NEED TO KNOW

• Michael Bublé joined the Vancouver Giants ownership group in 2008 and later encouraged fellow British Columbian Drew Scott to invest

• Their Prime Video series Hometown Giants follows the team’s 2025-26 season on and off the ice

• Bublé says his four children have embraced game days as the Giants opened the new season with a strong start

Hockey has been part of Michael Bublé’s life for as long as he can remember.

Growing up in British Columbia, Canada, the five-time Grammy winner played the sport “constantly,” channeling former Vancouver Canucks stars Patrik Sundstrom and Tony Tanti whenever he put on skates. “Every day I was a new hockey player,” Bublé, 51, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “That was my whole goal, honestly, to be an NHL player like a lot of Canadian kids out there.”

So when the opportunity came about to own a stake in the Vancouver Giants, a junior ice hockey team in the Western Hockey League (WHL) based in his native province, Bublé not only leapt at the opportunity, but thought of a friend and fellow B.C. native who might want to dip his toes into ownership: Drew Scott.

“He had already been an owner for quite a few years and had talked to me every now and then about joining,” Scott, 48, recalls. “Finally, we were sitting down one day, I was in Vancouver — I had been living in L.A. — and I was just telling him how I miss my hometown, I miss being here. Then Mike started talking about the team again. We went to a game and I just started thinking, ‘What would I add to the ownership?’ “

The opportunity to tell the stories of aspiring hockey players, which is the heart of Bublé and Scott’s new Prime Video docuseries, Hometown Giants. Chronicling the 2025-26 season, the six-episode program spotlights team personnel and players both on and off the ice. “Whether you like hockey or not, there’s something people will relate to — the journey, the ups and downs, the emotional journey,” Scott says. “That’s what hooked me.”

But what impressed Scott the most is how the young cast navigated the balancing act of high school, relationships and the demands of junior hockey in front of cameras without losing their identities. “The last thing I want is for people to change who they are because a camera’s rolling, and it happens all the time, especially with a younger audience,” he says. “... The kids did not do that at all. They literally just continued to be their own silly, goofy selves. And that makes for the best TV because it’s organic, it’s real. You can feel it when you’re watching the show. It’s not put on.”

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Bublé, who joined an ownership group of the Vancouver Giants in 2008, added that it “was a really positive experience” for the club.

“We weren’t with them, obviously, all the time while these cameras were on, [but] we have had the ability now to talk with them, to talk with their families, to talk with even their coaches, and it was a really positive experience for them. They had a lot of fun with it,” he says, adding, “Now, this television show is about to premiere in 200-and-something countries all over the world. They think it’s pretty cool. Whoever thought the WHL would be on TV everywhere?”

With the 2026-27 season now underway, Bublé and his family — comprised of wife Luisana Lopilato, 39, and their four children: sons Noah, 13, Elias, 10, and daughters Vida, 8, and Cielo, 4 —are getting in on the action.

“They go on the Zamboni, the ‘Fanboni,’ and they love [the mascot], Jack the Giant,” he says of how his children have embraced the team. “Last year, it was a tough year. ‘Poppy, how come they lose? Why do they keep losing?”

With the disappointment of last year in the rearview — the Vancouver Giants finished last in the Western Conference at 25-39-4 — the team is looking to build off a strong 7-2-2 start. “I just told [Scott] off camera that my son, Noah, we went to the first few games, and he looked at me and he went, ‘Poppy, Poppy, this is a lot different. This team is really good.’ And I went, ‘Well, that’s hockey, sweetheart.’ “

Hometown Giants is now streaming on Prime Video.

Read the original article on People