Inside Hockeyville: What it’s like when the NHL comes to your town

Paul Pidutti (@AdjustedHockey)
Paul Pidutti (@AdjustedHockey)
Inside Hockeyville: What it’s like when the NHL comes to your town

Like many small Canadian towns, Elliot Lake, Ontario, is a long way from the NHL. The picturesque, hockey-loving community of 11,000 residents is tucked away north of Lake Huron.

Six hours to Toronto… seven hours to Ottawa… eight hours, plus a border crossing, to Detroit… nine hours to Montreal. The distance, time, and cost can make the world’s best hockey league feel a million miles away.

As a lifelong resident of Sudbury, located two hours east of Elliot Lake, I know the feeling.

But that all changed in March when Elliot Lake was named Kraft Hockeyville 2024. The NHL was heading to Northern Ontario, free of charge. Kraft would also deliver the $250,000 prize, which would go toward Elliot Lake’s Centennial Arena’s ongoing structural repairs.

With Elliot Lake’s rink now a full year into its restoration process, Sudbury stepped in to host the Senators and Penguins in a pre-season game held on Sunday night. Fortunately, I had the privilege of soaking in a firsthand account of what it was like behind the scenes when Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Claude Giroux, Brady Tkachuk, and friends came to town.

In short, it was a magical event, the kind that creates life-long memories for those involved.

You’ll hear the perspective from Northern Ontario hockey fans, from the NHL players who were once kids with oversized dreams, and from me — now a big kid from a small town, genuinely inspired by the power the NHL had on his community.

The Fan Perspective

“We’re excited to go to the game tonight. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. My little cousins have been wondering for years, ‘When can we go to an NHL game?’ Well, the NHL came to us. We’re very lucky.”
— Peter MacLean, 32, Sault Ste. Marie

Peter MacLean was buzzing around the players’ red carpet entrance on Sunday morning. Autumn days in Northern Ontario go one of two ways — the hopeful feeling that summer is hanging around or the hopeless feeling that winter may appear early. This was a day the sun was shining and the energy in the air was unmistakable.

Peter left his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie, three hours away, at 6 A.M. and scooped up his young cousins, Phoenix and Nico, along the way to Sudbury. Peter fully understood the enormity of the opportunity for his cousins to get rare access to the NHL, enthusiastically encouraging them to get closer to the players.

As the Penguins’ bus pulled up, chants of ‘Crosby! Crosby! Crosby! Crosby!‘ began like the screams for a post-concert encore. This played out despite the fact that Crosby, the league’s understated rock star of the last two decades, wasn’t scheduled to play for another 10 hours.

Melissa Tanos and her daughter, Sadie, 9, each decked out in Penguins’ sweaters, sat quietly away from the noise. They were intimately familiar with the Crosby name. 12 years ago, Melissa and her husband, Liam, named her son after #87. Little Crosby was with his dad desperately chasing a glimpse of Big Crosby.

Melissa called the day a “big moment for our family.” They’ve never been to an NHL game before, still in disbelief that her son’s hero would come to their town. “He’ll remember this forever,” she said with a heart-warming smile.

After both the Senators and Penguins signed autographs, took photos, and made their way into the arena, it was time for their respective morning skates — a ticketed event. These tickets went to local minor hockey parents to bring their kids, who sprinted to the glass in awe at the access.

Ahead of puck drop, I approached two of the happiest-looking people I’d ever hope to meet. Ryan Bloom and Liane Wawrzaszek had good reason to be. The Elliot Lake residents had found out just two days earlier that their son, Noah Aboflan, had signed with the OHL’s London Knights.

A former captain of the Elliot Lake Vikings junior team, Aboflan’s signing was just another feel-good story in a weekend full of them. His proud father, Ryan, was beaming both about the signing and the good fortune that had come to Elliot Lake.

“[Hockeyville] has really brought a huge uplift to the town and the community as a whole because our last decade hasn’t had the best track record for uplifting, spiritual things. This has brought joy.”

The Player Perspective

When asked by Daily Faceoff if a childhood memory stood out for him when the NHL first felt real, Sidney Crosby fondly remembered a pre-season game in Halifax in the 1990s.

“It felt like it was another planet before that. I hadn’t seen an NHL game, and I didn’t think I necessarily would. I know what these pre-season games mean. I know what it meant to me when I was a kid, and I’m sure what it means to people in the community. You could feel that when you got here.”
— Sidney Crosby, 37, Cole Harbour

The details of that game didn’t matter to the Penguins’ captain, but the impact did. “That’s the moment I look back on, and to be in this position and playing in a town like this, you’re grateful for that opportunity.”

Despite the star power that the NHL assembled for Hockeyville, Crosby was unsurprisingly the man of the hour in Sudbury. Without an ounce of exaggeration, head coach Mike Sullivan compared the attention level Crosby receives in Canada to The Beatles. It was accurate.

Michigan-born Bryan Rust’s first exposure to the NHL was etched in his mind. His minor hockey team did a shootout during the intermission of a Red Wings‘ game at Joe Louis Arena.

“We got to go in the locker room and, at the time, my favorite player was Martin Lapointe,” Rust said. “So, I took a couple of pictures at his stall and met him. I was five or six, so to be able to vividly remember is big.”

So many of the locals I spoke to had never been to an NHL game before. The Senators’ new bench boss, Travis Green, could relate. Growing up in a small town in British Columbia, the first NHL game he saw was the first one he played in. Green acknowledged how special that moment is for fans at any age.

Ottawa’s Nick Cousins was quick to affectionately recall his first brush with the NHL.

“When I was a young kid, the Vancouver Canucks actually came to Belleville where I’m from, and they had an outdoor practice on the pond,” Cousins said. “So, that’s the earliest moment for me, and it’s still pretty cool.”

The Media Perspective

It’s no secret that I’m not a seasoned media veteran. For a rare 36-year-old rookie two years ago high on enthusiasm but low on experience, this was a precious chance to get behind the NHL’s exclusive curtain. Years removed from regular time spent playing and coaching in local arenas, it felt like a homecoming for me too. A return to grassroots hockey where lessons learned and fun outlast results or statistics.

Before Sunday, asking Sidney Crosby a question in a media scrum was never a realistic item on my to-do-list.

But Hockeyville could have been an overproduced event that underdelivered for the citizens of the communities craving access. The thought of uninspired athletes sleepwalking to a remote town for a pre-season game, one of 90-plus stops on their calendar, was always a possibility. Or half-hearted fans attending strictly for something to do on a Sunday.

Instead, it hit every note. One Elliot Lake resident proudly described the events as “flawless.”

The Hockeyville experience started Thursday in Elliot Lake with Stanley Cup school visits. Community celebrations, Stanley Cup displays, and player Q&A sessions would follow over the weekend, culminating in Sunday’s nationally televised game. While the game result was always secondary, a hat trick by Malkin and a pair of goals from Crosby in a 5-2 win made a special day even more memorable.

Walking down the hallway of your local rink and seeing famed broadcasters Ron MacLean or Chris Cuthbert, or former superstars-turned-staffers Daniel Alfredsson or Jason Spezza, created buzz in a region hours from a major metropolitan area. The excitement was genuine.

Critical to the weekend’s success, the players fully understood the assignment. Their ability to observe the gravity of the day for the community was clear. The 5,000-plus attendees were appreciative, passionate, and friendly. They made their towns and hockey associations proud. They made me proud to be from Northern Ontario.

Everyone was grateful. Volunteers were recognized. Adults turned into children for a day. Kids had their dreams realized. And quite frankly, so did I.

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