"The game is at the center of all of these connections," narrator Bill Camp said in the introduction to the third episode of "EPIX Presents: Road to the NHL Outdoor Classics," which will air at 10 p.m. ET on Friday. "It has been for the last century."
Those connections stretch from the ones on the ice, from the tape-to-tape passes that make the game work, to those formed in the dressing room, on the team plane, on the road, in the home. They are strengthened from training camp to opening night to the push of the regular season and, in the most challenging moments, they are what teams rely on, what make them solid and formidable.
That might be especially true for the Maple Leafs, a team that includes more than the typical number of rookies playing big roles. It's a team that, thus far, still is adapting to life in the NHL, including the road trips, the back-to-back games and the ups and downs.
They are not the only ones, though, which we see when the Red Wings get a day off in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and take advantage of the time for a day of football on the sand, "Frenchies against English," as they put it. The group of four -- Andreas Athanasiou, Anthony Mantha, Xavier Ouellet, and Ryan Sproul -- having been teammates with Grand Rapids, the Red Wings' American Hockey League affiliate, before reaching the NHL.
It's a bond that continues to bear fruit at the NHL level, whether on the beach or the ice.
And we see it do that when the Red Wings pick up a needed victory against the Florida Panthers, and when the Blues try to turn around a tough December stretch with a win before heading into the Christmas break against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
To get there the Blues must overcome the bumps and aches, the bruises sustained over the first three months of the regular season. It's something that Ryan Reaves knows, something that Scottie Upshall knows, something that we see the Blues take on, because they must.
There are other connections ahead, too, when we see Blackhawks rookie Vinnie Hinostroza head home to Bartlett, Illinois. It is a quick ride from Chicago, less than an hour, one that even allows for a basket full of laundry. We see a room unchanged from when Hinostroza still inhabited it, complete with medals and trophies and Blackhawks paraphernalia.
To another city too, when Maple Leafs rookie Auston Matthews heads back to Arizona for the first time to play against the team he grew up rooting for, the Arizona Coyotes, against the player he grew up idolizing, Shane Doan, in a return to a place that was, and is, his home.
"It's going to be pretty special to play at home," Matthews said. "This is where I grew up, this is where I live. It's definitely special coming back here and playing the team you grew up watching."
The idea follows throughout. Use the connections, build on them, embrace them. And with that, those connections, those bonds, those relationships -- family, team, hometown -- will endure, all the way to the Centennial Classic, to the Winter Classic, and beyond.
