For those of you who know me, you know I was a rink-rat as a kid, growing up in Hanley, Sk. As a small town we often didn’t have enough kids to make a full team, so we often called kids up from a lower age level to fill out the roster. From the age of 6 until I completed minor hockey in Grade 12, I played on both my team, and often picked up extra games and practices with the age above me.
My room was plastered with the posters of Steve Yzerman, Wayne Gretzky, Doug Gilmour, Felix Potvin, and of course Ray Bourque. Fun fact: that Bourque poster is on my way in my office right now, and made an appearance in my recent CTV interview about my “Wild Bill Hunter” documentary (more on that later).
So every time I get called to work on a hockey project, I immediately get really excited. A few weeks ago, I got called to shoot some B-Roll of Wilkie receiving a giant cheque form Kraft as a finalist for Hockeyville. They recieved $25,000 to go towards arena improvements, $10,000 in hockey equipment for local youth playing minor hockey and 10,000 pounds of food from Kraft Heinz for the Wilkie food bank.
While there I also got to meet Mike Sillinger, a 17-year veteran of the NHL. As my second fun fact for this post, Mike played for twelve different teams and was traded nine times during his NHL career, both of which stand as league records (he is tied with Brent Ashton for the latter record).
The footage I captured was used to fill out a larger story on Kraft Hockeyville on the evening news, but I never got to see it. If anyone out there has a link, please drop us a link on our facebook page (facebook.com/campfirestoriesvideo).
If you are an out of town producer looking for someone to gather some Saskatchewan shots or need a fixer for a shoot in Saskatoon, please give us a shout. We can help manage your rentals, find some of the best crew around, or go grab those shots you’re missing.
Kyle Burgess
