Stephen Amell Explains How Hockey Love Helped TMNT: Out of the Shadows Role

As the hockey-themed hero Casey Jones in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, it's worth noting that yes, Stephen Amell is Canadian.

"I do skate in Turtles. You see a tiny bit in the trailer, but there's a lot of skating," Amell told ComicBook.com in an exclusive interview at Heroes and Villains Fan Fest in NJ (watch the full interview at the link). "I was familiar with skating, because I grew up playing hockey, because I'm Canadian, and you're basically forced to. But I hadn't put on skates in a hot second, so it took a minute, but I got it."

Interestingly, though, he wasn't a big fan of hockey growing up in Toronto. It was when he moved to Los Angeles with his cousin Robbie Amell, who plays Firestorm in the CW's DC TV Universe, that hockey became something fun for him.

"I wasn't actually a big hockey fan. I'm principally a football fan, a basketball fan, a baseball fan, and I found the hockey coverage in Canada oppressive!" the actor explained. While it's hard to get a highlight of your favorite team into a full hour of ESPN's SportsCenter in the states, in Canada, TSN's SportsCentre is almost entirely hockey, with a smidgen of the other sports. "When I moved to Los Angeles, Robbie and I went to a Kings game, and had an awesome time." The pair went in on some season tickets the next year, and their second year with season tickets, "They won the Cup! I was a sort of fan, you go to the games and you become a fan of the teams, but when your team wins the championship, that's it!"

Now it all pays off as he skates and wields a hockey stick, albeit as a weapon, not to win the Stanley Cup, in the second of the rebooted TMNT movies.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows hits theaters June 3, 2016.