Ellen DeGeneres made one young hockey fan’s dream come true on her show on Monday. Daniel Clarke Bouchard is a 14 year Canadian piano prodigy who has already played at the famed Carnegie Hall. Daniel performed, and wowed the audience with his playing and his snappy black and red tux. As he chatted, he admitted to Ellen that the only thing he loves more than playing the piano is hockey. As Daniel hails from Monreal, he is a fan of the Montreal Canadiens, but his favorite player is on an American team. Daniel revealed that his favorite player is Jonathan Quick, the LA Kings Goaltender. Daniel and Ellen were having a chat about hockey and playing piano, when the talk show hostess gave him the biggest surprise of his young life…his idol, Jonathan Quick, in the flesh. From the look on his face, it was a moment even bigger than Carnegie.
Quick presented Daniel with a signed goalie stick, jersey, and invited him to attend an LA Kings game, as the youngster beamed from ear to ear. DeGeneres had obviously gone to great deal of trouble for this young man, and who can blame her? She has had a rough time of late, from talk over how much her famous Oscar selfie cost to controversy over where the money promised by Samsung, which was about $3 million dollars, went. The charities chosen were St. Judes Childrens Hospital and The Humane Society. Now, just who could take issue with those charities, one that helps sick children and one that helps animals? Well, a 17 year old Inuit of the Nunavut region of Canada, Killaq Enuaraq-Straus s, and other members of her tribe have decided to educate the talk show hostess and her fans on seal hunting, which The Humane Society has long batted against. The group posted “sealfies” , pictures where they posed with seal skin products and added tag lines from Killaq’s YouTube Video statement:
“I own sealskin boots and they are supercute, and I am proud to say that I own them, and I also eat seal meat more times than I can count. But I can’t apologize for that. A huge part of your fanbase is targeting us as a people for practicing our own rights and traditions as an indigenous group. It’s detrimental to our culture. It’s oppressive. Having a role model to people worldwide use a photo of a few celebrities to protest against our culture, to raise money to fight against us — I’m a little bit insulted and hurt and disappointed. But I’m not mad.”
DeGeneres has not commented on the seal controversy as yet. She has been too busy arranging to make one young hockey fan’s dream come true.