The players take center stage at the Memorial Cup.
The goals are replayed. The saves are remembered. The stars become household names.
But between the whistles, during television timeouts and commercial breaks, there is another voice helping keep the building alive.
That voice belongs to Ryan “Two T’s” Watters.
More than two decades after he first grabbed a microphone at the Memorial Cup in Kelowna, Watters is back at Prospera Place, once again working the crowd at one of junior hockey’s biggest events.
The remarkable part is not that he’s here.
It’s how long the journey has been.
Back in 2004, Watters was a young broadcaster still trying to find his footing. He had arrived in Kelowna only a few years earlier and was working in radio while also handling music duties for the Kelowna Rockets.
When organizers approached him about becoming the in-game host for the Memorial Cup, he was surprised.
“Very honoured, very surprised,” Watters recalled when speaking with RocketFAN. “I was working with the team doing some stuff music-wise. I was working at the radio station, and when they came calling and said, ‘Hey, we need a host. Would you be interested in this?’ I was really nervous.”
For good reason.
The Memorial Cup is not just another hockey tournament. It is a national championship. Television cameras are everywhere. NHL scouts fill the seats. Three league champions and a host arrive carrying championship expectations.
Watters was still in his twenties.
“I mean, I’m so nervous, right?” he said. “It’s a national event. There are four championship teams in the place. There are scouts. There are lots of people here.”
Looking back now, he laughs when he sees photos from that tournament.
“I know the picture looks like I’m kind of 12,” he joked.
Yet what he remembers most is the atmosphere.
“The energy was incredible,” Watters said. “Even games that the Rockets weren’t playing in, it was Guelph, Gatineau and Medicine Hat. The fan bases from those centres and Kelowna were all here. It was just fans from across the country.”
Twenty-two years later, he sees many of those same ingredients returning.
“And it’s here again this year, which is neat,” he said. “We’ve met people from all over the place.”
Watters’ own path to Kelowna started far from British Columbia.
Raised in Collingwood, Ontario, about 90 minutes northwest of Toronto, he originally considered attending school in Kitchener, the home of the Ontario Hockey League champion Rangers. Instead, he enrolled at Mount Royal College in Calgary before launching a radio career.
His first on-air job took him to Salmon Arm.
Kelowna came next, although not entirely by choice.
“The company that owned the station here [in Kelowna] bought the one in Salmon Arm and said, ‘Do you want a production job in Kelowna or be fired?’ So I’m like, well, I’ll come to Kelowna.”
That move happened on Dec. 1, 2000.
Today, nearly 26 years later, Watters has become one of the city’s most recognizable voices.
His connection to the Rockets started almost immediately. The team was looking for someone to handle music during games. Watters was young, single and eager.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll come to the hockey games,” he said.
That opportunity eventually led him to the Memorial Cup stage.
What began as a one-time assignment became part of the modern game-day experience.
During television breaks, someone needed to keep fans engaged rather than simply letting music fill the arena.
Watters embraced the role.
Now, when thousands of fans gather inside Prospera Place, he becomes the bridge between the action on the ice and the people in the seats.
“My job is keeping energy going and really adding to the fan experience,” Watters explained. “Sponsors put up decent money to have their name read out during a national championship. So it’s keeping that momentum and making it fun.”
His approach is simple.
If a fan volunteers to participate, they are probably going home with something.
“My motto is, if you’re going to stand up with 6,000 people here and do a contest with me, you’re probably going to win,” he said with a chuckle. “If you’re going to stick your neck out on the line, answer some trivia question, you may get a hint or two.”
The contests matter.
The giveaways matter.
But for Watters, the real reward comes from the people.
“The fans here are so awesome,” he said. “There was a guy here from Holland last night. You start striking up a conversation with these kinds of people, and it’s amazing where people have travelled from just to come to Kelowna and take in the Memorial Cup.”
Many fans know him simply as “Two T’s.”
The nickname comes from his last name, Watters, which contains two letter T’s.
A morning show host started calling him Two T’s years ago, and it stuck.
“It was fun. It was easy to say,” Watters said. “There’s a lot of people in this community that don’t even know my name is Ryan. It’s just Two T’s or TT or Doubles. I love it all.”
The nickname has become part of his identity.
So has the nervousness.
After all these years, Watters still gets butterflies before every game.
“I’m nervous every time,” he admitted. “Every time I have to go out into the stands, I get some butterflies in my stomach.”
He hopes that feeling never disappears.
“Once I stop getting that, I’ll probably be done because then you don’t care about it as much anymore.”
As warm-up music echoes through the building and fans begin finding their seats, Watters feels the same excitement he did more than two decades ago.
“The music’s loud. The excitement starts to happen. You can feel the buzz,” he said.
For ten days, the Memorial Cup belongs to the players chasing a championship.
But every great event also needs familiar faces who help create the experience around it.
Twenty-two years after his first Memorial Cup appearance, Ryan “Two T’s” Watters is still doing exactly that.
Still entertaining.
Still connecting.
Still bringing energy to the crowd.
And somewhere in the stands, there is probably a fan who knows him only as “Two T’s”.
That’s just the way he likes it.
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