The highlights of the night on SportsCentre included bathtub racing, rowing on Long Lake, the Bastion cannon and Nanaimo bars.
TSN’s Kraft Celebration Tour rolled into town last week and aimed its TV cameras at the Harbour City. A seaside studio was set up at Maffeo Sutton Park and Kate Beirness and Darren Dutchyshen presented a live show Saturday afternoon.
“It is just absolutely perfect here,” Dutchyshen told viewers across Canada. “It’s an idyllic Saturday. We’ve got the Pacific Ocean rippling in the background, a little bit of a breeze, the sun is out, the crowd is great and we’re having a wonderful time.”
Beirness agreed, saying, “We could not be more excited than to kick things off in Nanaimo, B.C.”
Saturday’s SportsCentre wasn’t just the regular highlights – lots of local content was scattered throughout the show.
TSN showed footage of Beirness and Dutchyshen visiting the Bastion, where they took the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and were doused by Kool-Aid Man.
The two anchors were also shown racing bathtubs at Nanoose Bay; Dutchyshen claimed to have won the race and compared the experience to “being in a washing machine on the rinse cycle.”
On SportCentre, Nanaimo came across as a Harbour City.
“This city is all about the water, because it is their playground. That’s what they do here,” Dutchyshen said. “When you’ve got that for a backdrop, how can you not be out there?”
TSN recognized Nanaimo rower and Paralympian Tony Theriault as a ‘local hero’ and also produced a piece on the community boathouse project at Long Lake’s Loudon Park featuring interviews with representatives from the Nanaimo Canoe and Kayak Club and the Nanaimo Rowing Club.
Beirness and Dutchyshen signed off the broadcast by digging into a couple of plates of Nanaimo bars.
“We can’t thank the people of Nanaimo enough for their hospitality over the last couple of days to not only ourselves, but to our entire crew,” Dutchyshen said.
sports@nanaimobulletin.com
Good community spirit at the @TSN @KraftTour stop in #Nanaimo. This is the canoe/kayak club's Cameron Antifave… pic.twitter.com/LAmSLDucm4
— Greg Sakaki (@BulletinSports) August 17, 2014