P.E.I. hockey player's phone 'blowing up' after pre-game fiddling video shared far and wide

What's hockey without some pre-game tunes?

Cellphones and music playlists have changed the locker room routine for teams the world over, but P.E.I.'s Western Wind Midget AAA team figured they'd jam to a more Maritime sound before their game.

The team was in Pictou, N.S., for a hockey tournament over the weekend and before one of the games 16-year-old Tianna Gallant brought out the fiddle to get the girls fired up.

In full hockey gear, she started playing and toe-tapping and then a few moments later "we had some girls dancing in the middle of the dressing room," Gallant said.

"I figured that I would show them a little bit of my Acadian roots," she said. "It was really a nice feeling to know that they were supporting me like that."

My coach told me, he's like 'you're famous.'— Tianna Gallant

Stephen Gaudet, one of the coaches on the team, was outside the locker room when he'd heard Gallant had a "special gift" for the team. He and the other coaches went into the locker room to see what was going on.

When he saw Gallant play he started to record on his phone.

"What I didn't capture was a couple of the girls doing a little do-si-do on the opposite corner of the room, arm-in-arm," he said with a laugh. "It all happened so quickly." 

'You're famous'

He posted the short video to the team's Twitter account and later came an avalanche of comments as Hockey Canada and the official NHL account shared it on their social media accounts.

The video has been watched over 300,000 times across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram with hundreds of shares and comments.

"My coach told me, he's like 'you're famous,'" Gallant said. "My phone was like blowing up. I was getting notifications left, right and centre."

Gallant said she'd never played her fiddle in public, and was too embarrassed to ever showcase her talent.

When she brought out the fiddle to play for her friends she never expected it to go viral, and she hopes people can learn from the confidence she gained from it.

"All of a sudden P.E.I. is right famous now and you don't hear much talk about P.E.I. on NHL's Twitter or Facebook," she said.

"It was really a nice feeling."

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