If you think it seems like every kid in Canada plays hockey, you might be right. Although they say our unofficial National sport is losing steam I see no signs of it where we live. Holding a hockey stick is part of growing up in Canada.

It has become tradition on Juno weekend for the rockers to face off against the NHL greats in the Juno Cup, held on Friday March 13^th in Hamilton, ON. It’s obvious these rockers were Canadian born because they could really play.

The NHL greats included Mark Napier, Ric Nattres, Gary Roberts, Wendel Clark, Ron MacLean and even a couple girls – Tessa Bonhomme and Natalie Spooner – from the women’s gold-medal winning Olympic teams. (My eight-year-old son was amazed at the girl’s mean skills and it was awesome for him to see just how tough chicks really can be.)

The rockers were led by Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy and also had his son Devin Cuddy, Sam Roberts, Chris Crippin (Hedley), Sarah Harmer, Jon Gallant (Billy Talent), Paul Brandt and many more.

While the score started off strong for the NHL’ers with a 5-0 lead in the first four minutes of play, they soon decided to lay off the defense and have a little fun. A skills competition which included Jim Cuddy and Ric Nattres facing off with their renditions of the Blue Rodeo classic “Try” evened the score a bit.

Bring Back the Fun

In the end the NHLer’s won 11-9. What was more important than the score was seeing how much fun everyone had. Parents can become so focused on hockey skill development from as young as age three that the fun seems to be getting sucked out of the game for many kids. What good is having a six-year-old super star if they quit with burnout before their twelfth birthday?

I think as parents it’s our job to show kids the fun of hockey – and of sports in general. Once your kid is having fun if they choose to take things to the next level we need to support them. If they want to stick with fun, let them be a rocker (or whatever else they want to be) and play on weekends.