By Canadian Press

Mic’d up four-year-old hockey player near top of YouTube’s 2019 most viewed list

Dec 5, 2019 | 9:18 AM

Celine Dion? Kim Kardashian-West? Prime Minister Justin Trudeau? They’ve got nothing on a four-year-old named Mason.

Jeremy Rupke runs a YouTube channel called Coach Jeremy that features videos on hockey drills, equipment and culture. When he put a microphone on his four-year-old son Mason for hockey practice, he thought he might have a hit video within the hockey community.

Instead, the adorable six-minute clip became a sensation and was YouTube’s second highest trending video in Canada in 2019 and the most watched viral video created by a Canadian in the past year.

“I have a few videos on my channel that have gotten a million views or more but they always take a few months or even a year to get up there, it’s sort of a slow burn.” said Rupke. “I thought this video had potential, that hockey players would love it and over time it would get to a million but I didn’t think it would ever get to a million in a few days.”

Only superstar chef Gordon Ramsay’s appearance on the chicken-wing talk show “Hot Ones” could top the more than 12 million Canadian viewers that watched Coach Jeremy’s video titled “4 Year Old Mic’d up at Hockey.” Canadians simply could not get enough of Mason rolling around the ice, looking for his friends, or wishing his dad a happy Halloween — in mid-February.

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No. 3 on the list was makeup maven James Charles’s direct-to-camera response to Tati Westbrook’s public ending of their friendship. Fourth was the first part of “Conspiracy Series with Shane Dawson,” fifth was the perfect floor routine of UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi set to Motown classics.

A video about an egg titled “Make This Video The Most Liked Video On Youtube” was the sixth most-watched viral video by Canadians in 2019.

Dion’s appearance on the Carpool Karaoke segment of “The Late Late Show with James Corden” was seventh, followed by CBC News’s Election Night Special coverage of the federal election that saw Prime Minister Trudeau re-elected with a minority government.

Vogue Magazine’s interview series “73 Questions” with Kardashian-West and husband Kanye West was ninth on the list and rounding out the top 10 is a video explaining why the city of Los Angeles has 96 million black balls floating on top of its water reservoir.

Rupke was surprised to hear some of the names his video topped, but also understands that Mason’s charm can connect with everyone.

“You don’t have to enjoy hockey to enjoy the video,” said Rupke. “Everyone can relate with how funny kids are and the crazy things they say and do.”

The one person not caught up in the video’s popularity is the star of the show — Mason.

“He still doesn’t really understand it. I think he has no concept of the Internet,” said Rupke with a laugh. “I think that he’s kinda starting to get that people know him because of the video.

“If someone’s like ‘oh, hey Mason’ he’ll ask me ‘have I met that person before?’ and I’ll say no and he’ll say ‘is it because of my video?’ and I’ll say yes.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 5, 2019.

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John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press