Road Hockey Rumble show taping 'Fire versus Fuzz' episode in the city

You can ask anyone and find out that losing sucks.

However, if you ask Calum MacLeod or Mark McGuckin, creators of the Outdoor Life Network program Road Hockey Rumble, you will get detailed, disturbingly twisted, painfully gruesome and hilarious examples of just how much losing can suck.

After graduating from the film production program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where the two masters of humiliation met and started filming "stupid comedy stuff" together, they worked "stupid jobs on film sets" all the time wondering how they could travel across the country, get paid for it and turn it into a TV show.

Having played ball hockey in their youth they came up with Road Hockey Rumble. They pitched the idea to a production company which McGuckin working for at the time, Paperny Films. Paperny liked it and shopped it around. When the Outdoor Life Network came onboard and ordered 13 shows, they started development immediately. It was so successful that before they finished the first season, they inked a deal for another year. In the show, they travel to different communities, captain a team of recruits drawn from an existing rivalry in the city and the loser suffers a variety of punishments.

"It has got to suck to lose," MacLeod told The Western Star after a long day of filming. "I mean, it always sucks to lose, but it has got to really suck to lose."

"You have to pay the price," McGuckin chimed in. "The winning team gets bragging rights and beer, while the loser is subject to..."

"Something terrible," said MacLeod, finishing his real-life friend and road hockey enemy's sentence.

The crew is in Corner Brook this week filming an episode which pits the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary against the Fire Department. Exactly who is on the teams is being kept quiet until the game on Sunday.

How bad is the punishment?

"The first episode last season is something I wouldn't want to relive," McGuckin said. "I was tied to the front of our motor home on the hood wearing a goalie mask and a jock, painted silver and paraded through Trail B.C. The winning team jumped out with buckets of tomatoes which they pitched at my pasty white flesh, which bruised many areas you don't want to know about."

MacLeod finished the story with particular relish.

"These guys weren't just hockey players, they were also baseball pitchers," he said. "So when they threw those tomatoes there was some serious velocity."

In Viking, Alta. MacLeod was the subject a particularly dangerous punishment he called "the man steer."

"That was stupid," MacLeod said emphatically. "That was a stupid thing to do. I had to dress up in a steer costume and was put in a steer chute. Dipshit here (McGuckin), shocks me in the ass. I come running out of the chute and a steer wrestler - on horseback - rides me down, jumps on my back and tackles me to the ground. I could have broken my neck. It was crazy."

"It was crazy," McGuckin agreed. "But also hilarious."

"I'll give him that, it was pretty funny," said the former man steer.

How far will these guys go?

"We just got told by the network that we are not allowed to be shot," MacLeod said. "We were actually going to try to get shot with a vest on. Apparently it is bad for TV."

The show is not just about guys getting humiliated however. It is also something of a travelogue. The local players are recruited as a part of the program, the community is featured and local people are interviewed to talk the about rivalry. But the game and the price for losing is a big part.

"We try to tie it into the theme of the town and the rivalry that we are doing in each city," McGuckin said.

To add to the local flavour of this show, Jason King will make a special guest appearance. Meanwhile, the shooting accuracy of former Corner Brook Royal Terry Ryan will live in MacLeod's memory for some time. Ryan pelted him, nearly naked and bound to a hockey net with slapshots during a Season One episode filmed in St. John's last year.

"Terry hit me every time," MacLeod said. "It was ridiculous. Terry Ryan is a jerk."

Part of the show's success relies on the sadistic nature most people seem to have according to MacLeod. When asked if it was difficult to get locals to give their best effort when assisting with the punishment of the stars of the show, MacLeod gave an unqualified answer.

"Are you kidding me?" he said. "You tell them they can take a shot at you, they line up. We get people walking down the street saying 'Hey, can I take a shot at that guy, that idiot who is tied to the net?'"

How much of the show is scripted and how much is spontaneous "reality" is what McGuckin called a "Road Hockey Rumble super secret."

"The games themselves are completely unscripted" he offered. "We never know who is going to win."

Love 'em or hate 'em, reality shows are a huge part of the film industry and the two hosts had good and bad things to say about the genre.

"Besides our show, it has been a poisonous pill that we have all had to swallow, forced down our throats," McGuckin said.

"But it makes it easier for idiots like us to get television shows," MacLeod countered. "It is definitely changing the way we tell stories. This is as goofy as I have ever seen a reality show, and that is how we kind of like it."

Game time is 12 p.m. Sunday in the Pepsi Centre parking lot. Spectators are encouraged to come and get on TV.

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