Husky bets big on north Canada oil drilling rights

 

 

 

By Jeffrey Jones, Reuters July 5, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Husky bid $376-million for two parcels near Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories, vastly outspending some of the world’s largest oil majors, the government announced on Monday.

Photograph by: Leah Hennel, Postmedia News

CALGARY – Husky Energy Inc has opened its wallet to grab the lion’s share of $534-million (US$556-million) of winning bids for oil-drilling rights in the central Mackenzie Valley area of Canada’s far north, sparking speculation it may be chasing a rich prospect.

In the 2011 government auction of drilling rights in northern lands, Husky bid $376-million for two parcels near Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories, vastly outspending some of the world’s largest oil majors, the government announced on Monday.

“(Husky) really spent a lot of money relative to the peers on the play. Could they be targeting an oil-rich play? Potentially,” Macquarie Capital Markets analyst Chris Feltin said. “Maybe they think they’ve keyed into a new play up in that region.”

Among other winners, ConocoPhillips bid $67-million for a parcel in the region. Royal Dutch Shell Plc and a partnership of Imperial Oil Ltd and Exxon Mobil Corp each picked up land with bids of $43-million.

Junior northern explorer MGM Energy Corp scooped up three parcels with bids totaling $5-million. The auction was held by the Oil and Gas Management Directorate arm of the federal government’s Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development ministry.

The dollar figures represent the amount of money the bidder intends to spend exploring on the parcel during the initial five-year period of a nine-year license.

Imperial, Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Shell are partners in the long-delayed Mackenzie Valley Gas pipeline, which would ship natural gas along the Mackenzie Valley from gas fields they discovered in the 1970s on the Beaufort Sea coast.

The $16.2-billion pipeline project won the last of its major regulatory approvals earlier this year, but its construction is anything but assured as the partners rerun the numbers on its economic viability and seek a fiscal deal with Ottawa.

Meanwhile, communities in the sparsely populated Northwest Territories wait for the development of a natural gas industry and economic benefits that have so far proven elusive.

However, the central valley region is also known for oil prospects, and is served by the Norman Wells pipeline, which feeds into Enbridge Inc’s export network.

Husky had signaled that it planned no activity on its existing Northwest Territories lands in 2011, Feltin said.

“This is a change in what they’ve indicated previously, so maybe there is something more than just a raw gas story going on here,” he said.

Shares in Husky, which is majority-owned by interests controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, were up 1 Canadian cent at $26.31 on the Toronto Stock Exchange late on Tuesday morning.

© Thomson Reuters 2011

© Copyright (c) National Post

Small business owners happier than a year ago

 

 

 

Financial Post July 5, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

Small business owners are happier than they were a year ago, despite working longer hours and having to cope with a strong dollar, says a poll released Tuesday by TD Canada Trust.

Photograph by: Fotolia, Fotolia

OTTAWA — Small business owners are happier than they were a year ago, despite working longer hours and having to cope with a strong dollar, says a poll released Tuesday by TD Canada Trust.

The survey of 402 small business owners in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary was conducted by Environics Research in mid-spring and found that 66% considered themselves “very happy,” compared with 63% a year ago.

The reasons for their satisfaction derive from the motivations that brought them into becoming entrepreneurs in the first place, such as being one’s own boss, controlling one’s destiny and making more money, according to the survey.

“In 2011 we saw an increase in the happiness levels of small business owners compared with the previous year. When owners are optimistic, they tend to be more likely to invest in their business by boosting spending and hiring, which is great for their local communities,” the survey said.

Tempering their mirth, however, was the impact of the soaring loonie. Thirty-six per cent of those that export said the dollar is affecting their profits and 22 per cent have seen a fall in demand from customers abroad.

Nevertheless, the overall results were recorded despite small business owners having to put in slightly longer hours to achieve their goals. The survey found that small-business owners work an average of 48.7 hours a week, up from 47.8 hours recorded in 2010.

© Copyright (c) National Post

Speculators not to blame for oil spike: BOC

 

 

 

By Eric Lam, Financial Post July 5, 2011

 

 

Traders work in the crude oil and natural gas options pit on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Photograph by: Shannon Stapleton, Reuters

Financial speculators have long been blamed for skyrocketing oil prices over much of the past decade, however a new study from the Bank of Canada says price increases have been driven largely by energy-hungry emerging markets and a stagnant supply chain.

Ron Alquist and Olivier Gervais, researchers with economics department of the Bank of Canada, said while the timing matches up between financial firms boosting their positions in oil futures markets and a spike in oil prices between 2003 and 2008, there is little evidence to prove that one actually caused the other.

“Financial speculation seems to have played a modest role. There is no empirical evidence to suggest a strong relationship between the positions of speculators and price changes,” the researchers said in a report. “Overall, the available evidence points to global demand and supply conditions.”

By 2008, the total value of commodity index-related trading funds owned by institutional investors had jumped to about US$200-billion from US$13-billion in 2003, while crude oil prices had soared to US$142 a barrel from US$32 in 2003.

However, evidence produced using data models comparing price changes with position changes shows investor positions tended not to precede oil-price changes.

Along with that, there are also key assumptions held by observers that have reinforced a link between speculation and oil prices, the authors said.

The number of futures contracts for West Texas crude more than doubled to about 1.3 million in the same time frame, only to collapse after the financial crisis when oil dropped to US$39 a barrel. During the recovery at the end of 2010, contracts rose again, suggesting a relationship.

As well, it is common to compare the amount of open contracts on the futures market with daily U.S. consumption. Often, the number of open contracts is many times larger, suggesting overheating speculation.

“These interpretations are misconceived,” they said.

The number of contracts is a stock variable, meaning measured at a certain point in time, while consumption is a flow variable, measured for each unit of time, so the two are not directly comparable. Also, observers tend not to account for the fact that contracts are often delivered over many months, they said.

Instead, the most likely explanation is that large increases in demand from emerging market economies collided with tight supply conditions in the market as countries such as China and India use more electricity and drive more cars than ever before.

Mr. Alquist and Mr. Gervais came to this conclusion based on the price of oil compared with demand elasticity.

Meanwhile, a new 2012 outlook from Paul Horsnell with Barclays Capital also pegs emerging economies as key drivers of oil demand growth in 2012.

Non-OECD is forecasted at 1.57 million barrels a day, compared with demand shrinking by 190,000 barrels a day in OECD countries.

China, India, Saudi Arabia and Brazil are expected to account for 82% of expected global growth in 2012, compared with 62% in 2007 and just 28% a decade ago.

“The quest for industrialization and urbanization has tended to dominate energy and oil usage over the past few years, a trend we expect to remain largely unaltered over the coming years,” he said.

© Copyright (c) National Post

Fallen officer was ahead by a century

By Christie Blatchford, Postmedia News July 5, 2011

   

 

 

Garrett Styles

Photograph by: Handout

NEWMARKET, Ont. — It may not be only the good who die first, or young, as the English poet William Wordsworth wrote, but here was one who surely was, and died too soon.

In the midst of an enormous funeral Tuesday for York Regional Police Const. Garrett Styles, despite the stirring pomp of as many as 7,000 officers drawn continent-wide marching with pipes and drums, it was the simple goodness of this 32-year-old fallen officer that was palpable.

He was hailed by family and friends as a hero, not for the way he died, honourable as that was — on the job, doing a road stop, showing grace and composure even with his last breaths — but rather for the way he lived.

As two uncles, Mark Audrain and Bruce Hatt, told an overflowing crowd inside the Ray Twinney Recreation Complex, the proceedings watched by thousands more police and civilians on a large screen outside in the hot sun, Styles' father, Garry, a 33-year veteran of the same force, had told them, "If he could award medals of honour to his son, they would be for Best Brother, Best Son, Best Husband, Best Father."

The father also said about his eldest, "If you had to go to war, my son is who you would want in the trenches with you."

About an hour from the end of his shift, with four days off with his young family awaiting him, Styles stopped a minivan just before sunrise on June 28.

It was a task so universal to the job that as one Toronto officer, Sgt. Jim McLean, surveying the sea of uniforms, wondered aloud, "If you multiply the number of traffic stops by the number of officers here by the number of years of experience . . ."

That early morning, the van Styles had stopped suddenly accelerated, dragging him about 300 meters before the teenage driver behind the wheel lost control, the vehicle flipping onto the young officer.

Even as he made the last radio call of his seven-year career, he several times fretted to the dispatcher that there might be people injured in the van.

The 15-year-old driver, who can't be identified, is now charged with first-degree murder. He is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down.

It is perhaps to the senseless tragedy of it all that the Reverend Gordon Timbers was referring when he spoke of "the bewilderment of being human."

But for Styles, there seems to have been little of that.

He roamed his neighbourhood — in this same town north of Toronto — as a small boy, pulling behind him a wagon painted in the force's colours and looking for cars to pull over and fine a quarter for mysterious infractions.

As a child, he fiercely guarded a spider and her web in a kitchen window for six months, fending off parental cleanup attempts.

He was utterly normal — he "hit the ground running," as one of the uncles put it, an ordinarily rambunctious boy who charmed his way out of trouble with those magnificent dimples, played jokes on his three siblings and taught them all the cunning tricks he'd learned.

But he was driven to help people, the real calling of the best officers.

Once, in high school, he invited his father to speak to his class, and Garry Styles did. As the uncles remembered, he told the kids that while policing was a noble profession, "it had taken time away from his family. He teared up as he looked at the young faces."

"Garry," one uncle said, "you raised a son we're all proud of, and Garrett became an amazing father, and he learned that from you."

The home movie of Styles' life — to music from his favourite band, Kingston, Ont.'s Tragically Hip, dozens of photographs documenting his growing up from towhead to goofy, toothy, long-haired teenager to young husband and father — played on screens inside the recreation complex and outside.

There he was, now in a "Canadian tuxedo," plaid lumberjack shirt, then fishing with his little daughter Meredith (this was, the mourners learned, likely from a recent trip they took to the family cottage, just daddy and his little girl), now posing with her, both of them wearing gaudy plastic moustaches.

A couple of photographs spoke to the gravitas he had, even as a boy.

In one, maybe nine or 10, he was in a maroon baseball uniform with his teammates — Styles was a talented pitcher who was even scouted — lined up in front of him. He was the only one looking back, at the camera, and he was clearly lost in his own thoughts.

In another, very recent, he was lying on a bed in a red T-shirt and jeans, looking at his new baby son Nolan, now all of 10 weeks old, with nothing less than reverence.

In another, a bare-chested Styles was sound asleep, Nolan pressed tight into his chest.

His sister Meghan, the uncles said, wrote that she had never seen two people more in love than her big brother and his diminutive wife, Melissa, a civilian employee with the York force. "My heart is broken that their journey ended so soon," she wrote.

She saw so much love in that household — between the parents, and between the parents and the kids — that she said, "I could watch them all day."

His mantra was, "Just get it done," but he was always a thinker, York Regional Police Chief Eric Jolliffe said, "who could see things clearly."

Yet even Styles, with all his tools, with his ability to see the whole of the field and not just a corner of it, the way good ball players always do, could do nothing to save himself that last morning.

Police, the chief said, "must always be prepared for the moment when you're tapped on the shoulder and thrust into circumstances beyond your control."

No one could have been readier or better-equipped than Styles, but all that was left for him to do, all he could do, was to worry for the teenagers in that van, whose actions had caused, whether inadvertent or a function of panic or worse, the crisis which killed him.

As his tiny, ruined wife said in her tremulous eulogy, "I love you. You were so loved."

In the words from a song of the same title by his beloved Tragically Hip, Styles was ahead by a century.

cblatchford@postmedia.com

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

Thousands pay respects to fallen Ont. police officer

 

By Megan O'Toole, Jessica Hume and Aileen Donnelly, Postmedia News July 5, 2011

 

 

Melissa Styles carries her ten-month-old son Nolan as she arrives at the funeral ceremony for her husband, Const. Garrett Styles, the York Regional Police officer who was killed last week in the line of duty, Tuesday afternoon, July 5, 2011 at the Ray Twinney Complex in Newmarket, Ontario.

Photograph by: Aaron Lynett, National Post

NEWMARKET, Ont. — Thousands of police officers from across the continent marched in the scorching sun Tuesday as a final tribute to York Regional Police Const. Garrett Styles, who died last week in a bizarre traffic incident on Highway 48 near Toronto.

Inside the relative dark and coolness of the 3,000-seat Ray Twinney Recreation Complex, which was packed to capacity, mourners gazed upon Styles's flag-draped casket as tearful eulogies flowed.

The words delivered by his widow, Melissa Styles, were thick with emotion.

"We always told each other, 'I love you to bits and pieces,' and that has never been more true. Right now I am in pieces, but I will put myself back together for our children, because I know that is what you would want me to do," she said, speaking of the couple's two-year-old daughter, Meredith, and 10-week-old son, Nolan.

Styles spoke of her husband as a man who truly loved his job but never liked being in the limelight, and "wouldn't have wanted all this fuss." Their two children would be reminded every morning and every night how much he loved them, she said.

"I'm not sure how I will live in a world without you, but I promise I will find a way. I love you," said Styles, who is also a civilian member of the York force.

Applause at the end of her eulogy, and occasional cries from baby Nolan, punctuated the heavy silence inside the arena.

The seats were filled primarily by York and Toronto officers, but thousands more citizens and officers from across the continent — from Edmonton to New York to Halifax — gathered outside to watch the ceremony on a video screen. Close to 300 extended and immediate family members also were in attendance, a police spokesman said.

The funeral comes two days before a scheduled court appearance for the 15-year-old boy accused of murdering Styles. The teenager is accused of trying to speed away after Styles pulled him over on Highway 48; instead, the van tipped over, crushing the 32-year-old officer days before his birthday. His final plea for help was captured in a chilling 911 call made public hours after his death.

"His most heroic act was the day he embraced his profession," York police Chief Eric Jolliffe told mourners Tuesday. "Deeds speak."

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was among the first to address the assembled, expressing his condolences to the Styles family and praising those who helped shape the young officer.

"Garrett also revealed himself to us as a man of great and good character. Not once, not twice, but three times Const. Styles communicated his concern for the occupants of the van that was lying on top of him. That is character. Good character. Strong character," McGuinty said.

Two of the slain officer's uncles also gave eulogies, including Mark Audrain, who recounted the time Styles's father — Garry Styles, who himself recently retired from the York force — visited his son at school. The elder Styles told the class that although policing was a noble profession, it often took him from his family, and he was at his son's school that day because he wanted to change that.

"Garry, you and Carole raised a son who we're all proud of," Audrain said. "Garrett became an amazing father, and he learned that from you."

York Regional Police chaplain Vicki Cousins, who spoke last, delivered a prayer and led a moment of silence. The tragedy reflects the fleeting nature of life, she said, and "how precarious is the hold we have on it."

Speaking directly to the fallen officer's family, Cousins pointed out that while Styles frequently failed to return phone calls, he returned Melissa's. Their first date included dinner at Boston Pizza, a movie and a long walk by the lake.

"Garrett will continue to be your strength," Cousins said, noting the couple's new baby, Nolan, will treasure his father's train collection when he grows older.

When the eulogies ended, officers carefully folded the flag atop Styles's casket and presented it to his widow, along with the slain officer's hat. Melissa Styles laid the items in her lap, her face crumpled in grief and her body heaving with sobs.

Earlier in the day, thousands of police took part in a sombre, three-kilometre procession from the Upper Canada Mall to the Ray Twinney complex, passing by a York Regional Police facility, where flags remained at half-mast. The strains of bagpipes mingled with the thrum of police helicopters as the sweltering sun beat down.

Police from across Canada and the United States stood alongside firefighters and paramedics, all speaking of the brotherhood that unites them when an officer falls.

"It's part of the national policing family," said Supt. Darren Eastcott of the Edmonton Police Service, commenting on what brought him across the country for the funeral of a man he never knew.

"What I remember about Garrett is always his big smile," said York Const. Mark Durrall.

For RCMP Cpl. Randy Leamen, the occasion reminded him of a time he nearly met a similarly grim fate, having been shot several times in an on-the-job altercation in 1980.

"It takes you back," Leamen said, his eyes welling with tears. "I think a lot of us have had near-death experiences in our career . . . It's very sobering, sombre."

During the procession, "everybody's sort of lost in their own thoughts," he added.

Gregory Kent, deputy sheriff from Erie County, N.Y., was in Newmarket with a colleague to pay respects.

"The death of a fellow officer crosses international lines. We're all brothers with the badge (and) most of us are family men . . . It hits home," he said.

Among the civilians who turned out were siblings Ken Sedore and Tricia Passafiume, who grew up just around the corner from where Styles was fatally injured. They brought Passafiume's two sons, aged 2 and 4, to pay their respects.

"I don't think police officers get enough recognition for what they do. Unfortunately this is the bad side of policing," Sedore said. "I think it's a good learning experience for (my nephews)."

One young woman's tears began flowing freely as she watched the procession pass by. Her husband, a York officer, was marching, she said, and the experience left her with the feeling that this could have happened to anyone.

"It's overwhelming. Intense," she said.

As the hearse passed by, officers flanking either side of Yonge and Eagle streets stood in solemn salute. The main vehicle was dubbed 1405, the badge number of Styles, in his honour.

Toronto Police Const. Jaime Knox said it felt like just yesterday police were gathering to mark an equally sombre occasion: the funeral of Sgt. Ryan Russell, the Toronto officer who died last winter after being struck by a stolen snowplow.

"It feels too close," Knox said. "It feels way too soon."

© Copyright (c) National Post

Rae readies cash-hungry Liberals for '24/7 operation'

By Mark Kennedy, Postmedia News July 5, 2011

 

 

 

Story

Photos ( 1 )

 

 

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae says he will appeal to Canadians for financial contributions to help the party launch advertising campaigns in the years ahead to counter the negative ads that are sure to come from the governing Tories.

Photograph by: Brett Gundlock/National Post, National Post

OTTAWA — Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae says he will appeal to Canadians for financial contributions to help the party launch advertising campaigns in the years ahead to counter the negative ads that are sure to come from the governing Tories.

Rae made the comment Tuesday, as he announced he will travel across the country this summer to promote the party while it tries to rebuild in the wake of its devastating electoral losses in May.

Moreover, he insisted the party is "alive and well," has a growing membership and raised more funds in the recent election campaign than in the previous three elections combined.

Rae said the Liberals are in "good shape" financially and will have to get even better at raising funds — particularly in light of the Harper government's plans to abolish public financing of political parties in the next three years.

He said that when he makes his pitch to the public for money, he will make it clear that some of it is needed for ads outside of election campaigns to promote Liberal ideals and to combat what they deem misinformation spread by the Conservatives.

The Tories have become experts at fundraising — collecting $17.4 million last year, compared to the $6.4 raised by the Liberals.

In recent years, the Tories dipped into their war chest to spend millions on TV ads which denigrated then-Liberal leaders Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff — defining their public persona long before elections occurred in 2008 and this year.

"We have to be in a position to respond to attacks," said Rae.

"Surely to goodness we've learned that lesson. That you can't leave your leader exposed to artillery fire for six months before an election and not be in a position to respond."

Rae said the Conservatives have changed the Canadian political system so that parties are essentially engaged in a "permanent campaign."

"The Conservatives, following the Tea Party in the United States and elsewhere, have turned this into a 24/7 operation. And we have to do the same thing. Not because we think Canadians are desperately interested in seeing negative advertising, but because we think it's absolutely necessary for us to be able to connect with Canadians and to remind them who we are."

Rae said the Liberals are now facing a "tough fight" against the Tories and NDP, two opponents that are "ideologically based" and are ready to attack the Liberals.

"We have to be engaged to go over their heads to talk to the Canadian public. That's politics today."

The Liberals, a seemingly insurmountable political force for many decades, were reduced to third place in the May 2 election that delivered a majority for the Tories and catapulted the NDP into official Opposition status. By comparison, the Liberals fell from 77 to 34 seats in the Commons.

Rae, who will lead his party until a new leader is chosen in 2013, said people shouldn't write off the Liberals simply because they have slipped behind the NDP.

"It's an exciting time to be a Liberal," said Rae.

"Whether you're first, second or third is frankly irrelevant because anybody who knows anything about politics knows those numbers change all the time."

Rae said that if the last few elections have "taught us anything" it is "both victory and defeat are pretty temporary."

"And anybody who thinks that they're first and second, and therefore life has changed forever permanently and nothing else will ever change again is just deluding themselves. Change will come. And it will come again. And that's the nature of the political cycle. That's the nature of the political process."

Rae said he is quite familiar with how quickly a politician's political fortunes can rise and fall. He went from third place status to the Ontario premier's office in an election in 1990, and then fell back to third place when he was toppled by the Tories five years later.

"I know all about that. And so anybody who tells me the Liberal party can't win the next election is just whistling in the wind. Of course we can. Absolutely we can. Will we? I don't know. But can we? Absolutely."

mkennedy@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/Mark_Kennedy_

© Copyright (c) Postmedia News

William gets the skinny on finer points of shinny

By Shannon Proudfoot, Postmedia News July 5, 2011

 

 

 

 

More Images »

 

Prince William and his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, react after the prince took a shot with a hockey stick and missed during a visit to the Somba K'e Civic Plaza in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories July 5, 2011.

Photograph by: Phil Noble, Reuters

YELLOWKNIFE — The surest way to a Canadian's heart is through centre ice and Prince William nailed that one on Tuesday — even if he missed the net.

Extending the playful tone of the second half of the royal tour, the Duke of Cambridge joined a game of shinny on the sunny shores of Frame Lake in Yellowknife, gamely taking a few shots on net and delighting a crowd that didn't seem to care that he was shut out.

Shooting right-handed, Will was stopped on a glove save and then a stick save by 20-year-old Calvin Lomen of Fort Liard, N.W.T. On his third and final shot, Will tried something a little trickier, pointing to the upper-left corner of the net with a grin and then deking a bit before taking a shot that lurched wide of the net.

"Yes I have, and I'm sorry," Lomen said later, when someone pointed out that he'd just shut out Canada's future king. Then Lomen flashed a sweaty smile that didn't look even a little bit sorry.

Still, Lomen was generous in his assessment of William's novice hockey skills.

"I heard him say he doesn't know how to play, but he seems like he has a natural talent if he practises more," he said.

Before Will took his shots on goal, he and Kate were presented with personalized Team Canada hockey jerseys — hers numbered 1 and his 2, both with the surname Cambridge emblazoned across the shoulders — to the whooping, howling delight of the crowd.

"Put it on!" someone in the crowd yelled. Instantly, a group of about 50 young day campers sitting on bleachers began chanting in unison, "Put it on! Put it on!" but Will simply turned to them, laughing, and shook his head.

The players lined up before providing the royals with a demonstration of shinny, but when someone handed Kate a stick, she kicked out a foot, pointed at her spindly stilettos and laughed sheepishly.

On a day that defied a rainy forecast by reaching a sunny 21 C, the duchess wore a cream linen three-quarter sleeve dress by Danish designer Malene Birger.

Earlier in the day, William thrilled a crowd of about 3,000 gathered in a park on the shores of Frame Lake when he told them how excited he and his wife were to be "north of 60."

"This place is what Canada is all about: vast, open beauty, tough, resilient and friendly peoples, true nature, true humanity," he said. "Thanks to you who travelled such great distances to join us today. Catherine and I are deeply honoured. "

As at other stops on the tour, his mention of his wife sparked a new wave of cheers, but the crowd exploded in appreciation when he concluded his speech by thanking them in Dene, one of eight aboriginal languages with official status in the territory, and Inuvialuktun, one of three Inuit dialects spoken in its northern region.

"We have been here just 12 hours but we have already sensed the extraordinary potential and the irrepressible spirit of adventure that marks out the peoples of the territories and defines this land," William said. "We are so excited to be here."

Following the speeches, the couple embarked on an extended walkabout on their way to the shinny game, pausing to take in demonstrations of traditional aboriginal arts and athletic skills.

At a station where young players demonstrated the sleight-of-hand skills of handgames, Kate asked questions and laughed, pointing as the boys used elaborate hand movements to trick their opponents, with a drum chorus providing thumping accompaniment.

The street hockey game was ostensibly in progress when the royal couple arrived at the concrete circle where two teams of teenagers in home and away Team Canada jerseys were squaring off, but all eyes — and digital cameras — were aimed at Will and Kate.

Later, defenceman Tye Hand, 16, offered some diplomatic advice when asked for his assessment of William's shooting technique.

"Just keep practising," he said. "It comes from the hips more than the shoulders and arms."

Still, Hand admitted to feeling "a little" pressure himself out there on the pavement.

"You don't want to mess up in front of the prince and princess," he said. "But at the same time, it's just about having fun and showing them what hockey is about."

Even the loud entreaties of the crowd couldn't convince Kate to take a shot on net, but she earned loud cheers when she dropped an orange neon ball to kick off a game, providing a youthful, informal echo of William's grandmother dropping the puck at a Vancouver Canucks hockey game in 2002. Kate seemed confused when one of the young players handed the ball back to her, as tradition dictates, but the crowd was too enamoured of the royal foray into Canada's national sport to do anything but cheer when she dropped the ball a second time.

After the street hockey game, Will and Kate chatted with the younger children in the bleachers, who wore bright purple T-shirts beckoning "Welcome Duke and Duchess of Cambridge." At one point, William gestured for a group of them to squeeze together while he snapped a photo. The crowd moaned audibly in disappointment as the couple disappeared into their motorcade to depart, but the children on the bleachers saluted the rookie hockey fans with a group wave as they roared off.

The royals struck another blow in their nationwide charm offensive on Tuesday, announcing that they will make a stop Wednesday in Slave Lake, an Alberta community that was ravaged by fire in May. The couple wants to personally thank the rescuers and emergency workers there, as well as surveying the damage and meeting the families most affected, said Kevin MacLeod, the man overseeing the royal tour as the Queen's Canadian secretary.

"Since Slave Lake is en route from Yellowknife to Calgary, it was deemed very important that Their Royal Highnesses actually visit with local residents and see firsthand what they're experiencing," he said, adding that they delayed announcing the visit until the last minute because they didn't want to detract from rebuilding efforts.

More than 300 homes were destroyed by the wildfire that swept through the northern Alberta town on May 15 and all 7,000 members of the town were evacuated.

Earlier Tuesday, the Insurance Bureau of Canada said that the fire caused more than $700 million in damage, making it the second-costliest insured disaster in Canadian history after the 1998 ice storm that hit Quebec and Ontario.

Following the Slave Lake visit, Will and Kate will continue their cross-Canada tour with 24 hours of private time somewhere near Calgary and then help kick off the Calgary Stampede when they reappear in the public eye.

Sproudfoot@Postmedia.com

Twitter.com/sproudfoot

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