WATCH ABOVE: RCMP Cpl. Shaun Begg discusses the incredible response to the viral photo that featured him playing hockey in his red Serge up in the Purcell mountains.
TORONTO – When you look at the image of the Mountie in his Red Serge playing hockey, it looks like a tourism promotion photo. But it was a personal photo that is now being shared worldwide.
That player is RCMP Cpl. Shaun Begg from Kaslo, B.C. One of Begg’s teammates is a pilot and was subcontracted to create an ice rink 9000 feet up B.C.’s remote Purcell Mountains. So the team decided to play a game of shinny there.
Begg thought it would make a great photo, he tells Global News. “I asked my teammates ‘would you mind if I brought my Serge?’ I thought this was truly a Canadian moment to play pond hockey, don the Serge and have a photo op, a personal photo op.”
He had to get clearance from his supervisors and once the photo was taken the BC RCMP shared it on its twitter account with the message “We may be Mounties, but we are all still kids at heart with @NHL dreams.”
It has now been dubbed “the most Canadian picture ever” online and is being shared around the world, surprising Begg, who admits it “went crazy,” and “my intention was for personal use.”
Begg says he is proud of the photo. As for what’s next, he tells Global News, “we are going to have a meeting tonight with the team and figure out what to do with the photo.”
EXTENDED VIDEO: Global News speaks to the man in the photo, Cpl. Shaun Begg of Kaslo RCMP
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