LIFE MARK PAPOUSEK
Hosting the Hotseat: 21 Years of Friday Fun
When you have an opportunity to do something good and
it’s something you enjoy doing, it becomes easy. But, like all good things, it has to end sometime. My days of hosting the Kanata Sports Club Hotseat have ended, but the memories are great. Twenty-one years ago I was standing at the bar at the Sports
Club talking to bartender Wayne Pilon, and he said: “You know, Mark, it would be kind of fun to have a lunch here on Fridays at noon. You could get some sports celebrities to come out and have a chat with people about what they do in the sporting world. It might be a good way to make a few bucks for the bar and give our members something to do as well.” We had no Ottawa Senators then, but I took the bait and told
Wayne I would do it. I said first I needed a couple of weeks to see who I could drum up for guests. Two weeks later, on the first Friday in November, 1992,
our guest was Archie Mulligan, then the coach and GM of the Kanata Valley Lasers tier II Junior hockey team. And we were off and running. We started with about 50 patrons in the early days; but with
personalities like Brian Kilrea and Bert O’Brien, CFL coaches, minor hockey officials and slew of other sports people, things got better and better. Over the years we have had a number of wonderful guests
MARK PAPOUSEK, LEFT, AND SEAN O’DONNELL WITH THE STANLEY CUP.
and the stories to go with them. Like the year that the late Earl McRae made a statement in the Ottawa Sun that everyone in the Ottawa valley was inbred. The next Friday, because of the backlash, Earl came in the
front door of the club with a tin garbage can in front of him to protect himself from the valley boys. Or the Friday that one of our long-time members, Lillian
Cavanagh, a devoted Earl McRae fan, decided to jump on Earl’s back for a piggyback ride. Earl lost his balance, knocked over two tables and lost nine beers. The two of them lay on the floor with Earl’s ego hurt and a lump the size of a softball protruding from Miss Lillian’s head. But the show had to go on. It so happened that when the Ottawa Senators were awarded
their NHL franchise, the first coach was Rick Bowness. Our sons played hockey together, so it was easy for me to ask Rick to come to the Hotseat along with assistant coaches E.J. McGuire and Alain Vigneault . It was through those great friendships and over many beers
that we had a chance to meet some of the Ottawa Senator players, who also became wonderful friends and supporters of the Hotseat.
24 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
www.bounder.ca
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