Queen Elizabeth once stole the show at a Canucks game in Vancouver

Sep 8 2022, 8:28 pm

It’s not very often that Wayne Gretzky gets overshadowed at a hockey rink, but that’s exactly what happened when Queen Elizabeth II visited Vancouver nearly 20 years ago.

It was anything but a run-of-the-mill preseason game between the Vancouver Canucks and San Jose Sharks on October 6, 2002, at GM Place, as it was known then.

With Gretzky by her side, the Queen dropped the puck during a ceremonial faceoff between Canucks captain Markus Naslund and Sharks alternate captain Mike Ricci, who wore the C in place of Owen Nolan that night.

A sellout crowd of 18,422 was on hand to witness it, as a boys’ choir sang God Save the Queen upon her arrival.

Ed Jovanovski and Cassie Campbell stood on the red carpet, wearing Team Canada jerseys, to go with Olympic gold medals hanging around their necks. Jovanovski and Campbell had each won gold for Canada at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics eight months earlier.

Former NHL player and hockey broadcasting legend Howie Meeker was also on hand.

The puck was signed by Gretzky, Meeker, Jovanovski, and Campbell, and delivered to the Royal Archives, as CBC discovered during the Queen’s Jubilee.

It was the first NHL game the Queen had seen in over 50 years — she saw a Canadiens game in Montreal in 1951 when she was still a princess — but she didn’t stay for the whole game.

She and Prince Philip left after the first period, so they saw just one goal, scored by Jovanovski, who the Queen met moments earlier during the pre-game ceremony. Jovanovski scored 2:39 into the game, after quickly changing out of the street clothes he was wearing on the red carpet minutes earlier.

“We talked more about what happened at Salt Lake City this year and winning the gold medal at the Olympic Games and she was really excited about that and thrilled about meeting Ed,” Gretzky said at the time, as reported by ESPN. “Him getting the first goal, that really perked her up.”

While they had to leave early, Gretzky said Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were asking about how to watch the rest of the game on television.

“It was great for Canada to be able to show off one of the things we love most in our country and that’s the game of ice hockey,” said Gretzky, who sat next to the Queen during the first period. “They talked about it, if it was on TV, and what channel because they wanted to see the last two periods on TV.”

Perhaps they tuned in to see Fedor Fedorov score two goals for the Canucks, including the game-winner with 8:54 left in the third period.

I doubt they were as fired up as BC Premier Gordon Campbell though, who predicted “the Queen’s presence” at the game would inspire the Canucks to win the Stanley Cup,” according to CBC.

The Canucks should have beaten the Minnesota Wild that spring though, to be fair.

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