Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to join with my colleagues in the House of Commons this evening to support Bill C-212.
I stand in this House as a certified CAHA hockey coach. I am from Saskatchewan and we do have world curling champions, both men and women. Hockey is played in every community on every dugout in the winter and on every piece of ice that one can find in every community in our province.
That is a tribute to the type of thing we are doing today in the House of Commons, making hockey along with lacrosse our official national sports.
Every Canadian either played hockey or wants to play hockey. It is a dream of almost every young hockey player to play in the NHL.
Although Saskatchewan does not have any NHL teams we have exported a number of NHL hockey players to make up a number of teams. For example, we have Mike Modano playing for the Dallas Stars. He played for the Prince Albert Raiders at one point. Ron Grechner who is now with the Sabres is from North Battleford. Theoren Fleury from the Calgary Flames was playing for Moose Jaw at one point. Jeff Shantz is from the Regina Pats. He is playing with the Chicago Black Hawks.
Of course Wendel Clark who is from Kelvington, Saskatchewan is playing with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Doug Wickenheiser, the first draft choice of the Montreal Canadiens, is from the Regina Pats. We have as well Barry Melrose who played hockey in the NHL and coaches the Los Angeles Kings. I believe he is from Kelvington as well, the same place as Wendel Clark. Bill Hicke played many years ago for the champion Montreal Canadiens.
We have from Floral, Saskatchewan Mr. Hockey, Gordie Howe. Hockey is such a popular sport in our province that there is even a statue to Gordie Howe among the many statues in Saskatoon that my colleague from across the floor would acknowledge and certainly support.
As a matter of fact, Gordie Howe is such a major figure in Saskatchewan that he has even got some colleagues of mine in university passing grades. For example, we had a psychology exam one day and one of my friends from Saskatchewan did not know the answers so he wrote a story about Gordie Howe which had nothing to do with psychology. The professor gave him an A for this exam because he was a Gordie Howe fan too. I think that it has interesting implications as we go through the hockey process.
I want to not only support this bill but acknowledge in this House that the Regina Pat Canadians are the 1994 Canadian midget champions. They have played very well throughout the season and ended up winning the entire championship recently.
Not only have I been a coach, I have worked with many individuals in the community. I want to acknowledge this evening the volunteers who have spent hundreds of hours and many years in particular in my district, Regina-Lumsden, working for both the parks and recreation leagues which have in my constituency probably about 2,000 hockey players overall, as well as those in the more competitive city league of Regina which has about 1,600 players for the entire city at a higher level.
I think what they are doing is very important. Individuals like Greg Mario, president of the Regina Northwest Sports Association, and Harald Gohlke, vice-president in charge of hockey,
have made significant contributions to the community by being involved in the sport, in the community by teaching young players not only skills but how to get along in life as they age and become very reliable and admirable citizens of our country.
There are about eight hockey rinks in my constituency. They are always filled from five o'clock in the morning until late at night. We have not only the recreation leagues and the competitive leagues but the senior leagues, the oldtimers, those over 30 as well. Everybody in my community, if they do not play hockey, has played hockey. I think that is an indication of the broad based support for this very important national sport that we are approving this evening.
In summary, I want to say that "he shoots, he scores" is a very well known slogan in hockey. As far as I am concerned everybody in this House this evening has taken a shot today and everybody has scored.