Hockey, beer and a frozen lake in the mountains.
It doesn’t get more Canadian than that. Five young men decided to put their love of hiking together with all those good things and make a little video of them hiking up to Lindeman Lake in the Chilliwack River Valley to skate around just after New Year’s.
Nicholas Thielmann posted the end result on his Facebook page and it received hundreds of shares and likes, and by Feb. 9, more than 19,000 views.
“Basically the point was to go have a good time and hopefully have a sweet video as a byproduct,” Thielmann told The Progress.
The 22-year-old Thielmann hiked up Lindeman with his friends Isaac Johnsrude, Ryan Heppell, Levi Ens and Solomon Thiessen. The guys brought sticks, skates, a case of Molson Canadian, hot dogs, snacks and a whole load of wood to make a fire.
”My buddy texted me one day that he wanted to hike up Lindeman and go skating,” Thielmann explained. “That reminded me of an idea that I had been thinking of for a while to go hike up to a frozen lake, play some hockey and hopefully film it and get some cool material for a video.”
While his lofty goal was to get the attention of Hockey Night in Canada, he made a last-minute decision to bring Molson Canadian since he knew the NHL is sponsored by Molson and, of course, the new Molson-Coors brewery is under construction in Chilliwack.
And while he hasn’t been offered any filmmaking or commercial jobs, Molson did respond pretty positively on multiple platforms to the short video.
“Nothing really resulted from it,” he said. “Just a ‘thanks for making this’ essentially.”
Originally from Manitoba, Thielmann is a recent degree graduate from Briercrest Bible College in Saskatchewan. He moved out west a year ago to pursue his love of filmmaking. He currently lives in Abbotsford and works on a chicken farm in Chilliwack to afford living in B.C., explore the area and create photos and videos.
“I’m not sure how that fits into my career ambitions at this point but I love it and I don’t think it is something that I will stop doing anytime soon.”
@PeeJayAitch
paul.henderson@theprogress.com
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