Ron MacLean looks back on 25 years of Hockey Day in Canada

Saturday is the 25th annual Hockey Day in Canada, and Sportsnet broadcaster Ron MacLean joined The Green Zone with Jamie & Locker.

Canmore in Alberta is hosting the event in 2025, with a live TV broadcast from the Canmore Recreation Centre from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Listen to the full interview here:

Locker: Is Hockey Day in Canada one of your annual highlights?

MacLean: We’ve had Kraft Hockeyville, Rogers Hometown Hockey, and Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada — they’re all around the same principle, to celebrate the backbone of the game. It never fails, and it’s because of the people.

The Canmore Eagles are the town’s Junior A team and it’s a non profit, community funded team. It’s incredible.

Their head coach and general manager is Andrew Milne, a former St Albert Saint who played for Todd McClellan at Swift Current. Milne brings in Patty Marleau in the summer to help at the hockey school.

That’s what makes Hockey Day in Canada shine. It’s not about us, it’s just getting to showcase people who love the game right across the country.

Locker: If we put together a blooper reel of Ron McLean moments that didn’t make it to a Hockey Day in Canada broadcast does anything stand out?

MacLean: The bloopers all made it to air, I’m not camouflaging anything.

I was in Iqaluit when Lanny McDonald brought the Stanley Cup in a dog sled, and the show only lasted 15 minutes on air outside. I had so much polar gear on it was ridiculous — the only thing showing was my nose, because there’s not enough material to cover that.

The wiring in our cameras froze, contracted and snapped so nothing worked. That’s kind of more of a show blooper. I’ve probably said a few things wrong, or got a name wrong.

I once wore a sweater with a big snowflake that was a bit much and that became my moniker. I had the nickname snowflake for the rest of time based on that bad choice.

Locker: Do you have a favourite year or city from the past?

MacLean: It was nice to go to Red Deer in year two, it is home. It was late in February, I think our date of broadcast was either Feb. 24 or Feb. 28. I did tell everybody at CBC to be careful doing it in late February, we get Chinooks — these beautiful warm spells that may melt Bower Ponds, where we were intending to host the show.

When we got there it was minus 40. There was a bunch of guys trying to do an overnight Guinness Book of World Records hockey game, and they all had frostbite on their torsos, between the shoulder pads and the pants. It was really cold.

We’ve had a number of those — Swift Current was cold. Winkler, Manitoba, was cold, and Iqaluit. It’s also gone the other way, Kamloops, B.C., was really toasty and at  Corner Brook in Newfoundland, it was 10 degrees on Jan. 7.

Locker: Should we be hitting the panic button over the World Juniors result?

MacLean: Definitely not. I don’t know what the answer is to pressure. A coaching touch here or there might have helped. Maybe Dave Cameron was trying to get them zeroed in, and it was too much.

When people ask what’s the biggest change you’ve seen in the game in your 40 years, it’s cell phones. It’s the fact that the kids are so wrapped up in their phone that they don’t meld as a team, and so that’s why there were fingers pointed at the non-practising. Might have been an excuse, if nothing else, to get them away from the phone.

I know the U-18 team used to say you can have your phone for two hours a day and that’s it. Kids would all show up like junkies for that moment when they could get back on their phones, but they but they were under 18 and you could tell them what to do.

You can’t tell an under 20 player because they’re already signed, usually with an NHL team, or they have an agent, and they have all these reasons why they need their phone. I think it’s hard to throw an all star team together.

Al Bieksa is Kevin Bieksa’s dad, and he runs the SteelWorkers union in B.C. with a big emphasis on workplace safety. He says Canada the only place in the world that has legalized killing, and he means stress in the workplace.

Stress goes anywhere from zero, which is just before you fall asleep, to 10 when you’re being chased by a bear. When you’re in that state of anxiety that the juniors team were clearly in, they could not make a pass. Your motor skills go to hell when you’re nervous and when you’re stressed. They succumbed to it as a host team. You can’t have a team if you’re on your phone and if you’re not together.

Locker: How serious do you think the players will the upcoming Four Nations Cup (starting Feb. 12)?

MacLean: Serious. Canada has to face Sweden in game one. Sweden is notoriously great defensively. They’ve always produced, you know, whether it’s Nick Lidstrom or Victor Hedman. They’re not an easy out.

It’s a format where you’re you can be out of the tournament after two games. I think Connor McDavid is thrilled to play on the same team with Sidney Crosby. Will Nathan MacKinnon, Mitch Marner and Crosby be a line? Crosby with two righties?

I believe Hart Trophy winners have a real formula for success, so MacKinnon has got his Hart, McDavid has got his Hart, Crosby’s got his Hart. They know what to do. So I don’t think pressure will be a factor at all, but I think Sweden’s defence could be an issue.

Locker: Is this the year a Canadian team brings home the Stanley Cup?

MacLean: Doesn’t Edmonton look good again? Right now only four of the seven are in but two of the others are two points out. Winnipeg’s so solid and they have a goalie who hasn’t been great in the playoffs. I think with Hellebuyck you have a great chance to win.

Edmonton has got the twin towers, who are just absolutely at the right age and right level of sick of losing. They should be a consensus favourite. Toronto, if they get their act together, are really solid.

Locker: Is there anything you can tease about the Hockey Day in Canada broadcast music?

MacLean: Chad Brownlee has been a special guest all week. Chad was a Vernon Viper in the BCHL, and took that to play at Minnesota State and an NCAA scholarship, played a little bit of pro in the East Coast Hockey League, but his shoulders gave out, and at the age of 23 he flipped over to music. He’s going to do the opening for the Boston Ottawa show.

We’ve got Steve Miller (Fly Like an Eagle). The way they found the route to build a railway through the Rocky Mountains was to follow the eagles, the actual birds, which flew through holes.

And we have Paul Brandt. I was lucky enough to be at the CCMAs in Saskatchewan when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He’s got a great song for us.