“The Raccoons On Ice” – a lost Canadian Christmas time classic

The Evergreen Raccoons set to battle Cyril’s Bears.

You know it is a big hockey game in the cartoon world when Ferlin Fielddigger voiced by Danny Gallivan is on the call.

Back on December 20, 1981, the Evergreen Raccoons took on Cyril’s Bears on the natural ice confines of Evergreen Lake situated in the picturesque Evergreen Forest in a contest for the ages. At stake is the fate of the lake itself.

If Cyril’s Bears win, greedy aardvark Cyril Sneer gets ownership of the lake and he plans to build the “Cyril Dome” on it. The “Cyril Dome” will be as massive concrete rink facility Sneer aims to use to make big bucks off of.

Ralph, left, and Bert playing hockey on Evergreen Lake.

He doesn’t plan to be a charity for any user groups.

If the Raccoons win, the Evergreen Lake stays in its natural state to be used freely for all who choose to skate there.

Thus was the plot for the just under 25-minute animated television special “The Raccoons On Ice,” which originally aired on CBC on December 20, 1981 and was the second of four Raccoons TV specials. 

“The Raccoons On Ice” often ran in conjunction with the first Raccoons TV special called “The Christmas Raccoons,” which originally aired on Dec. 17, 1980 on CBC.

Cedric Sneer decked out in his New York Islanders gear.

The specials ultimately led up to The Raccoons animated series that was a staple on CBC from 1985 to 1992 with its classic theme song “Run With Us” performed first by Steve Lunt and then followed by the famous version created by Lisa Lougheed.

“The Raccoons On Ice” is one of those lost Canadian classics in animation and was shown for a number of years in the 1980s when the Christmas season came around.

The episode starts out with the Bert, Ralph and Melissa Raccoon playing shinny with their friend Schaeffer, who is an Old English Sheepdog. Ralph and Melissa are married, while Bert is a friend and roommate.

The proposed “Cyril Dome” for Evergreen Lake.

Schaeffer plays goal in those sessions. Ralph and Melissa are both very good players. Bert isn’t that good, but he talks a lot about being good at the sport.

The lake is often shared by Cedric Sneer, who is Cyril’s son, and a young female aardvark figure skater named Sophia Tutu.  Cedric and Sophia meet by accident and quickly fall into adolescent love.

Cedric usually acts nervous around Sophia.

During one of the skating sessions, Cyril arrives with a construction crew expecting to go in and build his “Cyril Dome.” Cyril admits he technically doesn’t have any ownership of the lake.

Cyril Sneer, right, enjoys a Cyril’s Bears practice.

Cyril has a verbal confrontation with the Raccoons. Ultimately, he challenges the Raccoons to a hockey game for ownership of the lake. The contest will happen in one week.

Bert being all worked up emotionally accepts the game. Cyril speeds down to quickly shake hands on the agreement.

After the game is agreed to, the Raccoons find out Cyril owns a professional team that is pretty much NHL caliber.

During the week, Cyril trains his Cyril’s Bears team. They are a squad that is built in the image of the NHL’s “Broadstreet Bullies” Philadelphia Flyers clubs from the 1970s.

Sophia, left, takes her picture away from Cedric’s bedside.

After seeing Cyril’s Bears, Fielddigger remarked, “Don’t they look like a brutish bunch.”

The Raccoons convince Cedric to join their side. Cedric skates at the lake in the full uniform of the NHL’s New York Islanders, who were enjoying their run of winning four straight Stanley Cup titles when “The Raccoons On Ice” first aired.

Cedric’s jersey sports the #22 of Islanders superstar right-winger Mike Bossy. Cedric shows some really great skill in the practice sessions.

Cyril spies on the Raccoons and finds out his son is playing for them. He forbids Cedric to play for the Raccoons and grounds his son for a month and bans him from seeing Sophia.

Ferlin Fielddigger all set to call the big hockey game.

Before the Raccoons continue practising after losing Cedric from their squad, Bert proclaims, “Hey, we’re the good guys remember, so we’re supposed to win. Right?”

The Raccoons continue to practice and ever Bert starts improving. They still have doubts about their chances against Cyril’s Bears.

The night before the game, the Raccoons crew decided to sneak into the Sneer estate to try and convince Cedric to play on their side. When they are meeting Cedric in his bedroom, Cyril almost catches them there and threatens Cedric to not go anywhere near the Raccoons.

A Cyril’s Bear player, right, toys with Bert.

After Cyril leaves, Cedric tell the Raccoons he didn’t want to disobey his father and wouldn’t join them on the ice. Sophia was so disappointed she took away a picture of herself that sat by Cedric’s bedside.

Then, the scene switched to game day.

When Fielddigger was doing his pregame introductions for the television broadcast, Cyril came on the scene and proclaimed, “There better be a doctor in the house!”

After delivering his proclamation, Cyril gave out an evil laugh.

The game itself was a two-period contest. In the first period, Cyril’s Bears came out playing a brutally physical and often dirty style of game.

Cyril Sneer enjoys his team’s first period scoreboard surge.

They took a 3-0 lead by the end of the opening frame. Cyril’s Bears first goal came after they gave Schaeffer snow shower.

On their third goal, one of players from Cyril’s Bears bowled Schaeffer out of the net allowing another player from Cyril’s Bears to pop the puck into an empty cage. For some reason, no penalty was called on the play.

Also on that play, Cyril’s Bears managed to injury Bert’s right paw seemingly knocking him out of the contest.

As the first period wound down, Sophia snuck over to Cedric, and convinced him to come to the Raccoons side adding they would conceal his identity. Bert and Cedric traded jerseys.

Bert, centre, stares at his injured paw.

When Bert put on the New York Islanders #22 Mike Bossy jersey, he said, “Hey, we should do this more often.”

Cedric proceeded to go out on the ice for the second period and looked like the best player the sport of hockey had ever seen. He skated through the entire Cyril’s Bears team scoring three spectacular goals – which were made greater by Fielddigger’s calls - to tie the contest up at 3-3.

After netting the equalizer on a slick backhander, Cedric started to hotdog it and blew a kiss to Sophia. When he was blowing that kiss, he was tripped to the ice by Cyril.

Cedric Sneer, centre, turns the game around for the Raccoons.

Cyril discovered the mystery player was his son, took him off the ice and vowed to throw him in the dungeon at the family estate.

With two minutes remaining in the contest, the Raccoons side questioned if they should throw in the towel. 

Bert vowed he would return to the ice and would play injured. 

He gave a bit of a raw, raw speech that they could still win the game if they all played together.

The Raccoons side decided to give it a shot to big cheers from the crowd of forest animals watching the game.

Melissa eludes two bruising forecheckers to start a rush.

When the contest resumed, Cyril’s Bears broke into the Raccoons’ zone, but a dangerous drive by a Cyril’s Bears player was turned away by Schaeffer.

Melissa got a hold of the puck, made a smart moved past two forecheckers to begin a transition rush up ice. 

She hit Ralph with a pass jetting down the right wing, and all the skaters from Cyril’s Bears went after him.

Ralph slipped a pass over to Bert, who was open for a break in on goal as the game’s final seconds ticked down.

Bert misplayed the pass, and made a dash to the loose puck in the offensive zone. 

Bert, left, wins the race for the puck.

The netminder for Cyril’s Bears came out of the goal to create a race for the puck.

Bert managed to get to the puck first and flipped it past the charging goalie towards the open cage. 

Would the puck go into the net before time expired?

Well it is a Canadian animated show aimed for children, so the puck did indeed go into the net for a buzzer beating 4-3 victory for the Raccoons.

“I don’t believe it,” said Fielddigger on the call. “The Raccoons have won it.

“What a game. What an incredible finish.”

Bert watches his winning goal go in the net.

The Raccoons proceeded to embrace in a joyful celebration.

The next morning, Ranger Dan arrived at Evergreen Lake with his children, Julie and Tommy, and they were puzzled why there were so many crazy looking skate marks on the lake.

They were there with Schaeffer. The TV special closed with a narrator stating that Schaeffer knew how the skate marks were left on the lake.

The narrator added Schaeffer and the Raccoons side discovered that by working together as a team you can do almost anything.

The Evergreen Raccoons hockey team celebrates victory.

And that moral brought an end to great piece of classic Canadian animation.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you have to check out “The Raccoons On Ice,” and it will give you all those feel good feelings.

If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com. You can check out “The Raccoons On Ice” on Youtube by clicking right here.

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