Nothing says hockey in British Columbia quite like Trail, home of the world-champion Smoke Eaters of 1939 and 1961 and the historic Cominco Arena, tucked hard by the river and below the town's iconic smoke-belching smelter.

And nothing quite conveys small-town, forestry-dependent B.C. like the donning of a Salmo dinner jacket, more commonly known as a plaid, wool lumberjack shirt.

For Canada's sledge hockey team, bound for Vancouver and the Paralympic Games that start in a week's time, a bus journey the past week through hardscrabble Kootenay towns such as Kimberley, Trail and Salmo has been the perfect thing to put them in the right frame of mind to defend their 2006 gold medal.

"It's been excellent," head coach Jeff Snyder said Friday from Kelowna, where the team practised in the morning and then took in the Rockets' WHL game in the evening.

"[Team manager] Adam [Crockatt] and I talked earlier in the season about what we wanted to do before we went to Vancouver and since we don't get the chance to travel together on the bus -- we're always flying in from all over -- that this would be a good team-building thing for us, circling through B.C., getting some practices in and hopefully generating some interest."

The bus rides have been typical hockey team experiences, playing cards and laughing at funny and/or stupid movies. Slapshot was first up, of course, but there was also The Hangover, Stepbrothers, Wedding Crashers and some Monty Python.

"Not exactly the Oscars, but good entertainment," jokes assistant captain Greg Westlake.

"It's been a pretty good time, just kind of makes you feel like you're a junior hockey team. And we love going to the small towns and small towns love their hockey."

The only junior-age player

on the 15-player team is 20-year-old defenceman Adam Dixon. Westlake and his scoring star line-mates Brad Bowden and Billy Bridges are in their mid-20s, but there's also guys in their 40s, including starting goaltender Paul Rosen, who's 49, and 51-year-old third-line centre Herve Lord.

While Rosen and Lord are old enough to know some of hockey's glorious past, Westlake, just 23 but an ardent fan of the game, appreciated the opportunity to soak up some of the history inside the Cominco Arena.

"Just walking into that rink, seeing some of the old Smoke Eaters sweaters and the banners from the '30s. Reading about their Allan Cup wins when they used to have senior hockey and representing Canada. It was pretty neat."

Snyder, too, got a kick out of his first trip to Trail.

"I was amazed at the history. It was a real eye-opener for the guys, to see the Hall of Fame area in the rink, to hear from this guy who played when the old Soviet Union came and played."

The players, all of them from Ontario and Quebec, had flown into Calgary and were on the bus within a half-hour bound for Kimberley, which has plenty of hockey history of its own. The team practised there Saturday, Sunday and Monday, taking time out to watch the Olympic men's gold-medal hockey game Sunday on a huge projector screen in the conference room of their hotel.

And with Canada's men's and women's teams both winning gold, the pressure is on for the third team under Hockey Canada's umbrella to also be golden.

"We talked a little bit about it yesterday," said Snyder, a former junior coach in Ontario. "The thing is we've always wanted to win gold. I'm really happy that our other two teams won and it would be great to get the triple, but it doesn't change that much for us. We've been focused on holding up our end right from the start. And there's always pressure when you play for Canada."

Synder acknowledges that the heat will be turned up on his squad after they arrive in Vancouver today and says the bus journey was a way to keep things really relaxed leading into the Paralympics.

The some-work, some-play journey included a quick stop in front of the Salmo Hotel for a team picture in their Hockey Canada-crested Salmo dinner jackets.

"Yeah, we were just driving through, stopped at the hotel and piled out for a picture in our jackets and got back on the bus," said Snyder. "Traffic was stopping to have a look, wondering what was going on. It was pretty funny."

In Trail, the team also got a rare tour of the Teck Cominco smelter, arranged by assistant coach Mike Mondin, who used to teach school and coach junior hockey in the city. The Teck Resources operation is where the medals for the Olympics and Paralympics were made.

"We met a bunch of the workers and got to hold a gold bar worth a million dollars," said Westlake. "Hopefully, that was some good karma."

gkingston@vancouversun.com