The Tournament: The Complete Series

Here's some backstory as to when the show first aired, followed by some stuff about the show...

In late 2004, the CBC network saw the writing on the wall and pretty much knew the NHL wouldn't be playing a season in 2004-05. The World Cup of Hockey took place in September of 2004, which ended up being the last time NHL players would be playing nationally televised hockey for a year.

Though not having hockey really would only take away the CBC's programming for Saturday nights and evenings from April to June, I'm sure they knew the Canadian masses would be starved for anything hockey-related.

Their answers? One was Making the Cut, an open Canada-wide tryout with the ultimate prize being six NHL training camp invitations, one each for the six Canadian NHL teams.

The other? The Tournament. Both Making the Cut and The Tournament aired in primetime on (I think) Monday nights. (Unrelated, the CBC was heavily promoting the new version of Doctor Who at the time.)

The main character of The Tournament is hockey-crazed dad Barry McConnell, who will stop at nothing to get his 10-year-old son Robbie on his way to the NHL. Long story short, Barry's trying to live his dream through his son. Needless to say, Barry has some run-ins with wife Janice as well as just about everybody, from the coach of the team to the officials to his boss at work to the team sponsors, the Farquesons, who have their own hilarious foul-mouthed goalie of a tomboy daughter by the name of Denim. Perhaps most hilarious are Barry's tussles with Mohindar Singh, the (East) Indian gyno who doubles as team trainer and father of another of Robbie's teammates, Kumar (or K-Mart, as Barry half-intentionally calls him). Also featured is fresh divorcee Deb Pishatelli, a friend of Janice's and mother of Robbie's teammate, Anthony. Let's not forget the Frenchman coach Barry tries to impress late in the season.

The characters are hilarious and the whole show just seems real sharp, and there seems to be a constant chaotic/haywire feeling to it, so I could see how people could say it's a relative to Arrested Development.

If the only thing I knew about the show was that it involved a kids' hockey team, their parents, and the fact that the team was named the Farqueson Funeral Home Warriors, that'd be enough for me to buy the DVDs. Hooray for living near the Canadian border with a stateside cable provider that carried the CBC.

I saw the first season of this show on OLN(now Versus) during the playoffs last year and found it hilarious. having grown up in youth hockey some of the events that they touched on actually happened to me (the adult video in the hotel room to name one). Quite an amusing look into what happens when the parents take the game way more seriously then the kids (which is somewhat common these days).

The actual menus are pretty well done and the show is much better watched as a season sans commercials.

I'd recommend it to anyone who likes hockey, has ever been to a youth hockey game, fans of other mocumentary shows(ie the Office, Arrested Developement, etc), or really anyone interested in watching an entertaining mocumentary style TV show .

If you are a hockey family, you need to see this DVD. We can all relate to this love/obsession for the game and how it runs your life. This puts the humor in all of it. I can't stop watching!

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