Oilers faithful Superfan Magoo hits TV screens on The Amazing Race Canada
'I looked at the schedule and I was like, 'oh, no, you know what? If we do this, I'm going to miss the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs,'' says Gladue, known best in Oiler fandom and Edmonton at large as Superfan Magoo. 'Then, if we lost any of those first two rounds, it's going to be on me.'
Thankfully the Oilers made it past those two playoff encounters for Gladue, who runs Magoo Crew Entertainment when he isn't leading chants and beating on a drum at Rogers Place games. Gladue and his five associates host youth workshops across the country, focusing on hoop and traditional dancing, rapping and break dancing as they dispense their message about suicide awareness and anti-bullying. Gladue's wife Skylene is also an entertainer; she's unavailable for the interview due to prior commitments as part of the touring cast of Bear Grease, which is currently enjoying an Off-Broadway run at the Theater at St. Luke's in Manhattan.
With no way to check in on McDavid and crew from mid-April to mid-May, Gladue was forced to stay in the moment as he competed against 11 teams representing cities from across Canada. This year, five contestants were drawn from Alberta: Jesse Harink of Sherwood Park (teamed with Ontario's Jonathan Braun) plus Calgary brothers Osas and Esosa Igbinosun battling with the Gladues for provincial glory. Gladue, who says that he's watched a number of seasons in the past, admits that he wasn't quite prepared for what he and his wife went through.
'It was insane, amazing, and crazy,' says Gladue, 'Emotions were running wild, adrenaline was flowing. It's nothing like when you're watching it on TV. It's, in fact, 10 times harder than what you see on TV. This was a life-changing experience for sure.'
The reality show, which features teams in competition with each other across the country, kicks off Tuesday (July 8) at 9 p.m. MT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, with streaming available the next day on Crave. Episodes after that run every Tuesday until the still-to-be-announced final entry. Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton was the starting point, but the competition sees the teams moving through Red Deer, Prince George, the Northwest Territories and beyond. The pace is hectic, the physical toll punishing.
That being said, Gladue insists that if anyone gets the opportunity to do it, they should snap it up immediately.
'But make sure, before you do it, that you do a lot of running and a lot of walking,' he cautions. 'Work out and eat well, because you're going to need all of that; it's not easy. I'm a high-energy guy, always moving, and my wife is the one who works out every morning, goes to the gym. But after the show, I'm like, 'You know what? Man, I need this.' I need to work out more, so I stretch and work out every morning, seven days a week.'
Gladue and his wife can't speak to anything that happened during their month-long competition, but Blair does speak fondly of the friends he made. We'll just have to keep up with episodes as they roll in to see who wins season 11, with its attendant prizes of two 2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS, a trip around the world, and a $250,000 cash prize. If the Gladues win it all, they promise to use some of that cash money for good, just as they promised at the very beginning to represent Indigenous people and the youth.
'Except that on our clothing, it said 'fer the youth,' not 'for the youth,'' he explains. 'That's youth slang. We're getting the message out there, representing our people, our community, you know, but also representing our Oiler fans!'
Whyte Avenue Art Walk celebrates 30 years: bigger, bolder than ever before
New Edmonton hot spot Bar Trove provided chef too good an opportunity to pass up
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Forbes
21 minutes ago
- Forbes
Joel Quenneville, Mike Sullivan Headline 9 Off-Season NHL Coach Changes
A three-time Stanley Cup winner with the Chicago Blackhawks, Joel Quenneville is now tasked with ... More getting the Anaheim Ducks back into the playoffs. (Photo by Robin Alam/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) The rising salary cap may be ushering in a new era of roster stability among players but so far, NHL coach changes are happening even more quickly than ever. Since the 2024-25 regular season wrapped on Apr. 17, nine of the NHL's 32 franchises have installed new head coaches — more than a quarter of the teams in the league. That's the most since 10 new coaches were hired during the summer of 2022. Out of that group, only two are still in their positions, and they're the winners of the last three Stanley Cups: Bruce Cassidy with the Vegas Golden Knights and Paul Maurice with the Florida Panthers. This year's crop of new bench bosses ranges from seasoned winners to first-timers, along with everything in between. Here's the breakdown: Proven Winners: Mike Sullivan and Joel Quenneville After winning two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins and being handed the reins of Team USA for the 4 Nations Face-Off and the upcoming Winter Olympics, Mike Sullivan is at the top of his coaching game. His new challenge of returning the New York Rangers to respectability was built off the foundation of a longstanding relationship with GM Chris Drury. Sullivan is nine years older, but the two are both alumni of Boston University and played together for Team USA at the 1997 world championship, which Drury was still in school. A Stanley Cup winner with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mike Sullivan is the new coach of the New York ... More Rangers. (Photo by) Later, Sullivan would serve as an assistant coach of the Rangers under John Tortorella for four seasons. That overlapped with the last two years of Drury's playing career, when he served as Rangers captain. New York will be Sulllivan's third NHL head job. He also coached the Boston Bruins for two seasons from 2003-06 and worked as an assistant with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vancouver Canucks. Down in Southern California, Joel Quenneville takes over as the team's fourth new coach since their last playoff appearance in 2018, under Randy Carlyle. It's a return to the league for the 66-year-old, who starts his new job as the league's oldest active head coach. As coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, Quenneville won three Stanley Cups in 2010, 2013 and 2015. He also won as an assistant to Marc Crawford with the Colorado Avalanche in 1996. But Quenneville has been away from the NHL since resigning as head coach of the Florida Panthers in October of 2021, in the wake of the revelations surrounding the mishandling of sexual assault allegations within the Blackhawks organization while he was coach. He became eligible to coach again in the NHL on July 1, 2024. In Anaheim, Quenneville is inheriting a team on the rise, rich with young talent including newly re-signed goaltender Lukas Dostal. In 2024-25, the Ducks improved by 21 points, but still finished 16 points out of a playoff spot. The Returnees: Glen Gulutzan, Rick Tocchet, Jeff Blashill, Lane Lambert This group of four will be bringing past NHL head-coaching experience to new clubs — or, in the case of Glen Gulutzan, back to where it began for him. Glen Gulutzan returns to where his NHL coaching career began this fall as head coach of the Dallas ... More Stars. (Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) Gulutzan has spent the last seven seasons as an assistant coach for the Edmonton Oilers. But before that, he had two years as the head man for the Calgary Flames and even earlier, he spent two years as head coach of the Dallas Stars. That's where he'll be back at work this fall, trying to push the perenially contenting Stars even closer to their second Stanley Cup in franchise history. His return came after Peter DeBoer's surprise ouster following the Stars' loss to the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final for the second-straight year. Rick Tocchet's hiring in Philadelphia is also a homecoming. As a rugged power forward, Tocchet started and ended his playing career in the City of Brotherly Love and was inducted into the Flyers Hall of Fame in 2021. The Flyers have now gone five seasons without a playoff appearance and took a step back last year, falling by nine points in the standings. Tocchet won the Jack Adams award as coach of the year with the Vancouver Canucks in 2023-24, and also previously coached the Arizona Coyotes and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tocchet won the Stanley Cup as a player with the Penguins in 1992, then as an assistant to Sullivan in 2016 and 2017. In Chicago, Jeff Blashill returns to a head-coaching role after serving as an assistant to Jon Cooper in Tampa for the last three seasons. Prior to that, the 51-year-old spent seven seasons as head coach of the Detroit Red Wings. He also served as head coach of Team USA three times at the world championship, winning bronze in 2018. The Blackhawks have missed the playoffs for the last five seasons. And in Seattle, Lane Lambert is back for his second stint as an NHL head man. The longtime assistant of Barry Trotz won the Stanley Cup as part of the Washington Capitals' staff in 2018, then earned his first head job with the New York Islanders in 2022. He was replaced by Patrick Roy after two-and-a-half seasons, then spent 2024-25 as an associate coach under Craig Berube with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Kraken have made the playoffs just once in their four-year history, reaching Round 2 in 2022-23. The New Faces: Adam Foote, Marco Sturm, Dan Muse The NHL has a reputation for recycling its coaches, and the six names above do fit that mold. But after first-timer Ryan Warsofsky delivered a strong rookie campaign with the San Jose Sharks last season, three more new faces will get to try their hand in 2025-26. That being said, two of those names are very familiar to hockey fans. Adam Foote was a hard-nosed blueliner who won two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche during his 19-year NHL career, and was a mainstay with Team Canada. After spending the last two-and-a-half seasons as Tocchet's assistant with the Canucks, he takes over the head job this fall. Marco Sturm's new job in Boston is also a homecoming. A reliable center who played 938 NHL games over 14 seasons for six teams, that included 302 games with the Bruins, where he was a key part of the return in the notorious 2005 trade that sent Joe Thornton to the San Jose Sharks. After retiring in 2012, Sturm got into the coaching game back in his native Germany, and was behind the bench for the Germans' silver-medal win at the 2018 Winter Olympics. That fall, he joined the Los Angeles Kings organization, first as an NHL assistant for four seasons, then as head coach of the AHL Ontario Reign for three years. Dan Muse didn't play in the NHL, but brings five years of experience as an NHL assistant to his new ... More job as head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins. (Photo by) Not as well known: new Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Muse. At 43, he'll be second-youngest in the league this fall, behind only 37-year-old Warsofsky. His career path also mirrors Warsofsky's to some degree: after playing at Stonehill College, Muse started his coaching career in the NCAA ranks before moving to the USHL, where he won a Clark Cup with the Chicago Steel in 2017. That opened the door to the NHL, where he spent three years as an assistant coach with the Nashville Predators and two years with the New York Rangers before being tapped to succeed Sullivan in Pittsburgh. While the coaching carousel has stopped spinning for now, be on the lookout for more NHL coach changes in 2025-26. Last year, five teams changed coaches in-season. Jim Montgomery (St. Louis) and Todd McLellan (Detroit) both signed multi-year deals and will be back this fall while the three interim bosses were all replaced.
Yahoo
42 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Blues Have Big Move To Make With Breakout Forward
The St. Louis Blues' decision to tender an offer sheet to forward Dylan Holloway this past off-season undoubtedly proved to be a great decision. After the Edmonton Oilers elected not to match the Blues' two-year, $4,580,914 offer sheet for Holloway, he broke out in a major way in his first season with St. Louis.
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Five Potential Destinations For Max Pacioretty in 2025-26
With the bulk of the sought-after unrestricted free agents signed in the first three weeks of July, teams appear to be accelerating the invitation of players on professional tryouts, as the New York Rangers did with two-time Stanley Cup winner Conor Sheary earlier this week. One of the more successful camp invites last September was veteran forward Max Pacioretty.