Tim Hortons Flew The Only Kenyan Men's Ice Hockey Team Out To Canada To Play A Game And They Got A Couple Of New Teammates
Okay so first of all–no free ads. This video may be great and Tim Hortons did an awesome job with this. But I watched this video while enjoying my nice, warm, delicious breakfast from Panera. That’s the best way to start the day right there. Breakfast from Panera and a heartwarming hockey video put together by some other company that won’t be named anymore throughout the blog. NO FREE ADS.
But yeah. From start to finish, that’s about as heartwarming as it gets. Just think about what it has to be like for these guys. I can’t imagine there are too many people in Kenya who are necessarily supportive of a group of guys playing ice hockey. I can’t imagine there are too many people in Kenya who have even seen a group of guys playing ice hockey before. But that doesn’t matter to this group of beauties because they found the game, they realized how beautiful the sport is, and they knew that they had to be a part of it no matter how much trouble they have to go through just to be able to play. Even us beer leaguers take that for granted. We bitch and complain about having to play at 10:30pm on a Tuesday night. Or we bitch about showing up to those late games and the other team doesn’t even show up with enough guys to play. But for these guys in Kenya? All they need is a sheet of ice at any time and at least a couple other guys out there to skate around with and they’re happy as could be. That’s what it’s all about right there.
But then to get invited to take a trip over to Canada, play in an actual rink, walk into a locker room that is set up with new equipment and uniforms for the boys, and then oh yeah–these two guys show up?
Just two of the best players in the world. And not only do Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon just show up to your locker room (albeit uninvited), but they’re wearing your team jersey and you get to go out there and play with them. That’s beyond a once in a lifetime experience. There are only so many guys in the world who will ever get to say that they were teammates with Sidney Crosby. Maybe like 0.00000000001% of the world’s population. And now this group of guys from Kenya get to be a part of that.
And this is how the sport grows. At one point, this was just a group of guys in Kenya playing a sport that probably not many other people in Kenya have seen before, and they were playing against themselves. Now they get to go back and build up a youth program full of kids who can hope to one day have an experience like this. It’s some inspirational shit.
P.S. – I’m still going to hate Sidney Crosby anytime he plays against the Flyers. But it sucks that he’s just a really good and seemingly genuine dude. Definitely a tough look for my brand.