Me and Jerry at Dash For Cash game at Winterhawks

Last week I hit the ice…but my hit was figurative and far less painful than the literal hit taken by Jerry from the Winterhawks!  If you’ve been to a Winterhawks game, you know Jerry!  He’s the super-energetic and fun to watch emcee of Winterhawks festivities.  He’s the guy in bright red pants and a Winterhawks jersey talking to fans, and hosting on ice entertainment. 

Jerry is also an incredibly dedicated member of the Winterhawks organization, but I didn’t know how dedicated until now! 

I was at Mt. View Ice Arena in the ‘Couv to shoot some segments with the Hawks on their summer youth hockey camps.  We had a couple of cute kiddos lined up for the shoot along with coach Kyle Gustafson (who teaches ice hockey camps), and Jerry (who teaches floor hockey camps). 

While we were waiting for the shoot to begin, the guys from the Winterhawks started talking about 15’s and 16’s and 13’s (that’s the amount of time in seconds that it takes you to skate around a hockey rink).  One of the kids from the shoot had been skating around the rink in 15 (which I gather is pretty darn good for an 8 year old)! 

Jerry was joking with the pint-sized skating phenom that they needed to race (Jerry just finished his first course of ice-skating lessons by the way).  So after we finished up our shoot (in which surprisingly, I didn’t fall down) Jerry and the kids lined up for a race around the rink.

The video of that fateful race is here sans audio (as my photographer had turned off the  microphones at that point), but you can fill in the sounds yourself  Cheering for the racers, the collective Oh Oh OHHHHH as Jerry hits the ice, and a chorus of “Are you O.K.?  Is he O.K.?” 

Jerry bounces right back up after his tumble and I even made a joke about Jerry being the only grown-up I know made of rubber!  Only after the shoot I find out that Jerry broke 3 ribs in this tumble!  Jerry may not be made of rubber, but he is definitely a trooper!  With that sort of dedication the Winterhawks better at least frame an xray of his ribs to hang in the office, or rename the employee of the month award “the jerry” or buy him some pads for his next shoot with me! 

Thanks for the unforgettable shoot Jerry, and thanks to the Winterhawks for asking me out to cover their summer hockey camps! 

By the way, your kiddos will have padding & helmets for the hockey camps, and if they fall, they won’t break ribs!  The 2 little guys who were shooting with us fell down a few times, and they were fine!  =)