Many Canadians look back at their childhood and remember playing pond hockey with their friends at the local outdoor rink or the small frozen pond down the lane. Les Gagne dreamed bigger: he wanted to play on the Rideau Canal.
A few years ago, a grownup Gagne turned his dream into the Beaver Cup, an annual outdoor hockey tournament during Winterlude played on the canal.
Now, his dream is going national. Gagne has teamed up with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to create the Corporate Pond Hockey Challenge.
Companies from across the nation come to Ottawa to play pond hockey. Gagne says it is a way to promote the game and bring the nation together.
“It’s the idea of companies from across Canada in partnership with their local chamber of commerce to come and show off their community spirit by participating in the Beaver Cup,” he says.
Michel Barsalou, executive vice-president of communications at the chamber, says the main goal is to have other businesses network with each other.
“(We are) an organization that enables businesses to come together in a networking environment to get to know one another and to pursue business opportunities,” he says.
“We saw the Beaver Cup as an extension of what we do by promoting the event with businesses not only in Ottawa but all across the country.”
Gagne says this year's tournament, running Feb. 12 to 14, is a looser, faster style of hockey and is the original winter classic.
“This is really a chance to get back to the way our game was started,” he says. “We try to really connect with the sport. We try to keep it as natural as possible.”
Each game consists of two 15-minute periods of four-on-four hockey.
Goalies are replaced with specially designed nets. Teams are allowed six players, so the games are quicker.
“The players get more ice time playing pond hockey with this format than they would if they were playing traditional hockey, so it’s pretty intense,” says Gagne. “There are not a lot of whistles, but there are a lot of goals.”
The tournament also faced a major obstacle – the weather.
The canal has been closed multiple times this winter because of higher-than-normal temperatures and rain.
As it stands now, the Beaver Cup tournament will be played on three ponds on Dows Lake. Gagne says he hopes temperatures will dip closer to the tournament, allowing them to play on the canal.
Gagne says this is the only tournament allowed to play hockey on the canal, a major selling point to potential participants.
David St. Croix played in last year’s Beaver Cup and is returning this year.
He lives in London, Ont., but travels to Ottawa to play in the tournament. His team goes to a number of different outdoor tournaments.
But St. Croix says the Beaver Cup stands out as one of the best in Canada.
“The atmosphere was much different. You highfive people on the way by and interacting with a lot of the teams,” he says. “That’s what it’s about.”
St. Croix says the playing in the Beaver Cup brings back the feelings of being a kid.
But instead of just the local outdoor rink, he will be playing on the world’s largest skating rink in his nation’s capital.