantam game which was happening in the rink beside their studio setup.

It was then time to head to Takhini Arena for the big WHL game between the Kamloops Blazers and the Vancouver Giants.

This was also the place where CBC had setup for Coaches Corner and all the game day commentary. It was a steady stream of players and coaches dropping by to chat with Ron & Don Cherry, who as always, made a grand entrance at the start of the game.

It was fascinating watching the behind the scenes of what goes into producing a TV show like Hockey Night in Canada as well as seeing the various personalities on and off camera.

We ended the night watching the Vancouver Canucks beat the Calgary Flames and finished things up with some live music at the Gold Rush Inn.

You can view all the photos I took during Hockey Day in Canada on Flickr. A big ‘thank you’ to the Scotia Hockey Club, Travel Yukon, and the community up North. This is John signing off from Whitehorse, Yukon!

John Biehler is an avid photographer, gadget geek and traveller. You can find him on Twitter and at johnbiehler.com where he discusses photography and all sorts of technology. All photos in this post were taken by John.