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Heartfelt tribute honours Iginla

City rolls out the red carpet for Jarome Iginla Arena ceremony

The namesake of Jarome Iginla Arena paid homage to the city that helped him become the person he is today.

“Thank you St. Albert. This is truly, truly an amazing honour. Thank you for having all the ingredients for a magical place for a kid to grow up,” said Iginla as applause engulfed his closing remarks at Sunday’s ceremony renaming Akinsdale Arena.

Iginla’s trademark blinding smile lit up the rink while speaking from the heart in front of the sea of red stands packed with fans wearing his now-retired Calgary Flames’ No. 12 jersey that he starred in for 16 seasons.

“I’m very blessed to play for 20 years in the NHL, it was amazing, and to get to represent this great country in hockey as well, but it all comes back to here, St. Albert, and in receiving this honour made me reflect on growing up here and how truly fortunate I really was,” said the two-time Olympic gold medallist and winner of a world junior championship with Team Canada. “Some of my best memories are from youth sports. It builds friendships and it was as fun as any of those other memories.

“I really want to thank my volunteer coaches I had in hockey and baseball,” Iginla added. “Great teachers. You guys did a great job. It really made a big difference in my life.”

Iginla’s teammates in those formative years “helped me get better, helped me grow” and he also had the backing of a city following his Hall of Fame calibre career with five NHL teams over 1,554 regular-season games, plus 81 in the playoffs that included the memorable 2004 playoff run with the Flames that ended in the game seven loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Thank you for your support and your encouragement. You continued cheering me on, even playing with the Flames,” said Iginla as the pro-Flames’ supporters roared with delight in Oilers' country. “It really meant a lot.”

Iginla’s lengthy list of thank you acknowledgments included a special tribute to his doting grandparents, Rick and Fran Schuchard. “They were the best grandparents you could ever ask for.”

Iginla’s retirement announcement on July 30, 2018 spurred Coun. Jacquie Hansen to table a motion last September to rebrand Akinsdale Arena after St. Albert’s “hometown hockey hero” and it was passed unanimously.

“This was a slam dunk,” Hansen said during the ceremony while surveying the impressive turnout inside the rink that will undoubtedly be called the Iggy Dome, complete with the new hashtag #PackTheIggy in place of #PackTheDale.

“It really confirms the love we have for St. Albert hockey and Jarome Iginla.”

Mayor Cathy Heron noted how Iginla “quickly developed a love for the game, went on to hone his hockey skills, became a great leader on and off the ice, of course, and developed the drive he needed to be the best he could possibly be,” while rising through the ranks of St. Albert minor hockey with the Akinsdale rink his home away from home.

“This is the effort of excellence that we aspire to here in St. Albert. We are committed to providing our community with facilities like this one for our citizens to enjoy.”

Guest speaker Jason Strudwick, a teammate of Iginla’s with the Kamloops Blazers in the Western Hockey League during two back-to-back Memorial Cup championship seasons, answered his own question of, “What is the essence of Jarome Iginla?”

“He has got a lot of good things going on about himself, good traits that made him successful on and off the ice, but I put it down to competiveness,” Strudwick said. “If anyone has ever seen Jarome play hockey or baseball, chess, checkers, darts, lawn bowling, anything like that, people know this guy hates to lose.”

Strudwick recalled the division final against the Portland Winterhawks, a series Kamloops was supposed to lose. It was game six on the road with the score knotted at two and the Blazers up 3-2 in the series: “One of our defencemen iced it down the rink and Jarome was on the ice and I’ve never seen a guy like that just sprint down the ice and beating the defenceman to get the puck. Now, I don’t remember if we scored or not. I’ll say Jarome scored, I think he might have passed it, but it would be a better story today if he scored," Strudwick said of the then 16-year-old rookie. “We won that game and the series, but that was the first moment I recognized Jarome loved to win and didn’t want to get beat.”

Among the humorous anecdotes Strudwick shared about Iginla (“You know, Jarome is allergic to his own end.”) was a game against Calgary where the on-ice banter between the two escalated to the point where Iginla took matters into his own hands and sniped one of his 625 goals, which is tied for 16th all-time in the NHL.

“He looks like a nice guy, but he talks a lot on the ice,” said the 1260 TSN radio personality. “I was so mad and I remember Iggy saying, “Stay on the ice! I want to score some more, Strudwick!”

St. Albert pride

Iginla, who is eligible for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2020, turned back the hand of time reminiscing about those early years.

“I’m very proud to be from St. Albert,” said the 42-year-old, who was born on Canada Day. “You’re always watching how other St. Albert people do and who goes on to the NHL, Team Canada, things like that. Whether it’s the WHL draft to see (Matt) Savoie get drafted high (No. 1 in the 2019 WHL bantam draft) or (Colton) Parayko winning the Stanley Cup this year, it's really neat to see guys continue to do well and especially (two-time Olympic gold medallist) Meaghan Mikkelson with Hockey Canada and her success. You take pride in it.

“St. Albert has been such a big part of my life and my career. I have so many fond memories and friendships, and it’s neat to see a lot of familiar faces and coaches and teammates here today,” Iginla said. "Some of my best friends are guys I played with at eight, nine years old and up, and together you learn about losing and winning.

“I was always passionate about sports because I know what it did for me in my experiences in life and not just making the NHL. There are sports fields everywhere in St. Albert and if you look at the options for kids, like minor baseball and other sports, with hockey there are outdoor rinks that are taken care of that kids want to get on the ice and play. I bring my kids (Tij, Joe and Jade) back in the Christmastime and we skate on the outdoor rinks and show them the pickup games and how much fun it is and they love it. You don’t really get that same outdoor rink experience in the Boston area where we live so it’s a huge thrill.

“But you name the sport ... and they’re all here so it’s nice they give kids a chance to burn that energy because I needed to. I don’t know what else I would've done if I didn’t have that to burn that energy.

“I think about Albert Lacombe (school), we had a group of eight ultra-competitive kids and we battled every lunch hour – football, soccer – it was so much fun … it was just so good for us. We ended up having wrestling matches over close calls, schoolyard dust-ups, but the next day we were right back at it.”

But to have a rink with his name attached to it was mind-blowing.

“It’s truly a huge thrill. It’s amazing. It’s humbling. It's something that growing up I never dreamed of this,” said Iginla, who told a tale at the ceremony about himself and a buddy knocking on the door at 11 p.m. as 15-year-olds to ask the rink attendant for a late-night skate.

“Akinsdale was my favourite rink to play in. It has a great atmosphere and setting. There’s some big tournaments here and big crowds so it was really cool.

“This truly is beyond my wildest dreams for sure.”

Winning provincial atom AAA and peewee AAA championships and leading the Alberta Midget AAA Hockey League in scoring as a second-year bantam with 34 goals and 87 points in 36 games for the 1992/93 Eagle Raiders, 30-2-4 in the regular season before losing the provincial final to the Calgary Northstars in his last season in St. Albert were among some of Iginla's vivid memories of a cherished minor hockey career.

“The NHL is awesome, so much fun, and junior hockey, major junior, was a great time, but it’s tough to beat minor hockey. You probably hear people talk about that all the time, but it also makes you know now, being a coach of minor hockey, how important that is and what those memories mean to kids, and trying to have it be a positive experience for them like it was for me. I had so many really good coaches that were dads that were volunteers and we were very fortunate with minor hockey finding the right ones. It’s not all about wins or loses, but all those experiences going together,” said Iginla, who attended his first hockey tryout at age seven at the Ducky Dome (Perron Arena) in a Flames’ coloured jersey.

The recently retired Iginla (“I don’t do too many interviews now”) is adjusting to life outside of hockey. His last NHL game was with the Los Angeles Kings on April 9, 2017. He recorded one assist for the 1,300th point of his career – 34th all-time in NHL scoring – in a 4-3-overtime loss to the Anaheim Ducks.

“It’s different. It’s also really cool. It's been a busy last year and a bit with retiring and then the jersey retirement, which was very nice for the Flames to do that in March. That was very memorable and this is very memorable, too,” said the holder of multiple team records with the Flames.

“It’s been a special time and so has the transition been too. It’s different not playing, especially after 20 years. I get asked: ‘Do I miss it?’ and I do miss it. It was awesome and I miss minor hockey, too. It was all so much fun... but I enjoy what I do with my kids and spending that time with them.

“It also makes me realize how fast everything goes. It’s hard to believe. It kind of feels like I’m in that (dressing) room here and now minor hockey and playing hockey is over.”

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