a big family

By
Gardner Watts
2021 wjc family feature

Unable to make it to Edmonton, Canada’s National Junior Team families actually keep in touch with the players – and with each other

In what is certainly unconventional year for this Canadian holiday hockey tradition, the IIHF World Junior Championships are much shorter than the “normal” year.

The game on ice is the same, but that’s about it.

The biggest difference is the absence of fans in Edmonton. The approximately 18,000 spectators who typically fill the grounds for Team Canada’s games are family and friends.

This year, they are at home like all other Canadians, Stephen Leroux, Norman Flynn, Michelle Wie. Lacroix, Mark Dennis, Bruno Gerwice and the rest of the RDS are hanging on the words of the team.

Hockey Canada nevertheless has ensured that Team Canada’s families receive golden treatment, even from far away.

During each of the pre-rounds, the players’ mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers appeared on TSN’s show and featured on social media, proving that there is no distance to support it when it is the team.

They are all in red and white, some wearing the same heel jersey the players played for three of the first four matches.

“Nothing better than a New Year’s Eve game !! Go Team Canada! – Sean Newhook

(This limited series of jerseys are offered to fans

Hockey Canada Official Online Store

.)

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The Team Canada Family Program goes out of its way to ensure families are a part of the World Juniors experience, despite the distance this year.

Before the start of the tournament, relatives of the players had received a package containing jerseys, tox, caps, scarves and more. Usually, these gifts are kept under the tree in the families’ hotel rooms, but this year, due to an epidemic, we had to distribute them at home.

The social dimension is also important. Last year, in Ostrava, Czech Republic, families participated in a treasure hunt together and visited the Krakow, Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps, as well as the Silesian Castle of Ostrava, among other excursions.

this year? A WhatsApp group has been operational since Boxing Day, and videoconferencing allows families to interact in the best of circumstances.

Like every year, the goal is to reunite families as Hockey Canada reunites players, so that the garlands of the Newhooks of Victoria, BC, and St. John’s, NL, feel as if they were in the same room.

We also celebrated some birthdays in the bubble.

“Good 19I Birthday, @ ColePerfetti91! Mummy, Papa and I would love to celebrate with you, but we would be so proud to see you fulfill your dream of representing @HockeyCanada_en on @HC_CMJ. Good luck in the quarter finals tomorrow! #MondialJunior ”- Abby Parfetti

In addition to social media posts and post-match video calls, the families communicated with the players via personal video messages, presenting the team on Christmas day before the tournament began.

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For many players, it is the first Christmas away from their loved ones. Outside the home since the start of selection camp on 16 November, players have found some familiar faces for these videos.

No one goes to World Juniors alone. The tournament is a culmination of commitment and dedication from not only the players, but also their families and friends.

These 12 days in Edmonton are an opportunity to thank him for his support and bring the entire Hockey Canada family together – from British Columbia, Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.

This year, the world over 5,000 kilometers virtually separates Juniors families from coast to coast, but thanks to Hockey Canada, they were never so close.

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