I’m just going to tell you right now that this entry is not about me explaining the power play. I expect, nay, DEMAND, that my readers are crazy enough about our beloved sport not to require an online version of Hockey for Dummies! Moving on…
Today I started my first day in production for a new MTV movie currently filming in Toronto and Hamilton. Don’t get excited, this movie is completely unrelated from my hockey projects – sorry to kill the moment for you. Anyway, if you can believe it I’m still “working,” and need to kill some time while this day of endless filming carries on into the night. I am going to share my hockey moment of the day in this very brief, and possibly very boring, entry, so that I can feel like I am being productive while I sit in my little chair and drink my diet Coke.
Perhaps it was the fact that I decided to wear my sparkly Detroit Red Wings shirt to work today, but the lunch time (we had Greek – mmm!) conversation inevitably turned to my love of the game. With my luck and history, you can imagine that MY boss would naturally reveal that she, too, has worked on hockey shows in the past. Recently, in The Phoenix saga continues, I cited the Canadian television series Power Play. Here’s a refresher in case you forgot:
According to the Canadian TV show, Power Play (a show revolving around the dealings of a mock NHL team, the Hamilton Steelheads), Hamilton is a small hockey market. Not sure what the writers of that show were on.
I obviously admitted to watching the show and referencing it in my blog. If you know anything about me by now, then you’ll know that I didn’t shy away from reiterating exactly what I just quoted above when she asked me what I said about it. I explained how I compared it to the current Coyotes situation, and how Hamilton/Southern Ontario is not the small hockey market as mentioned in the show. Except I definitely said, “I’m not sure what the writers were on, BUT…”
My boss attempted to brainstorm an explanation for Hamilton being labeled “small time” in the show, and deduced that it must have been the protagonist’s American mindset that anything not American is small time in comparison. Hmm, it’s a good theory, but seems doubtful. After all, even the greatest Phoenix Coyotes fans know that Hamilton is a massive market worth far more than the value Jim Balsillie has attempted to purchase it for. And I think it is common knowledge to even the Garriest of Bettmans that the Toronto Maple Leafs are the financial superpower of the National Hockey League (because you know they aren’t the superpower of anything else). My feeling is that the likelier reason for Power Play to claim that Hamilton is a small hockey market is, to quote a producer I was working with, that, “TV writers are not jocks, that’s why sports shows are often fairly inaccurate.” To be fair, I can see their reasoning – I mean it IS dirty Hamilton!
Anyway, that’s my hockey story for today! Hopefully, the calls from distressed actors fretting that they were not scheduled in for enough hair time will cease for long enough tomorrow for me to have another action packed (sarcasm) hockey moment to share with you. Better wear my Flyers shirt just in case. P.S. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the 07-08 edition of Confessions of a Hockey Addict through the Worst Photography You’ve Ever Seen.
Coincidentally, "MVP: Secret Lives of Hockey Wives" tok place in Hamilton too.
Just sayin'
MVP was filmed in Hamilton and London…but the team was Toronto. I worked on that show