Centre Vidéotron, the second largest ice-hockey arena in Quebec, held a very special event last night: the 10th edition of the Pro-Am Gagné-Bergeron charitable ice-hockey match that attracted around 10 000 spectators. The event offered amateur players to get the unique opportunity to help support the cause as well as get to play a game with and against some of the best Canadian ice-hockey players from the NHL. Thanks to all those involved, the event eventually raised $428 000 that will benefits multiple organizations that are helping children in the Quebec City region, including the Simple Plan Foundation.
The match began around 7pm yesterday with the two competing teams on the opposite sides of the rink: Sharks vs Bruins. An avid ice-hockey fan and player himself, Simple Plan’s own Chuck Comeau joined the Sharks team for the game with #26 on his back as one of the amateurs and donated $3000 to the cause to be a part of this special occasion. The match eventually resulted in Chuck’s team’s victory (24:23 after shootouts) and even though Chuck did not score, he did get an assist for one goal for the Sharks.
Since Simple Plan were scheduled to perform as a special guest after the game was over, Chuck could not stay for the whole duration of the match and a few minutes before its end, he was replaced by Chady Awad, Simple Plan’s photographer. Check out some of the pictures of Chuck rocking the skates at Pro-Am Gagné-Bergeron in our gallery (big thanks to our reader Audrey who attended the event for all the insights and some of the photos!) and also more pictures of the rest of Simple Plan at the event:
For the Simple Plan part of the event, the band surprised all the attendees of their 45-minute set by including one of the rarest songs to be found on their setlist lately – the epic ballad ‘Untitled (How Could This Happen To Me?)’. Check it out:
And on the video below, you can have a look at some of the highlights from the whole Pro-Am Gagné-Bergeron event, published on Centre Vidéotron’s and Simple Plan’s Instagram Stories:
Various artists on Vans Warped Tour, that is currently hitting some of its final stops in the USA this summer on its final cross-country tour, have expressed their support of the FEND movement. By spreading awareness via its new app, the FEND campaign’s goal is to inform the public about the dangers of opioids. According to FEND’s website, “over the past four years, the misuse of opioids by 15-19 year olds has dramatically increased, [and] sadly, so have drug overdose deaths. Most of these overdose deaths are accidental, and over half are caused by prescription painkillers (opioids) – opioids are also a known gateway drug to heroin.”
releasing the song ‘Saturday’ (‘Did Simple Plan really get together and say: ‘Hey guys, Saturday is such a great song!’ – because I can’t understand this.’ – @mariaclara_b) as an the first promo song for Taking One For The Team and after receiving quite a backlash, they opted not to have it featured on the actual record and pretty much not discuss it ever since. In the interview, both Chuck and Jeff agreed that it was a mistake and that Saturday might be the worst Simple Plan song and promised to perhaps one day reveal how the decision process about releasing this song came about.