Kraft Hockeyville finds 'jewel in the wilderness' in Elliot Lake

ELLIOT LAKE, Ontario -- Elliot Lake is truly a jewel in the wilderness.

Lifelong residents knew that well before Kraft Hockeyville. They see it every day throughout their small town hugged by lakes and trees, never taking it for granted.

The crown jewel is Fire Tower Lookout, with a panoramic view of scenic wilderness and breathtaking views reaching all the way to Manitoulin Island on the North Channel of Lake Huron. The locals refer to it in Ojibwe as "Spirit Island," circled by freshwaters of the Kagawong, Manitou, Blue Jay Creek and Mindemoya Rivers.

Atop Fire Tower Road, the highest point in the immediate area, sat the Stanley Cup on Day One of its tour that will take it to a community celebration at Collins Hall on Friday and then two-plus hours to Sudbury, Ontario, where the Pittsburgh Penguins play the Ottawa Senators at Sudbury Community Arena on Sunday (7 p.m. ET; SN, SN1, NHLN, SN-PIT). The Cup was previously in Elliot Lake for a 50th anniversary celebration at Centennial Arena in 2005. Elliot Lake Minor Hockey Association president Amanda McKay was there, her home then a jewel not too many knew about.

They do now. The scenic wonders attracted a family from Leeds, England, for a stopover on their tour of Northern Ontario coming from Sault Ste. Marie. They were sunbathing at Spruce Beach, not knowing the Cup would be there until seeing it from a distance. At autumn's peak, sunshine over still waters and colorful foliage decorating the trees must be seen for true validation.

"It really is a jewel in the wilderness," McKay said. "There's no other place on the earth like it. Whether you like to ski or ATV or snowmobile, there's lots of tourist opportunities here. You can go anywhere in the world …. We can take pictures all day, but they'll never show the true beauty of what Elliot Lake is."

Hockeyville is full circle for McKay's oldest son, Kieran, who grew up in Centennial Arena as a hockey player and referee before it was closed last September for safety reasons. His first NHL game in person was the Penguins playing the Senators at then-Scotiabank Place in Ottawa during the 2010-11 season.

For Andrew Ference, his life after a hip injury ended his playing career has gone beyond his wildest imaginations. He won the Stanley Cup the season Kieran McKay saw his first game by helping the Boston Bruins defeat the Vancouver Canucks 4-0 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Arena.

Ference joined the League on March 13, 2018, as director of social impact, growth and fan development. Today he's director of youth strategy, experiences like Hockeyville showing him the meaning of community and the Cup.

"Being able to every year come to events like this and bring the Cup into a room full of kids who are just wide-eyed and so excited not to be in math class, but to get to see and touch the Cup and their community gets to host a pretty cool event, it's amazing for me to be in such a position," Ference said. "Hockey holds such an important part in our culture up here. It's neat just to be able to steward it with the Cup keepers and the (Hockey) Hall of Fame."

People like Esten Park Public School principal Angelo D'Amato took in their chance to see the Stanley Cup and kids drawn to it for the first and maybe the only time. It's uplifting to so many who endured the closing of their lifeblood, the uranium mines, in the early 1990s, a roof collapse at Centennial Arena near the end of the 2018-19 season, the COVID-19 pandemic and youth players deprived of their chance to play locally.

The rink is their community. They need it and it's coming back. Like the Cup, the restoration process is a symbol of hope.

"Communities always are looking for something to rally behind," D'Amato said, "and something that's good for the kids and something that's good for them. This is exactly that, so it's great."

Those stories of endurance and strength through the worst of times had McKay in deep reflection gazing over Fire Tower Lookout. She thought about what she's learned from countless hours of volunteer work that led to winning Hockeyville, tickets to watch the Penguins and Senators play a preseason game, and what's still yet to come.

"The importance of community, how it really brought us together," she said. "We really rallied to win this prize so that we could get our arena back up and running. Everybody, even across the North Shore and Northern Ontario, they rallied with us and backed us for this bid. When we won, it was just incredible, and then to see everybody enjoying the celebration today.

"That's just the start of it."