If another Slap Shot movie were to ever to be made, the casting scouts would have missed a wonderful opportunity to fill the roles of hockey fans Saturday night at Britannia Rink.
Men, many of them with bushy beards that wouldn’t have been out of place behind the counter of a turn-of-the-century hardware store, bellowed and guffawed with equally raucous women about 100 strong all in the stands of the East Vancouver rink. The racket, which either spurred or rattled their friends on the ice below, was a novelty in itself for most of the players who would be lucky to have a girlfriend come out to one regular league game. Even then she’d probably be playing Candy Crush on her iPhone.
It was the first-ever Beer League BASH tournament, hosted by Bomber Brewing which set up shop a block from the rink just over a year ago. As any grown amateur hockey player will tell you, beer and hockey have equal footing on a healthy day, which is how Bomber Brewing was born. It grew from post-game, home-brew beers in the parking lot of a North Vancouver rink into a bonafide business.
Player and Bomber Brewing creative director Cam Andrews wasted no time in planning a fundraiser involving fellow craft beer breweries and hockey with money raised going towards the Britannia After School Hockey program that gives underprivileged teenagers an opportunity to learn and play the game.
“The people around here support our brewery like crazy so it’s a way to give back which sounds totally cliché without even trying, but it’s true,” said Andrews before jumping on the ice with the Bombers to face the eventual tournament champs Red Truck Beer Company. “We go to all these beer festivals and you stand around.
You’re just drinking beer, talking about beer and there’s nothing happening at them really. So I thought it would be fun to have a beer festival with hockey games going on at the same time. It brings us as a community together. We’re all hanging out with our friends, they’re all in breweries. Beer and hockey — they go together.”
The tournament came together so smoothly that Andrews is already planning next year’s version. Britannia welcomed the idea and donated six hours of ice time, referees, timekeepers and other staff. Even the story behind the tournament’s gleaming championship cup is one meant for an East Van hockey tournament.
“I found a big trophy in the back alley of my condo during Grey Cup week. Somebody had brought it as a prop I guess and left it there,” Andrews said. “I ran down four flights of stairs and grabbed it. When I took it in to get engraved the guy was like, ‘This is a $400 trophy!’”
Britannia Rink was built during a time when people were hardier and thought nothing of showing up with a blanket to watch the local game. Without the separation of the glass of overhead pubs and flat-screen televisions in every corner present in many newer commercial rinks, the building’s old-fashioned design lent itself well to a beer festival.
Eleven local breweries sold tasters in the concourse just feet above the stands, making it convenient for both beer fans as well as players who were stripped down to weathered hockey pants, T-shirts and flip flops to have a beer between games.
BASH head instructor Jay Aikenhead was thrilled with the tournament turnout as most of the 200 beer tickets were sold along with donations for hockey gear the Bombers arranged through their hockey connections.
“Already we’ve gotten, and we’re two hours in, 30 sticks. It’s just great,” he said. The tournament raised $2,500 to go towards more gear, staffing costs, snacks for kids, and program expansion. BASH started in 2010 with just one camp and donations have provided the means for three camps, one during spring break and two in the summer.
It’s not just through Britannia’s programs such as BASH and the women’s learn-to-play where players step on the ice for the first time. Even the tournament had one first-timer on the Craft Beer All-Stars in Stefan Lillos, a hops distributor when he’s not wearing ICBC’s Learner sticker on the back of his helmet while on the ice.
“I bought all my hockey stuff two weeks ago so I could play,” he said. “I can’t stop out there, I don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s just fun. It’s a great group of guys.”
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