Bisons Rewind: Hometown Hockey

Tara Slone's career has been pretty remarkable when one considers everything that she's done so far. She fronted the Canadian alternative band Joydrop in the late 1990s as the vocalist for the group, finding commercial success in 2001 with the hit single "Sometimes Wanna Die" which earned Joydrop a Juno nomination. Slone followed the break-up of Joydrop by appearing as a contestant on Rock Star: INXS and followed that musical success with a hosting gig on Breakfast Television on CityTV Calgary in 2010. She also had appearances on TV shows such as La Femme Nikita and The Border, but it was 2014 where she found her legs in the hockey world!

As you know, Tara Slone and Ron MacLean began hosting Hometown Hockey on Sportsnet, and they've traveled across this country broadcasting hockey, bringing great community stories to light, and introducing the county to towns and cities that viewers may have never visited. I like the Sunday night broadcasts because of the work that Slone puts in during the week in producing and telling some incredible stories from the communities, and we were witness to that back on December 2 and 3, 2017 when Hometown Hockey called Winnipeg home for a weekend!

It was in knowing that the crew was coming here prior to the weekend that I reached out to Tara Slone and proposed the opportunity of having her down to Wayne Fleming Arena to do a little colour analyst work on the final game of the first half of the 2017-18 Canada West season as the UBC Thunderbirds rolled into town as the second-ranked team in the nation to face the fourth-ranked Manitoba Bisons. I honestly didn't think Tara would respond to my ask in knowing how important the Hometown Hockey broadcasts are, but Tara not only responded, but accepted the opportunity!

After some back and forth with her and the Rogers Sportsnet crew, Tara Slone, a camera crew, and her director were at Wayne Fleming Arena early on December 2, 2017 to have Tara test her skills as a colour analyst! She met up with TJ Phillips and myself as she became the newest colour analyst for Bisons women's hockey! As an aside, it was a chilly morning that day, and I recall wearing about thirty layers of clothes plus having my mittens in my hoodie's pockets. It's weird how you remember things like that when seeing the video again.

I have to hand it to Tara because she came in cold, but she knocked it out of the park with her efforts. I know she was very gracious is telling TJ and I that she was impressed with how much we knew about the players and the stats and all that, but she came in, did about 20 minutes of prep work, and still knocked it out of the park!

How do I know? I am proud to present, here on HBIC, the entire first period of action between the second-ranked Thunderbirds and the fourth-ranked Bisons from December 2, 2017 that featured the amazing Miss Tara Slone as the colour analyst alongside TJ and myself with Michael Elves as the studio host! Enjoy this broadcast, and check below for some notes about the game!

Game Notes

• As noted on the broadcast, Lauren Warkentin's goal at 11:20 of the first period was the first of her Canada West career. To this date, I'm not sure any other Canada West player has had their first career goal shown on Sportsnet as they did in the video.
• The Bisons would win this game on an overtime power-play goal by Venla Hovi at the 2:00 mark of the extra period.
• The overtime win would move the Bisons three points up on UBC in the battle for first-place in Canada West. Manitoba would end the first half of the season with a 10-4-2-0 record while being ranked fourth nationally.
• Defender Eric Rieder had two assists on the two Manitoba goals. Alana Serhan assisted on Warkentin's goal while Alanna Sharman assisted on Hovi's overtime marker as well.
• Not including the two referenced empty-net goals scored in the 3-0 Friday victory by the Thunderbirds, all four goals scored with the goalies in the nets came on the power-play that weekend.
• Rachel Dyck earned the victory in her 62:00 of work by stopping 11 of 12 shots she faced while Tory Micklash suffered the loss after making 23 saves on 25 shots.
• Brielle Bellerive, who scored the game-winning goal in the Friday night game, was the player sitting in the penalty box when Venla Hovi scored the overtime winner in this game.

Of course, this would be one of the bigger games that the Bisons played during that 2017-18 season. We'll have two more of the biggest games in Bisons women's hockey history tomorrow and on Sunday, so make sure you hit HBIC up over the next couple of days to hear the complete audio call of those games as our walk down memory lane continues for the next couple of days here on Bisons Rewind!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!