Another Roadside Attraction: The Channel Cat

Being that it's the Victoria Day long weekend, I had some extra time to get some errands done this weekend as Monday is a holiday. Normally, this would be a weekend where I would be planting vegetables in my garden, but the near-freezing temperatures that have settled over Manitoba have made that nearly impossble. Instead, I got a few things done around the yard, and I was up early enough to visit another well-known gigantic statue in the province!

Today's adventure took me north to Selkirk, Manitoba which sits about 40 minutes north of downtown Winnipeg. As per the 2021 census, Selkirk had 10,500 residents at that time, but the city feels like it has grown in the five years since those numbers were recorded. The city was incorporated in 1882 and named after Scotsman Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk, who was granted the right to establish a colony in the region. Among the attractions found in the city are the vertical lift bridge that connects Selkirk and East Selkirk, the Marine Museum of Manitoba, and a Canadian Coast Guard base. But Selkirk is getting its credit today for another attraction that's hard to miss.

What About The Statue?

We'll start with the sign affixed to the statue's base that explains how this statue came to be known as "Chuck". As you can see, it honours Chuck Norquay, a local fisherman, who helped Selkirk earn the reputation of being the "Catfish Capital of the World", and it was thought that his efforts should be recognized. While the original plaque just had some generic info about "Chuck the Channel Cat", the new plaque seen to the right was added after Chuck Norquay tragically drowned in 1993. This new plaque honours Chuck Norquay nicely, and the old plaque was moved to another side.

Officially, "Chuck the Channel Cat" sits at 168 Main Street in Selkirk, directly in front of a Smitty's restaurant. The fibreglass statue was erected on May 23, 1986, but it was originally slated to be placed in Selkirk Park. A petition featuring 900 signatures along with feedback from community surveys had Selkirk city councillors reconsider the location, eventually landing on placing it downtown in the business district for all to see. Depending on which website you check, the statue is one of 25-feet, 33-feet, or 36-feet tall, but the City of Selkirk maintains that it's 11 meters (36 feet) tall from the bottom to the tip of Chuck's tail. In 2024, Chuck was restored after years of weathering as he was repaired and got a new coat of paint to make him look stately once more. Five days from today, Chuck will officially celebrate his 40th birthday by standing proudly in downtown Selkirk!

What's The Hockey Connection?

I could speak about how proud Selkirk is of the MJHL's Selkirk Steelers or the CRJHL's Selkirk Fisherman. I could point out how Selkirk was one of the locations used for games during the 2007 IIHF Women's World Hockey Championship, and how the city hosted the Telus Cup in 2009. Historically, the original Selkirk Fishermen competed for the Memorial Cup, former NHLers Andrew Murray and Neil Wilkinson both called the city home, or how Selkirk's first indoor arena, the Alexandra Rink, was built in 1907 until it was demolished in 1955.

Instead, I want to focus on one individual who made a world of difference in the NHL. Jimmy Skinner was born on January 12, 1917 in Selkirk, Manitoba where he learned to play and coach hockey. Skinner played with the Indianapolis Capitals before breaking into coaching, and a 1950 incident in Barrie, Ontario saw the fiery Windsor Spitfires coach suspended for a month and fined $50 after he was convicted of assaulting an usher! I'm not sure of the details of that event, but we'll leave the criminal assaults involving Skinner for another future article on HBIC.

In 1954, Skinner was reportedly the choice of Jack Adams to replace the departing Tommy Ivan as head coach of the Detroit Red Wings. With ownership having approved Skinner's hiring, Adams made it clear that the decision hung on Skinner who seemingly could not decided whether to take the job or not. However, he would accept the position eight days later at the age of 37, seven years after retiring as a player. His hiring saw him take over the defending Stanley Cup champions' coaching role as well as coaching against the NHL All-Stars to open the 1954-55 season. It ended as a 2-2 tie.

The end of the season would see the Red Wings qualify for the playoffs as the NHL's top team for the seventh season in a row. They knocked off the Boston Bruins in the opening round, and met the Montreal Canadiens in the Stanley Cup Final. In the seventh game of the series played at the Detroit Olympia, Skinner coached the Red Wings to a 3-1 in for their second-straight Stanley Cup championship!

Midway through the 1957-58 season, Skinner surprised everyone when he resigned from his position, forcing the Red Wings to name Sid Abel as the head coach for the remainder of the season. It would be revealed that he had an illness that forced him to step away from his duties, but he would return to the Red Wings in a front office capacity where he would work as their head scout and general manager among his various titles until he retired in 1983!

For those that may not know, Jimmy Skinner also worked at his father's business which is now a Manitoba landmark in Skinner's Restaurant! Skinner's Restaurant is located in Lockport, Manitoba and is 15 minutes south of Selkirk and 25 minutes north of Winnipeg. It started out as a hot dog stand where people could purchase "[h]ot dogs for a dime" and "french fries for a nickle" in 1929, and Jimmy Jr. would return in the summer to help his father run the restaurant while bringing some of the Detroit Red Wings players with him where they made some money serving and cooking food! How cool is that?

Selkirk has a solid hockey history, but Jimmy Skinner should be the name that comes to mind when Selkirk, Manitoba is mentioned. Perhaps Skinner is only overshadowed by Chuck the Channel Cat when it comes to famous icons from the Manitoba city, but there are some cool things to see if you're interested in visiting Selkirk, Manitoba!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

TBC: Tales From The Dressing Room

If you know anything about the weather that Winnipeg seems to always get on this May long weekend, it's that the weather is usually cold with intermittent spells of rain. Not surprisingly, this weekend has followed that trend, but that has allowed me to crack the spine on another book that I've been wanting to read. In saying that, Teebz's Book Club is proud to review Pierre Gervais: Tales From The Dressing Room, written by Mathais Brunet and published by Ovation Medias. Mathias spoke with the Montreal Canadiens' former equipment manager about everything he saw and experienced while working for the Canadiens, compiling them into this book. If you're looking for a unique perspective on a hockey club's culture, front office, and players, Tales From The Dressing Room is a book you want to read!

From the cover of Tales From The Dressing Room, "After a 35-year career in the Canadiens’ dressing room, Pierre Gervais has seen first-hand many moments that punctuated the history of the Habs. From his beginnings alongside Eddy Palchak to the Stanley Cup victories of 1986 and 1993, not to mention his participation in the 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014 Olympic Games, Pierre Gervais has had the pleasure of rubbing shoulders with several NHL stars and executives in the course of his career. But beyond all that, he has developed special relationships with many of them and allows us, through these pages, to get to know the inner workings of the National Hockey League by giving us unpublished and unexpected stories from behind the scenes of professional hockey." Gervais retired on on April 29, 2022.

Also from Tales From The Dressing Room, "Mathias Brunet has been a journalist at La Presse since 1994. This is his thirteenth book, ten of which are about the world of hockey. He has also written a dozen documentaries, two of which were nominated for the Gémeaux awards. He is also a collaborator at BPM 91.9 Sports since 2015." He continues to cover hockey for La Presse after covering the Montreal Canadiens for ten years, and has a podcast with Simon Boisvert called Mathias and the Serpent. He has also written hockey books about Michel Bergeron, Dave Morissette, Mario Tremblay, and a year behind the scenes with the Canadiens.

Tales From The Dressing Room isn't going to be a tell-all of things that the Montreal Canadiens never wanted published, but Pierre Gervais does have moments where he shares his opinion on certain players and people involved with the Montreal Canadiens. A lot of what was written isn't going to shock or surprise anyone, but he did provide a few facts about the team and certain players that may not be known.

I found Gervais' perspectives in Tales From The Dressing Room to be rather unique because it was almost entirely through his equipment manager lens. His interactions with other teams and players, specifically when working with Team Canada, were almost exclusively through other equipment managers rather than with the players. It was neat to see how these equipment managers trade information about players in order to ensure everything goes smoothly!

One of the things that one will discover in reading Tales From The Dressing Room is that Pierre Gervais is an educated wine connoisseur! He and a handful of Canadiens players became very interested in wine during their careers, and Gervais became the person that many players consulted when it came to wine. In one passage, he writes,

"The guys would look to me to make their choices. José (Théodore) would even call me when he was at the restaurant. He'd read the wine list and ask me which one to choose! I helped him build his cellar. When the 2000 Bordeaux - a great vintage - came out, I had found some for him as far away as Vancouver."

Who would have guessed that the guy in charge of order sticks, jerseys, and supplies for the Montreal Canadiens was also ordering wine for players like Théodore, Saku Koivu, and Mark Recchi, helping them build their wine cellars? That's one of the interesting things you'll learn about Pierre Gervais in Tales From The Dressing Room!

I will say that the release of Tales From The Dressing Room caused a bit of an uproar with the Montreal Canadiens as they tried to walk back some of the statements made by Pierre Gervais in the book after it was released. I want to be clear that not everything he stated may be true, but it is a retelling of his perceptions and interactions with various people involved with Montreal Canadiens over his years as an equipment manager. One can argue that how he framed certain people may not be accurate, but these are his experiences.

Overall, I found Tales From The Dressing Room an interesting read that gave some insight into a job that I always thought I could do. Pierre Gervais has 35 years of experience with the Canadiens and 45 years of experience in total, so he certainly is a subject matter expert. His experiences with personnel who worked and played for the Montreal Canadiens and Team Canada was interesting to read, and the short chapters curated by Mathias Brunet made Tales From The Dressing Room easy to read. Because of Gervais' stories and experiences and Brunet's writing, Pierre Gervais: Tales From The Dressing Room deserves the Teebz's Book Club Seal of Approval!

Tales From The Dressing Room was first printed in French and released on November 11, 2022 before being translated to English by the start of 2023. In saying this, copies of the book in either or both languages may be available at libraries and local bookstores. The book is easy to read without crass language for parents of younger hockey fans to consider, but there are references to alcohol. In saying that, Pierre Gervais: Tales From The Dressing Room is recommended reading for all hockey fans, especially Montreal Canadiens fans!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Whatcha Gonna Do?

People don't talk about them enough, but Canadian rock band Chilliwack had a pile of hits in their career that put them on the music map for a while. One of those songs that gained them both commercial and critical success was "Whatcha Gonna Do (When I'm Gone)" off their tenth studio album, Opus X, in 1982. The song hit #41 on the Billboard charts in the US, and producers Bill Henderson and Brian MacLeod received the Juno Award for "Producer of the Year" for their work on the song. This article isn't about the band named Chilliwack, though, but it is about the city and the potential WHL expansion team that's supposed to begin play in the 2027-28 season.

The WHL announced in March 2025 that it was adding a team in Chilliwack, BC and accepting applications for owners of the new club. The original plan was to have the franchise up and running for play in the 2026-27 season, but that was pushed back by a year after problems began surfacing with the Vancouver-based entertainment company MRG Group which was awarded ownership of the franchise.

The problem that seems to be holding up the proceedings is that the MRG Group wants to take over operations of the Chilliwack Coliseum from the City of Chilliwack, but the city has no interest in doing that. According to a report in The Province by Steve Ewen, the two sides appear to have broken off talks with both sides accusing the other of not communicating, bringing any and all negotiations to a halt.

"We're hopeful the city and MRG can work through an agreement for the WHL franchise to play in the Coliseum," a WHL spokesperson stated via a text message to Ewen. "If that ultimately breaks down, we will assess the matter and consider all options. We see MRG and its leadership as a strong candidate for a WHL franchise in the near term, be it in Chilliwack or elsewhere."

Obviously, it's hard to own a hockey team if there isn't a hockey arena in which the team can play. According to Matthew Gibbons, MRG Group President, they had approached the city with a plan to manage the Chilliwack Coliseum while having the WHL team play there as well as attracting as many as ten events per year to the facility.

"What we were equally clear about was that we would not proceed with a WHL franchise without a venue management agreement," Gibbons wrote to Ewan in an email. "That was not a hidden condition. It is the only model that makes sustainable sense, and both parties understood that from the beginning."

The issue, from everything I've read, is that the city has pledged to invest $3.7 million to bring the Chilliwack Coliseum up to WHL standards, and they seem to have zero interest in turning operation of the arena over to another group. The Chiefs Development Group had worked in partnership with the city to build the rink in 2003 with the Chiefs Development Group managing and running daily operations for the rink, but the arena has reportedly fallen into disrepair and requires major investments to bring it back up to modern standards.

With the city taking over management and operations on May 1, it seems they're aiming to get a return on their $4 million investment in the city-owned facility by having the new WHL team leasing the facility while they capture parking, concessions, and other revenue streams. Frankly, taxpayers should be in favour of the city managing and operating the publicly-owned facility to refill the coffers.

WHL Commissioner Dan Near laid it out pretty clearly to Ewen, saying, "People think these deals are easy, but it's us, the franchisee and the facility trying to triangulate a deal structure that meets everyone's expectations. The city is putting nearly $4 million of renovations into the building. They want to ensure the tenant has a deal that's structured well for them. We are similar. If these deals were easy to do, someone involved would be losing badly."

Maybe that's the clearest explanation in all of this because no one wants to lose when an expansion franchise is placed in a city. Yes, it would be easy for the City of Chilliwack to turn over management of the arena to the MRG Group, but would the city see a return on the $4 million investment they're making to attract a WHL team?

Yes, it would be easy for the MRG Group to simply move into the city-run Chilliwack Coliseum, but we know that all hockey teams rely heavily on those revenue streams that bolster their bottom lines like concessions, parking, and merchandise. How badly would this WHL Chilliwack team suffer if they didn't have those revenue streams?

If there's a bonus for the city, Moray B. Keith, one of the owners of the BCHL's Chilliwack Chiefs who was managing the arena, wants no part of the current WHL expansion franchise and he says the Chiefs will continue to play out of the Coliseum next season and beyond whether the WHL team moves in or not. If the WHL looks to pivot away from MRG Group as owners, you can scratch Keith's name off the list as a potential owner for this new WHL franchise as well.

I'm not here to drop any negativity on Chilliwack, but having the WHL award an expansion franchise to a city with no ownership group and no arena agreement seems like a hasty decision. I get that the WHL wanted to find a way back into Chilliwack after the Bruins left in 2016, but this whole situation is a mess right now. THe WHL needs both the City of Chilliwack and the MRG Group to figure this out as soon as possible in order to get this expansion back on the right path.

Right now, it feels like this expansion opportunity is closer to failing than succeeding. Perhaps Chilliwack had it right when they sang, "There's no time for changing plans/I must leave, it's in your hands/I know you'll wait for how long/Whatcha gonna do when I'm gone?"

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Paying For Stupidity

There is zero obligation for anyone to like the Vegas Golden Knights or John Tortorella when it comes to one's hockey allegiances. I get that Tortorella's antics often rub people the wrong way, and there are a lot of hockey fans who simply don't like how the Golden Knights conduct business in general. They seem to enjoy embracing the villain role when it comes to a lot of what they do, and maybe that's because they aren't afraid to push the envelope in a lot of situations. With the Golden Knights not being happy about Brayden McNabb's one-game suspension, you have to figure that they were going to respond after the game with comments or statements about how they overcame unfair rulings, but that didn't happen because the Golden Knights decided they weren't speaking to the media after their Game Six victory that eliminated Anaheim.

The NHL mandates that each team has to make coaches and players available after each game which allows the media to ask questions and obtain quotations for stories they're writing about the game and, in this case, the series. It's not a matter of choice because the NHL requires it as part of their media practices. Opting out isn't an option even if one doesn't feel up to it. The NHL says teams have to do it.

Cue the Golden Knights for their brand of chaos as head coach John Tortorella refused to speak to reporters after the game while, as a team, the Golden Knights didn't provide access to their locker room in accordance with NHL and Players' Association-negotiated media regulations in the CBA. Needless to say, people at the NHL's head office were not going to be happy about this development.

Today, the NHL made it very clear not to mess with their kingdom as the league removed a 2026 second-round pick from the Vegas Golden Knights and fined John Tortorella a hefty $100,000 for violating media access rules. The Golden Knights can appeal their draft-pick penalty if they choose, s0 expect the Golden Knights to demand that second-round pick back since they don't have many to give away.

The thing that kills me in all this is that all they had to do was show up after the game, give a few comments, and this wouldn't even be a thing today. Sure, the team and coach can be angry that one of their regular defencemen is out of the lineup for what they believe wasn't anything suspendable, but was it worth sacrificing a second-round pick and $100,000 over when they simply could have said, "We disagree with the league's assessment" and gone back to celebrating their series-clinching win? That's a heavy price to pay for stupidity.

I've listened to hockey pundits talk about how John Tortorella has let his sideshow upstage his coaching over his entire career, and I'm not saying that I disagree with that. Tortorella gets results in the immediate honeymoon phase of his hiring, but there's almost always some sort of non-coaching problem that begins to develop in that time. Whether he's alienating players, trying to pick fights with opposing coaches, or clashing with management, it seems that John Tortorella doesn't conform to accepted NHL norms and traditions.

In summary, it seems he fits perfectly with the Vegas Golden Knights.

Jokes aside, one has to wonder how long the Golden Knights will tolerate this kind of behaviour from Tortorella assuming that they weren't part of the planning that went into this stunt. Losing valuable draft picks isn't something any team wants, and it's safe to assume that the NHL will hit the Golden Knights with harsher penalties if they were to do this again. And all of this happened because someone had their knickers in a knot over the NHL ruling that Brayden McNabb's interference in Game Five was suspension-worthy. That's so dumb.

I expect the Golden Knights to get their pick back because the NHL came down so harshly, but let this be a warning to all NHL teams: if you do stupid things, you're going to pay dearly. That's a lesson the Vegas Golden Knights and John Tortorella learned the hard way today.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 712

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, returns tonight with a lot of hockey chatter from the last couple of weeks as exit interviews took up a chunk of time last week. We're going to push the exit interviews to next week so we can get everyone caught up on the big news stories from the hockey world, so Derek (Philadelphia) and Dave (Minnesota) can have a week to prepare their statements on their teams. Out hosts have all sorts of information to cover so this show will move quickly. Be ready to roll tonight for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason look at the PWHL Final series that will be played by the Ottawa Charge and the Montreal Victoire as there are several U SPORTS, Canada West, and Manitoba tie-ins regarding who will win the first Walter Cup in Canada. Beyond that, there will be a serious discussion about the four new expansion locations that the PWHL chose, we have some Team Manitoba parahockey updates from Nationals to go over, Edmonton and Toronto are making changes, the USHL and SPHL are expanding, we'll finally get to a Spengler Cup discussion, and we'll tackle anything else that may come up. It's a big day of expansion and results tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about the Walter Cup, expansion, medals, coaches, management, bad decisions, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

PODCAST: May 14, 2026: Episode 712

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!