Former Flin Flonner shifts focus as TV series enters final season

Fresh off its national debut, a documentary TV series starring a former Flin Flonner enters its final season this week.

Nightclub Confidential begins its three-episode farewell tomorrow, Thursday, on Citytv’s Saskatchewan affiliate.

“It’s going to be a lot more family, a lot less club,” says Bryan (Chunk) Pawlachuk, whose transition from nightclub operator to building renovator is chronicled.

Nightclub Confidential follows the lives of Pawlachuk, who is from Flin Flon, and Simon Papadopoulos, co-owners of the Tequila Nightclub in Saskatoon.

Pawlachuk, a married father of three, retired from running the club at the end of season 2, but he still has money on the line as he struggles to relinquish control.

Papadopoulos returns to the bar business in an attempt to revive the once-dominant club, but he and Pawlachuk clash over differing management styles.

“Season 3 continues to dig into Tequila’s operations and the characters’ personal lives to reveal the costs and personal repercussions of running a large-scale club,” producer and director Antonio Hrynchuk says in a news release.

“For some of our characters the club is a non-stop, 24-7 operation that refuses to grant them a personal life. For others, the club is a seductress that leads to temptations and consequences. When your job is to create the party, the line between business and pleasure can easily be blurred.”

Though Pawlachuk understandably chose to withhold many details about season 3, he did confirm that his hopes to have an episode partially filmed in Flin Flon did not materialize.

Attempts were made to send a crew to Flin Flon for last summer’s Trout Festival, he says, but it just didn’t work out.

“But I talk a lot about Flin Flon in my daily life, and I’m really proud to be from the town,” Pawlachuk says.

A regional Saskatchewan show for its first two seasons, Nightclub Confidential went national in September when the Biography Channel aired repeats.

Hrynchuk says he was told episodes could also air on two other channels also owned by Rogers Cable, but there’s been no confirmation.

Original episodes of season 3 will air on Citytv Saskatchewan on Oct. 22, Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 before potentially going Canada-wide. That will make for 16 half-hour episodes in all.

Shortly after graduating from Hapnot Collegiate in 1992, Pawlachuk, then 19, left Flin Flon for Saskatoon.

The son of Ken and Janice Pawlachuk, he adopted the nickname “Chunk” in Grade 6. His friends were starting to refer to people by their last names, so he shortened his and added a consonant.

He wasn’t a shy youth by any stretch, becoming one of the first males to enter what had been called the Queen Mermaid pageant.

“I do like the – not attention, that’s not the right word – but I like doing different things, like really different,” Pawlachuk said in a previous interview.

As a teenager, Pawlachuk worked as an inserter at The Reminder, ensuring copies of the newspaper were assembled and ready for delivery. He also pumped gas at Gas Bar and stocked shelves at Co-op.

After moving to Saskatoon, he worked in construction but found greater financial rewards in bartending at a nightclub that he would go on to purchase and rename Tequila Nightclub.

In 2012, after producer-director Hrynchuk caught wind of the behind-the-scenes drama at Tequila, Nightclub Confidential was born.

Pawlachuk has enjoyed a degree of fame since the show debuted in October 2013, but he says it’s ramped up since the program went national.

He tells the story of his wife going to their children’s school, where the principal started asking her questions about the show.

“People that you just don’t think would watch the show are seeing it,” Pawlachuk says.

“It’s a lot of fun to be a part of and you get the odd request for a photograph, or someone just wants to come and have a conversation with you. We get that a lot now, anywhere we go. So it’s kind of fun.”

On another occasion, Pawlachuk’s friends in a different city were watching a football game in a lounge. After the game, on came Nightclub Confidential.

“So it’s kind of funny, they sent some snapshots of myself on the big screen,” he says.

Asked why this is the final season of Nightclub Confidential, Pawlachuk says only, “It comes out in the show.”

In other words, stay tuned.