Thousands of Airdrie Hockey fans have circled this weekend on their calendar for a long time as Hometown Hockey finally comes to the city.

The weekend festival will feature activities, live music and a national broadcast featuring hosts Ron Maclean and Tara Slone.

Ron Maclean

Tara Slone

The pair say they are looking forward to celebrating with the local community.

"It's a great Hockey town and the way to enjoy it is to come out and enjoy the festival," says Maclean, "I know Airdrie is a fantastic hockey town with a really strong hockey system. Ultimately it is all about the kids and we're excited to tell some of the hockey stories of some of the players that have come through," adds Slone.

On top of the activities at Genesis Place, many hockey stories will be shared during the Sunday broadcast, including Ron Maclean's interview with Airdrie YouTube sensation 'On The Bench'.

For Maclean, the weekend will be a bit of a homecoming having grown up in Red Deer, beginning his broadcasting career there.

He shares one great memory of when he always came to Airdrie when feeling hungry.

"In Red Deer growing up, we had no McDonalds, no Wendy's, no A&W, all the major burger joints were kept out of town by a man who owned the Peacock Drive-In. We used to have to come down to Airdrie to go to any of those. It's just such a funny memory that a Red Deer kid, in High School we all had the munchies and we would come to Airdrie to get our fix."

Tara Slone never played hockey as a kid but says the sport was always a part of her life.

"I grew up watching the Montreal Canadiens on Hockey Night In Canada, a big tradition like so many people across the country. I just fell in love with it, I can't quite describe it, there's something about the culture of hockey that I was always very drawn to and the excitement of the game itself."

Hometown Hockey takes over Genesis Place today (December 16th) starting at noon and continues tomorrow with a live broadcast and showing of the feature game between the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames.

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