When Darnell Nurse of the Edmonton Oilers takes to the ice in Rogers Arena Wednesday, a little part of his hometown of Hamilton will be underfoot.
Rogers picked six Canadians on the team — including captain Connor McDavid and forward Evander Kane — and collected ice from rinks where they grew up. Then they transported the ice to Edmonton and used it to resurface the NHL ice ahead of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final.
It’s the first time the company has done it — and a neat way to give “home-ice advantage” to the Oilers, says Ryan Kinsella, rep director for the league that plays at the Hamilton arena where Nurse’s piece of ice comes from.
On Saturday in Hamilton’s Flamborough region, Rogers scraped the ice at Harry Howell Twin-Pad Arena to honour Nurse.
The 30-year-old defender started playing at Bill Friday Lawfield Arena on the Hamilton Mountain when he was four years old, but that arena is closed for the summer, Rogers Communications spokesperson Victoria Ahearn said in an email.
Nurse is the brother of professional women’s basketball player Kia Nurse and cousin to professional hockey player Sarah Nurse, who’s also from Hamilton.
“I think [this] gives a real good feel to the minor hockey players … knowing some of their ice that they play on a regular basis is going to be part of the Stanley Cup,” Kinsella told CBC Hamilton.
Flamborough Hockey plays games at Harry Howell. Kinsella, who was born in nearby Waterdown, played for the Flamborough Sabres and now has three boys who play hockey in the community.
Harry Howell is one of the city’s busiest rinks, he said, hosting hockey teams, coaches and a skating club.
The ice rink initiative will hopefully help inspire kids to reach for their goals, Kinsella added. “Little initiatives like this help to keep those dreams alive.”
Rogers worked with the rinks to scrape ice into sealed thermoses. Those were transported to Edmonton where, on Monday, they were poured into the ice making tank of the Rogers Place Zamboni, Ahearn said.
Other rinks Rogers took ice from are:
The Magna Centre in Newmarket, Ont., where McDavid played for the York-Simcoe Express AAA organization from about age 10 to 15.
The Rink in Winnipeg, where Calvin Pickard practices during the off-season.
North Shore Winter Club in Vancouver, where Kane started playing minor hockey at 14.
Burnaby Winter Club in Burnaby, B.C., where Ryan Nugent-Hopkins played minor hockey from 2006 to 2008.
Confederation Leisure Centre in Edmonton, which is affiliated with the hockey program Stuart Skinner played with while in high school.
“Hockey’s biggest stage should reflect where the game truly begins — in hometown hockey rinks across Canada,” Terrie Tweddle, chief brand and communications officer for Rogers said in a statement.
He said the initiative, called This Is Our Ice, is about celebrating “collective pride in Canada’s game as the Oilers play to bring home the Stanley Cup.”
The Oilers are having a rematch with the Florida Panthers, the defending Stanley Cup champions who beat them 2-1 in Game 7 of the final last year.
Then, there were four players in the final with connections to the Hamilton-area: Nurse and Adam Henrique of the Oilers and Carter Verhaeghe and Brandon Montour with the Panthers.
Verhaege brought the Stanley Cup home to Hamilton’s Waterdown area in August. In July, Montour — who now plays for the Seattle Kraken — brought it home to Six Nations. Henrique is from Brantford, Ont.
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When asked if he’d rather see Nurse or Verhaeghe bring the cup to Hamilton this year, Kinsella laughed. “It’s a bit of a torn situation,” he said.
Kinsella has met Nurse’s dad, and worked with some of the same coaches as him, but said he also appreciates Verhaege.
Ultimately, Kinsella said, his middle child is a huge McDavid and Oilers fan, so Kinsella will be rooting for them. “Hopefully we can see a Canadian team bring it home.”
