It was a pretty laid back, and a rather Canadian way, to get ready for a sports trivia competition
“Yeah, I prepared by drinking beer,” Harv Stewart said with a chuckle.
The co-host of Eastlink Television’s Harv’s Sportsland was among the sportscasters from across Canada who took part in CBC Television’s special, Test The Nation: Sports.
“It was top-drawer,” Stewart said about the play-at-home competition, which airs on CBC this Sunday. “Of all people, Alan Thicke was our coach.” The quiz show will feature 240 Canadians flexing their knowledge of 50 sports-related multiple-choice questions, along with celebrity teams filled with armchair athletes, mascots, Olympians, and referees.
“The couch potatoes were a lot of fun to deal with, too,” said Stewart. “I was really excited to do this because I am a big sports fan, and I knew what to expect.” Taking part in the quiz show with Stewart was his Harv’s Sportsland co-host Cecil Wright. As he boasts on his show biography, Wright “knows everybody and everything. And he’s rarely wrong. Except about NASCAR.”
“Absolutely not, I am not an expert,” Wright said. “There are some topics I am better on than others, and the show asked a good variety, and several of them I had no knowledge of.” Stewart said the questions were not all totally sports-related, there were some pop culture questions and some extreme sport trivia. “It wasn’t a big deal. I just went with the flow and I knew the questions weren’t going to be too difficult. “They had to be more general for the audience and the teams involved,” he said. Wright said one of the highlights was getting to meet some of Canada’s sports celebrities, including people like Don Cherry and gold-medal figure skater Elvis Stojko. “It was an honour to meet him. I shook his hand but everyone wanted to have their picture taken with him,” Wright said. “Some lady said ‘Do you mind taking a picture of us?’ I said sure, and then another person asked.
“Elvis said I should stay with him and be his official photographer.”
