By Frankie Benvenuti/ottawa67s.com
All season long, Ottawa 67’s fans stood behind the club, pushing them to a franchise-high 51-win regular season, but they only got half of the story.
There’s so much that goes into being a junior hockey player that the fans never see, whether it’s waking up at 5 am to get to practice, hitting the gym when you’re exhausted, hanging out with teammates, long bus trips, or hitting the books before a test.
On July 13th, the 67’s are pulling back the curtain on the 2022-23 season, releasing Season 2 of Between Barber Poles, produced by Carter Normand. The eight-part docuseries will be released over the course of four weeks, with two episodes dropping every Thursday on YouTube.
In a nine-month period, Normand recorded more than thousands of hours worth of video. He did it using six cameras – and never more than two shooters. He began at 67’s training camp, shot nearly every single home game all year long, as well as off-ice activities and events, and eventually, began riding the team bus in the playoffs, spending countless combined hours in Oshawa and Peterborough editing and shooting, all with the goal of bringing the Between Barber Poles to life.
“As a filmmaker, I want people to think this should be on Netflix, I want them to say they have never seen anything like this in junior hockey,” Normand said. “For 67’s fans, I want to show them what the best team in franchise history was like off the ice. I want this to bring them behind those doors and show them everything.”
Normand was inspired by other series, including Raptors Open Gym, and Last Chance U basketball – a show produced by Greg Whiteley, from whom Normand has taken personal advice. He wants to bring Ottawa sports to life on the screen, and says he got into filmmaking for “shows like this.”
“Nobody knows what goes into a junior hockey season unless they have lived it,” Normand explained. “People only pay really close attention to the NHL for the behind-the-scenes stuff, but no one is really watching these kids who are trying to make it to the NHL.”
Planning for Between Barber Poles began over a year ago – June 2022, to be exact. Normand started putting the show’s skeleton together, blocking out episodes, but retaining flexibility. He knew Episode 1 would be all about training camp, Episode 2 would contain the start of the regular season, and Episode 3 would be something away from the rink, but in a world that moves as quickly as a hockey season does, you can only plan for so much.
Numerous times, Normand had to move pieces around based on various events in the season, leading to drastic changes from his loose script, and even improved access as the year progressed.
“I didn’t expect to be at a player’s house, or hanging out with them on off days to shoot content like I was,” he explained. “That’s where my relationship with the players allows me to do that kind of thing. If I didn’t have that, I wouldn’t be able to show up at Brad Gardiner’s house a 5:30 in the morning, or follow the guys around in their free time.”
The show, which Normand believes is important for the fans to see all of the work that went into a great season, is also special for the players themselves.
“These guys are going to look back on this when they have kids of their own and watch this, so I need it to be good,” Normand said. “They’ll have this for the rest of their lives, and I’m responsible for making it stand out.”
When you’re finally able to stream Between Barber Poles this week, the work the players do will be obvious, but Normand’s efforts will still fly under the radar. Each 20+ minute episode has over 50 hours of editing behind it, not to mention the hundreds of hours spent at the rink shooting on game day.
Normand routinely takes over 11,000 steps over the course of the average game, and was responsible for many other duties, including producing many of the clips you’ll find on 67’s social media channels.
If that wasn’t keeping Normand busy enough, he found a way to pack playing college basketball for the Algonquin Wolves into the equation. In his season, he averaged 10.9 points per game on 36.7 percent shooting from three-point range.
“In season, I’m doing school, practicing four times a week and playing twice every week,” Normand said. “I’m travelling to Toronto every second weekend, on top of making sure I pass all of my classes. I really don’t have any free time. I relax by working on the show.”
With the show only days away, Normand is both excited for the finished product to release, and sad that the journey is almost over.
“Sitting down to make the finale, I was hesitant, because it has been my life for the past year,” Normand said. “It was almost like I didn’t want to finish it. When I was done, it was gratifying, and I’m super excited for people to see it.”
Between Barber Poles can be streamed for free on the Ottawa 67’s YouTube page. Subscribe, and hit the notification bell to be the first to see every new episode.
