Champions golden at Warman Celebrity Dinner and Auction
Keynote speaker Mike Babcock (left) shares a laugh with a fan, a common sight throughout the evening. Photo courtesy Sandy Lockhart Photography
By Jim Craik
Three Olympic champions from the Vancouver Olympics and a Grey Cup winner made the fourth annual WSCV Celebrity Dinner and Auction in Warman a special event.
Mike Babcock, Kevin Martin and Ben Hebert, all gold medal winners at the winter Olympics in Vancouver in February were in attendance along with former Rider great Matt Dominguez.
Drew Remenda, sports talk show host on CKOM and television analyst for the San Jose Sharks of the NHL, was the host for the evening.
“The evening was the largest to date,” said Warman Sport & Cultural Village campaign manager Mark Campbell, “and very successful from our point of view.”
The evening raised between $40 and $45 thousand dollars for the multi-million dollar WSCV with a record attendance of over 500 people.
The auction of a host of sports memorabilia raised over $27,000 with a Sidney Crosby autographed Olympic Jersey topping the list at $3,400 followed by the 2010 Roughriders signed helmet selling for $3,200.
“The guests that we had were outstanding, very friendly and great ambassadors of their respective sports,” says Campbell.
Keynote speaker Mike Babcock, who is from Saskatoon and spends part of his summers at Emma Lake, was coach of Canada’s gold medal winning men’s hockey team at the Olympics in Vancouver. He is also coach of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League.
Curling skip Kevin Martin has won just about everything there is to win in curling including Olympic gold last February to go with his 2008 World Championship, four Brier titles and 12 grand slams on the World Curling Tour.
Ben Hebert, the lead for Martin’s gold medal winning team who was born and raised in Regina, was also a football player with the Regina Rams.
Matt Dominquez, who retired recently due to chronic knee problems, still appeared fit and ready to play. The outstanding import wide receiver from Sam Houston State University proudly wears his Saskatchewan Roughriders Grey Cup ring from the 2007 Grey Cup in Toronto, the Riders third all-time championship.
Babcock, an accomplished track star in his high school days and former player with the Saskatoon Blades who recently hosted his own fundraiser in Saskatoon for the Children’s Hospital, is Canada’s only triple gold coach.
He led his teams to gold medals in the 2004 World Championships and now the Olympics to go along with his Stanley Cup wins with Anaheim and Detroit. He has also coached Canada’s World Junior team to a gold medal finish.
He had the audience locked in to his keynote presentation called, “If you don’t dream – you cap your potential”. He emphasized passion, work ethic, preparation and organization skills as his keys to success.
“One of the biggest gifts you can give,” he says of coaches, “is the opportunity to gain confidence.”
Of the recent Olympics, he said the experience was one he will always remember.
“Canadians should be thrilled with the show put on at the Olympics,” he said paying tribute to the organizers there.
From time to time in his talk, he played clips from his career in hockey and the gold medal game. Some, like the presentation of the Stanley Cup to the Detroit Red Wings in Pittsburgh in 2008, had a connection to what he was saying and others he said he just played “because he loved watching them”.
Then he let us into the team’s dressing room after the Americans had tied the game late in the third period of the gold medal game and the team was preparing for the four on four overtime.
This was his message to the team before they hit the ice for the dramatic conclusion.
“One of you is going to be the hero in the next seven or eight minutes.”
It was Sid Crosby who scored the ‘golden goal’ and sent the crowd and every Canadian watching into a wild frenzy. A clip of that moment brought his presentation to a dramatic conclusion.
Earlier special guests Kevin Martin, Ben Hebert and Matt Dominguez took the stage and formed a panel. Drew Remenda acted as host posing his questions and some from the audience to the three champions. The resulting discussions were entertaining, informative and often very funny.
Martin told the crowd that 17 million Canadians watched the men’s curling gold medal final. He said that he really enjoyed his Olympic experience – especially having the opportunity to rub shoulders with the athletes from other sports including hockey.
In answer to a question from an audience member Martin, whose nickname is The Old Bear, said that for the young curlers coming up, it is now just about a full-time job for anyone wishing to become a championship curler.
Dominguez, who lives in Regina and whose children are Canadian, had some fun with Ben Hebert. When Hebert talked about his career in football, which he said went from second string quarterback to third string and eventually to punter, Dominguez started to move away from the champion lead saying that we (football players) don’t usually hang around with the punters. It got a big laugh from the crowd and a smile from Hebert!
The money raised will be going towards the continued construction of the WSCV. In the early stages, the major facility will include an indoor skating arena, two indoor soccer pitches and a four sheet curling facility. Later on an outdoor swimming pool and an additional skating arena are in the plans.
Campbell made it clear the evening could not have been so successful without the help of the many that worked very hard getting things ready.
“A big thanks to Drew Remenda,” says Campbell, “without his presence and guidance, I do not believe our evening would be as great.” He also thanked the sponsors and patrons for their generosity and commitment to his community.
“And last but certainly not least, our many volunteers from organizing, setting up, working the event and cleaning up. Without them it would not be successful.”
We’ll leave the last word to Mike Babcock, perhaps the most successful coach ever in hockey. When asked by The Saskatchewan Valley News if he had any advice for young hockey players, he had the following wise words.
“Play hard and have fun. It’s a real fair game. The guy (or girl) who loves it the most is going to be the best in the end.
“It doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by working at it. You don’t work at it because it’s work. You work at it because you love it.”
