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Making the Cut, Episode 13: The Final Sixby Brian Towers -- 12/24/2004
View Printable version of this article First up, a recap: Last week, they played the last game of the three-game series and Team Blue won after a meaningless shoootout. Four more players were cut from the Elite Squad (#1 Martin, #11 J.Brown, #43 Deniset and #50 Kahler) while #10 Woods and #41 Strome were promoted back to the Elite Squad and included in the final group of 18. You can read about it here. Tonight, individual skills are highlighted in a special two-hour finale. Finally, we will learn - who is going to be Making The Cut? Read on to find out! 
The show opens with a mercifully brief recap of the series to date, followed by shots of the players returning to the Toronto Airport. They were sworn to secrecy, no one was supposed to spill the beans about what had happened to date. They all have teams they'd prefer to play for, but #54 Dickenson has the best answer… he says, "I'd just like to get drafted by any team." There's a media event and a reunion dinner, but the sound bites are pretty predictable, so let's move on. Suffice to say, the 18 are happy to be there and hopeful of their chances. Before the players hit the ice, coach Jack Birch tells them they will be taking part in a Skills competition tonight. Well, they know that already, he was really telling us. The show opens for real at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga, which is west of Toronto. It's a packed house (about 3,500) of rabid fans, and many have signs in support of their favourites and family members. It's vaguely reminiscent of my days this summer at Canadian Idol tapings, except the voices are deeper. Multi-lingual player introductions follow, as all 18 hit the ice to cheers. Scott Oake and Kelly Hrudey will be the announcers tonight. Their comments are apparently broadcast in the arena as well, so few moments of dead air will result. Kelly does tell us that 25 of 68 players are currently signed to pro contracts or in Europe, and 30 more are playing for their University teams. On their website, we can learn that the Texas Wildcatters of the ECHL are currently the home of four of our finalists. Showing the number of games they've played, they are: #22 Demone (20), #54 Dickenson (14), #58 Sonnenberg (4) and #61 Wires (22). #3 Lavallee is playing on a second-division team in Gemany. In the CPHL, #24 Periard is with Corpus Christi and #41 Strome is with Lubbock. In St. John's of the AHL for 21 games was #53 Hubbauer. The order the teams will draft in is to be decided by the drawing of pucks numbered one to six. Teams will pick in the order of finish last year in a worst-to-first sequence. The draws go like this:
And now, the skills competition. There are four tests - Shooting Accuracy (hitting four targets), Hardest Shot, Fastest Skater through a pylon course, and Ambush. Ambush is a shooting game where the shooter has five pucks and 13 seconds to score as many as possible. Often the goalies shine here. Throughout the night, there are many mini-player-profiles. Much of the information isn't new, so I'm not going to reiterate them. I thought of it as filler, myself, but they needed to pump the show up to two hours, so there you have it. The skills tests are in fact not all that exciting. I mean, watching 16 shots almost all within 5 mph of each other, where's the drama? So, skipping more trivia, here's the results:
Overall: Little (20 points), Woods (15), Strome and Dickenson (13) . The CBC is consistent, we missed over half of Dickenson's skate because the replay of the previous skate too long. Sheesh, it feels like a real game! Top NHL levels are given as over 100 mph for the shot and around 14 seconds for the skating lap. More flashbacks follow, unfortunately including #27 Harkins and #57 Jefkins, but we also see RCMP guy #9 Boucher and offensive threats #20 Tessier and #43 Fortier. Ahh, memories. Well, three out of five ain't so bad. What follows is the presentation of the fan's selection, the Readers' Digest award. The choices were between #39 Levy, who's brother is mentally challenged, #2 Jacob, who works with the elderly, firefighter #45 MacGillivray and cancer survivor #52 Hubbauer. Every one makes me proud to be a Canadian. Hall Of Famer Denis Potvin presents the award to Daniel Jacob. $5,000 is donated in his name to the Canadian Cancer Society. Finally, the moment we've all been waiting for. It takes forever to play out, but THESE are the six players who are selected to attend Training Camp next season, and the teams that selected them:
That is, if there ever IS a "next season." 
Surprises? Yes, in the goal-starved NHL, I thought #52 Lou Dickenson or #41 Strome might get a chance. Dickenson sure was the choice of the on-site fans when it was the Leafs turn to pick. I also note the inclusion of former Black Ace goalie #20 Michael Mole! Mike Keenan comes out and makes like Don Pardo Next Year: Well, ratings were OK for a Canadian series (drawing about a half-million per episode) but 30% lower than they'd hoped for. The CBC hasn't decided if there will be a Season Two or not. Well no wonder, you're up against two other reality shows (Biggest Loser, Branson's Quest) and people are just a LITTLE bit pissed off at hockey right now. There will be one more article in this series, but you won't be seeing it for a while. As training camps wind down next summer, I'll report how the selected six end up. That's assuming we have hockey by then. In The Mail: Pretty bleak! No one wanted to offer up their opinions on who might be selected. Brian is an unemployed/retired programmer from Toronto. He can be reached at uncle_bto@rogers.com. Be sure to sign up for our e-mail update so you can stay informed about new articles on the site! And take a look at the rest of the site. You can find out about some other popular shows at our The Amazing Race 6 page and our Last Comic Standing page; and don't miss The Reality TV Hall of Shame. You can even buy reality show stuff at our Reality TV Store! For more news about reality TV, be sure to check out SirLinksALot! View Printable version of this article |
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