Safe to say members of the 10U Cyclones and North Park Spirit had no idea who would be watching their game on Saturday afternoon on the East Rink at New York’s Chelsea Piers.
Kids don’t expect to have an NHL team watching their games when they get up and have breakfast with their family prior to a day of hockey at the local rink. The Cyclones were giving the Spirit a hard time when a bunch of grown NHL players formed a huddle around the glass behind the net to watch the game and find themselves transported back to their own days of youth hockey.
The 10-year-old players figured out at some point that they were playing in front of the Vegas Golden Knights and did their best not to ham it up in front of Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Mark Stone, and a dozen or so glass bangers dressed in VGK team merch.
Vegas, fresh off a 3-0 win over the New Jersey Devils on Friday night, boarded a bus from its Manhattan team hotel and made the short ride to Chelsea Piers for an early afternoon skate.
Getting to the rink and finding a game going prior to their allotted ice time, the players came out to the rink to watch and provide running commentary. There were calls for birth certificate checks, goaltending critiques, and marveling at the skills of the up and comers.
“Yeah, it's great. It brings you back to your roots and how you grew up playing. It's a nice, cold rink. Come to the rink, put your gear on and go play. So, it's fun,” said Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb. “I didn’t have access to NHL players or practices or games. That was tough. Probably not until I made it to the NHL, honestly. I’m from a small town in Saskatchewan, no NHL teams. But I was fortunate I had a rink like this that I had access to pretty much all winter. Whenever I wanted. So, I was fortunate. I didn’t have a key, but there was a lot of public skating hours where I'd be at the rink from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. almost. If there was a game, then you'd sit out and watch the game, and if there was no game, you'd just skate.”
Marner was extremely popular with the kids at the rink and as word got around that there were NHL players in the building, the dreamers did their best to get next to the dream. Marner graciously signed autographs and posed for pictures prior to practice and after the Vegas skate, a bunch of the players made their way over to the kids standing behind a divider wearing team hoodies and jackets and asking questions like, “What was it like to lift the Stanley Cup?”
“Growing up around Toronto, I think, especially with the hockey team on after, you always wanted to watch and see whatever the older guys were doing,” said Marner. “Teams like the Markham Waxers and Vaughn Kings, probably. Junior A teams, too. Just anything, really. I remember just always watching, just trying to see what they're doing. I mean, you'd hear about guys committed to school, or pro draft picks, stuff like that. So, I think you're always watching. I think it's always fun just to come out to a little outdoor rink vibe. Obviously, hockey does get tough in moments. So, yeah, I think sometimes it's fun to come out to a rink like this and have fun with your buddies. I think we're having a good time with each other. I think the team's done a really good job of that. I think a lot of our practices, they're obviously intense, but they're high energy. That's what you need in the long season.”
Head Coach Bruce Cassidy smiled after practice watching his team stay out long taking shots and working on different skills.
“It reminds you a little bit of simpler days. Where you came from probably, because every guy in this room probably started in some sort of older rink, especially our group with all the Western Canada guys,” said Cassidy. “I know I did, it was a long time ago. But Jack, I'm sure some of the rinks in Massachusetts are old. So I think, like I said, most of the guys, this goes back to their roots, so to speak. I think it's great and I always enjoy it.”
The NHL is about wins and losses. People get paid to win and get released when a team loses. It can be a grind. So when a team gets an unexpected pocket of happiness, it’s a bonus.
“I think a trip like this where you've been at home for a long time, you get on the road and the guys, even though they're playing together every day, now they're truly like, it's 25 guys together every day. And then you come into a place like this and it just brings back memories,” said Cassidy. “Hockey was fun for every kid, especially guys that make it to the NHL. They usually had a good time doing it. So, they can't help it. I bet every one of our guys thought back to wherever the heck they were when they scored their first hat trick or they won a championship as a 10-year-old or a 12-year-old. I mean, to me that's human nature.”
Today may have been a skate down memory lane but tomorrow it’s back to reality in the NHL with a game between Vegas and the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
