Kraft Hockeyville ‘unreal’ experience for Elliot Lake community

SUDBURY, Ontario -- Amanda McKay received the Kraft Hockeyville trophy at center ice from Jessica Small and Maryjo Tait representing 2023 winner West Lorne, Ontario. A chair of the Elliot Lake Local Organizing Committee and integral part of the hockey program just spent the past three days showing the NHL and the Stanley Cup around the quiet retirement community deprived of its Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League team when a failed inspection closed Centennial Arena.

McKay was tired after working tirelessly to bring Hockeyville to "our jewel in the wilderness." She then dropped the ceremonial first puck between Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Brady Tkachuk of the Ottawa Senators to start a preseason game at Sudbury Community Arena on Sunday.

Euphoria took over. Hockeyville 2024 belongs to Elliot Lake, their reward $250,000 for arena upgrades and a 5-2 Penguins victory. For many it was the first and conceivably only time in their lives seeing the NHL this closely.

McKay returned to her suite and set the trophy aside. That winning feeling had yet to settle in.

"It's probably going to be tonight when I finally decompress then it's going to be like, wow," McKay said. "And then to drop the puck with Sid and Tkachuk, unreal."

McKay and her 25-year-old son, Kieran, are tough enough to care for Liam, age 20 and living with schizencephaly, a rare brain disorder that has him missing the right side of the frontal lobe in his brain with a severe side effect of epilepsy. Elliot Lake fought back from the closing of their uranium mines in the early 1990s and a growing reality that a shuttered arena would either prolong the return of their hockey and figure skating clubs or see them dissolved completely.

Then Hockeyville happened. Kids who were already happy to be on the red carpet were exultant. Crosby, their favorite, scored two goals. His Stanley Cup championship teammates, Evgeni Malkin (hat trick, assist), Kris Letang and Bryan Rust, combined for eight points (three goals, five assists).

The Penguins and Senators were one team bringing everyone together.

"You can tell the passion for the game is here," Crosby said. "It's something that's ingrained in the community, like it is in so many communities. To have a game like this to raise money and create more and more opportunity, ultimately that's what it's about.

"Hopefully this gives everybody a big boost. There's always little reminders of the way people come together when you need to. This is another example of it."

Northern Ontario representation was strong. Pittsburgh forward Michael Bunting played two seasons for Soo in the Ontario Hockey League, his first season under Penguins general manager Kyle Dubas, a Sault Ste. Marie native who held the position with the Greyhounds. Rust's wife, Kelsey, and his brothers-in-law Tanner and Jarrett Burton are from the area; Tanner (2006-09) and Joe (2007-08) having played for Blind River in the NOJHL. Ottawa forward Claude Giroux had family, including his octogenarian grandmother, Helene, making the six-hour drive from his hometown of Hearst.

At the game were Elliot Lake residents Ryan Aboflan and Lianne Wawrzaszek. Their 19-year-old son is Noah Aboflan, who's played two games for London of the OHL after signing a scholarship and development agreement Sept. 27. Aboflan had 44 points (22 goals, 22 assists) in 45 games for the Elliot Lake Vikings and Pelham of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League last season. Perseverance and good karma are about to pay back the town's youth and their families.

"Anytime you can get out and touch people that don't normally get to be around the NHL, I think it's great," Senators coach Travis Green said. "We're trying to grow the League, but also the bigger picture of getting people to experience something that maybe they wouldn't is very nice."

Bryan MacKay, a member of Elliot Lake Minor and Major Hockey for 50 years as a teacher and coach recognized as the town's 2023 Civic Award Recipient, received special recognition during the second television timeout of the second period, two days after Hockey Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier surprised him at his home with a visit from the Stanley Cup. It was a week when students K-12, members of Stone Ridge Golf Course, the Huron Lodge Retirement Home, Elliot Lake Fire Station and a 6-year-old named Elijah Hennessey getting treated for a rare genetic condition were all astonished seeing and touching the NHL trophy.

"Hockeyville, everybody gets attached to it," MacKay said last week.

Hockeyville and Elliot Lake are forever joined at the hip. Centennial Arena is closer to a restoration and the hockey community a rebirth thanks to the grand prize and the Jamie and Jo-Ann Armstrong Centennial Arena Fundraising Challenge that drew a combined total of $952,787.

"Elliot Lake needed a win," said Jordan Eady, assistant to the fire chief.

The doors of their rink will reopen to cheers and cowbells, maybe for the Vikings' scheduled game against Kirkland Lake on Oct. 13. People will return and the program will rise again.

Hockeyville was the launching pad.

"We all had our strengths and what our jobs were, and we worked together and got it done," McKay said.