When Blair Gladue and his wife Skylene “Nipîy” Gladue were asked to join this season’s cast of The Amazing Race he had one big worry.
“I looked at the schedule and I was like, ‘oh, no, you know what? If we do this, I’m going to miss the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs,’” says Gladue, known best in Oiler fandom and Edmonton at large as Superfan Magoo. “Then, if we lost any of those first two rounds, it’s going to be on me.”
Thankfully the Oilers made it past those two playoff encounters for Gladue, who runs Magoo Crew Entertainment when he isn’t leading chants and beating on a drum at Rogers Place games. Gladue and his five associates host youth workshops across the country, focusing on hoop and traditional dancing, rapping and break dancing as they dispense their message about suicide awareness and anti-bullying. Gladue’s wife Skylene is also an entertainer; she’s unavailable for the interview due to prior commitments as part of the touring cast of Bear Grease, which is currently enjoying an Off-Broadway run at the Theater at St. Luke’s in Manhattan.
With no way to check in on McDavid and crew from mid-April to mid-May, Gladue was forced to stay in the moment as he competed against 11 teams representing cities from across Canada. This year, five contestants were drawn from Alberta: Jesse Harink of Sherwood Park (teamed with Ontario’s Jonathan Braun) plus Calgary brothers Osas and Esosa Igbinosun battling with the Gladues for provincial glory. Gladue, who says that he’s watched a number of seasons in the past, admits that he wasn’t quite prepared for what he and his wife went through.
Skylene “Nipîy” Gladue (left) and husband Blair Gladue are competitors on season 11 of The Amazing Race Canada. Handout photo
“It was insane, amazing, and crazy,” says Gladue, “Emotions were running wild, adrenaline was flowing. It’s nothing like when you’re watching it on TV. It’s, in fact, 10 times harder than what you see on TV. This was a life-changing experience for sure.”
The reality show, which features teams in competition with each other across the country, kicks off Tuesday (July 8) at 9 p.m. MT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, with streaming available the next day on Crave. Episodes after that run every Tuesday until the still-to-be-announced final entry. Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton was the starting point, but the competition sees the teams moving through Red Deer, Prince George, the Northwest Territories and beyond. The pace is hectic, the physical toll punishing.
That being said, Gladue insists that if anyone gets the opportunity to do it, they should snap it up immediately.
Blair Gladue, better known as Superfan Magoo on social media, tries to pump up Edmonton Oilers fans coming into Rogers Place before the start of Game 6 between the Oilers and Los Angeles Kings. Taken on Thursday, May 12, 2022, in Edmonton.
“But make sure, before you do it, that you do a lot of running and a lot of walking,” he cautions. “Work out and eat well, because you’re going to need all of that; it’s not easy. I’m a high-energy guy, always moving, and my wife is the one who works out every morning, goes to the gym. But after the show, I’m like, ‘You know what? Man, I need this.’ I need to work out more, so I stretch and work out every morning, seven days a week.”
Gladue and his wife can’t speak to anything that happened during their month-long competition, but Blair does speak fondly of the friends he made. We’ll just have to keep up with episodes as they roll in to see who wins season 11, with its attendant prizes of two 2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS, a trip around the world, and a $250,000 cash prize. If the Gladues win it all, they promise to use some of that cash money for good, just as they promised at the very beginning to represent Indigenous people and the youth.
“Except that on our clothing, it said ‘fer the youth,’ not ‘for the youth,’” he explains. “That’s youth slang. We’re getting the message out there, representing our people, our community, you know, but also representing our Oiler fans!”
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