Power Play was a Canadian television drama series, which aired on CTV

CTV television network

CTV Television Network is a Canadian English language television network and is owned by Bell Media. It is Canada's largest privately-owned network, and has consistently placed as Canada's top-rated network in total viewers and in key demographics since 2002, after several years trailing the rival...

 from 1998 to 2000. The series was filmed at Copps Coliseum

Copps Coliseum

Copps Coliseum is a sports and entertainment arena, on the corner of Bay Street North and York Boulevard, in Hamilton, Ontario. Depending on event, the Copps Coliseum has a capacity of up to 19,000.It is named after the former Hamilton mayor, Victor K...

 in Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton, Ontario

Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...

.

The show starred Michael Riley

Michael Riley

Michael Riley is a Canadian actor and graduate of the National Theatre School in Montreal, Canada in 1984. Riley's first appearance was in the film No Man's Land...

 as Brett Parker, a former New York City sports agent who became the general manager of a (fictional) National Hockey League

National Hockey League

The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...

 franchise, the Hamilton Steelheads.

One of the throughline plots of the series dealt with Parker's ongoing love–hate relationships with the sport, the team and his superior at McArdle Industries, corporate executive Colleen Blessed, played by Kari Matchett

Kari Matchett

Kari Matchett is a Canadian television and film actress. She played Mariel Underlay in Invasion, Lisa Miller in 24, and Kate Filmore in the cult favorite science fiction movie Cube 2: Hypercube. She currently appears in the USA television series Covert Affairs.-Early years:Matchett was born in...

.

The cast also included Gordon Pinsent

Gordon Pinsent

Gordon Edward Pinsent, CC, FRSC is a Canadian television, theatre and film actor.-Early life:Pinsent, the youngest of six children, was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, the son of Flossie ; originally from Clifton, Newfoundland, and Stephen Arthur Pinsent, a papermill worker and cobbler;...

 as team owner Duff McArdle, Jonathan Crombie

Jonathan Crombie

Jonathan Crombie is a Canadian actor. He is best known for playing Gilbert Blythe in CBC Television's 1985 telefilm Anne of Green Gables and its two sequels. He was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for his role in the Canadian Stage Company's 1997 production of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia...

, Jennifer Dale

Jennifer Dale

Jennifer Dale, née Ciurluini , is a Canadian television, dancer, and actress.- Early life :She is the sister of Canadian actress Cynthia Dale...

 and Al Waxman

Al Waxman

Albert Samuel Waxman, CM, O.Ont was a Canadian actor and director of over 1000 productions on radio, television, film, and stage...

. The show's theme song was a modernized version of the Stompin' Tom Connors

Stompin' Tom Connors

Charles Thomas "Stompin' Tom" Connors, OC is one of Canada's most prolific and well-known country and folk singers.He lives in Wellington County, Ontario.- Early life :...

 classic, "The Hockey Song

The Hockey Song

"The Hockey Song" is a song written and originally performed by Canadian folksinger Stompin' Tom Connors.The song first appeared on Connors' 1973 album, Stompin' Tom and the Hockey Song. However, the song did not reach its tremendous popularity until 1997. It was at this time that the song was...

", performed partly by Connors himself, and then transitioning to the performance of the band Rusty

Rusty (band)

Rusty is a Canadian alternative rock band formed in 1994 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The band earned a 1996 Juno Award nomination in the category Best Alternative Album for Fluke.-History:...

.

The show was briefly aired on the US network UPN

UPN

United Paramount Network was a television network that was broadcast in over 200 markets in the United States from 1995 to 2006. UPN was originally owned by Viacom/Paramount and Chris-Craft Industries, the former of which, through the Paramount Television Group, produced most of the network's...

, starting in 1999, but was pulled after just two episodes. The second episode aired in the US has the distinction of being the lowest-rated episode (since the Nielsen ratings

Nielsen Ratings

Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...

 service began in the 1950s) of any prime-time TV series ever aired by any US network.

Starring cast

• Michael Riley
  Michael Riley
  Michael Riley is a Canadian actor and graduate of the National Theatre School in Montreal, Canada in 1984. Riley's first appearance was in the film No Man's Land...
  
   – Brett Parker
• Kari Matchett
  Kari Matchett
  Kari Matchett is a Canadian television and film actress. She played Mariel Underlay in Invasion, Lisa Miller in 24, and Kate Filmore in the cult favorite science fiction movie Cube 2: Hypercube. She currently appears in the USA television series Covert Affairs.-Early years:Matchett was born in...
  
   – Colleen Blessed
• Dean McDermott
  Dean McDermott
  Dean McDermott is a Canadian-American actor best known in the United States for having married Victoria Davey "Tori" Spelling, with whom he appeared in the observational documentary shows Tori & Dean: Inn Love and Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood, and for having acted out the role of Constable...
  
   – Mark Simpson
• Caterina Scorsone
  Caterina Scorsone
  Caterina Scorsone is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her role as Amelia Shepherd, sister of Derek Shepherd, on Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy and for her role as Alice Hamilton in Alice.-Early life:Scorsone was born in Toronto, Ontario. She is the middle child of five in her family...
  
   – Michelle Parker
• Gordon Pinsent
  Gordon Pinsent
  Gordon Edward Pinsent, CC, FRSC is a Canadian television, theatre and film actor.-Early life:Pinsent, the youngest of six children, was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, the son of Flossie ; originally from Clifton, Newfoundland, and Stephen Arthur Pinsent, a papermill worker and cobbler;...
  
   – Duff McArdle

Recurring cast

• Jonathan Rannells – Todd Maplethorpe
• Mark Lutz
  Mark Lutz (actor)
  Mark Douglas Lutz is a Canadian actor, who is best known for playing Groosalugg in the television series Angel and for writing and starring in the two-hour movie on the life and death of Victor Davis....
  
   – Jukka Branny-Acke
• Krista Bridges – Rose Thorton
• Normand Bissonnette – Al Tremblay
• Lori Anne Alter – Renata D'Allesandro
• Greg Spottiswood – Joe Harriman
• Al Waxman
  Al Waxman
  Albert Samuel Waxman, CM, O.Ont was a Canadian actor and director of over 1000 productions on radio, television, film, and stage...
  
   – Lloyd Gorman
• Johanna Black – Andrea Stuyvesant
• Neil Crone
  Neil Crone
  Neil Crone is a Canadian voice actor and comedian who does the voices of Gordon the Big Engine, Splatter and Diesel 10 from the film Thomas and the Magic Railroad. He does Phillip the Concierge in the My Secret Identity episode "Sour Grapes"...
  
   – Harry Strand
• Jonathan Crombie
  Jonathan Crombie
  Jonathan Crombie is a Canadian actor. He is best known for playing Gilbert Blythe in CBC Television's 1985 telefilm Anne of Green Gables and its two sequels. He was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for his role in the Canadian Stage Company's 1997 production of Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia...
  
   – Hudson James
• Fiona Highet – Rayanne Simpson
• David Keeley – Bud Travis
• Jennifer Dale
  Jennifer Dale
  Jennifer Dale, née Ciurluini , is a Canadian television, dancer, and actress.- Early life :She is the sister of Canadian actress Cynthia Dale...
  
   – Samantha Robbins
• Don Cherry – Jake Nelson
• Tanja Jacobs – SM3 Reagan Sexsmith
• Chris Tessaro
  Chris Tessaro
  Chris Tessaro is a radio personality, journalist, and actor in Canada. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, he now makes his home in Toronto. He hosts the North American wide The Hardcore Poker Show along with his co-host, Rob Pizzo, on Hardcore Sports Radio on Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 98, and also...
  
   – Marshak
• Rob Faulds
  Rob Faulds
  Rob Faulds is a Canadian sports analyst on Rogers Sportsnet and host of Sportsnetnews. Faulds also does play-by-play for National Lacrosse League games...
  
   – Play-by-Play Announcer
• Sean McCann
  Sean McCann
  Sean McCann may refer to:* Sean McCann , Lieutenant General and Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces, succeeding Dermot Earley* Sean McCann , Canadian television actor...
  
  – Ray Malone

All-time Hamilton Steelheads roster

The following players have been seen playing for the Steelheads over the course of the series:

• 1. 1 McCloud
  2. 1 Tremblay
  3. 2 Banks
  4. 3 Kudlaw
  5. 4 Borden
  6. 7 Smöckel
  7. 9 Simpson
  8. 10 Wynn
  9. 12 Sauvé
  10. 13 Brainy-Acke
  11. 14 Marshak
  12. 16 Lalonde
  13. 18 Grant
  14. 22 Maplethorpe
  15. 24 Stephanovic
  16. 25 St. Germaine
  17. 28 Chartraw
  18. 28 Paccelli
  19. 29 Alexander
  20. 30 MacDougall
  21. 32 Shipton
  22. 37 Ignarson
  23. 44 Bedard
  24. 55 Gunn
  25. 75 Kerensky

The following players have no known number: Dee, Robinson, McNally.

Season one

1. "Perambulate Me Back to My Habitual Abode"
2. "Changing the Luck"
3. "All for One"
4. "Seventh Game"
5. "Off Season"
6. "Brothers in Arms"
7. "The Bad Boy"
8. "Purple Hazing"
9. "Family Values"
10. "Pucks the Size of Beach Balls"
11. "High Noon"
12. "Dire Straits"
13. "Waked at the Forum"

Season two

1. "Everything is Broken"
2. "Resign or Re-Sign"
3. "Manipulation"
4. "Evasion"
5. "Temptation"
6. "The Truth"
7. "The Jumper"
8. "The Mask"
9. "Foolish Hearts"
10. "The Quarter Finals"
11. "The Cubicle"
12. "The Finals"
13. "What It All Meant"