The Hometown Hockey tour has come to town this weekend, with the festivities kicking off at noon today.

Hometown Hockey and Hockey Night in Canada host Ron MacLean explains there will be plenty of music, autograph sessions with NHL alumni Arron Asham and Laurie Boschman and all kinds of interactive activities for families. He notes it's a great educational and entertainment opportunity all around.

"It's kind of a two teachers in the room experience. I'll come and share stories of Don Cherry and Hockey Night in Canada and Tara Slone will provide great insight into the culture of Portage la Prairie and then we will learn all about what makes the various teams, through history, great in that neck of the woods".

One of the feature elements of this weekend's festivities is the Winnipeg Jets and Vancouver Canucks game being shown Sunday with Hometown Hockey broadcasting right from Portage la Prairie. MacLean notes while the Saturday night broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada are big, he feels the Sunday evening ones are the most important.

"I think on Sunday night when we tell special stories, and we have one, as an example, in the first intermission of the broadcast between the Canucks and the Jets Sunday night. It's a story of a Make a Wish recipient, Keira Neal. Just a great story. We really get the chance to kind of take a break from X's and O's and dissecting inferior powerplays and kind of get into what makes people say 'I want to be a hockey player'."

MacLean adds hockey is a central thread to our country.

"When you're in the east it might be a fishery and in the west, a grain elevator, but common in every circumstance is the rink. It really does bind us together and it really strips us of all rank, of class, of religion. It just makes us part of a really special dressing room where everybody kind of pulls together to make something happen."

You can check out the full interview with Ron MacLean at the Mix Blog.