Trotz, Albert shared many laughs on road to NHL

Kenny Albert wants it on the record that he never asked Barry Trotz to cuddle for warmth.

Before Trotz went on to coach 21 seasons in the NHL, including the past two seasons for the New York Islanders, and before Albert called play-by-play on NHL games for NBC Sports and New York Rangers games for MSG Radio Network (as well as MLB and NFL games for Fox Sports and New York Knicks NBA games for MSG Network), they worked together for the Washington Capitals' American Hockey League affiliate, the Baltimore Skipjacks, in 1990-91 and 1991-92.

Trotz was 28 and in his first coaching job in professional hockey as an assistant under Rob Laird (before being promoted to replace Laird in February 1992). Fresh out of New York University, Albert was 22 and Baltimore's radio play-by-play announcer. And Trotz's road roommate.

One frigid, snowy night at a Holiday Inn in Utica, New York, the extreme conditions tested their relationship.

"One floor, you get your key, you walk outside, it's freezing, the snow's blowing and we get into the room and we're pushing the door in," Trotz recalled during a videoconference arranged by the NHL on Friday. "We can hardly get in the room and we get in and there's a snowbank in the room because there's a gap under the door."

With the hotel sold out, moving to another room wasn't an option. So Trotz and Albert did the best they could to stay warm, using a towel to try to plug the gap under the door and wearing their coats to bed.

"I had my sweat suit, I had my overcoat on and I jump in the bed and we're freezing," said Trotz, who won the Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018 and ranks fourth in NHL history with 845 regular-season wins. "We turn out the lights. It's about 4 in a morning and through the darkness I hear, 'Trotzie … I'm absolutely freezing.' And I said, 'There's no chance you're coming over here to warm up.'"

Albert confirmed all the details of that story except the ending.

"It's a total lie that he now embellishes that I asked to cuddle with him," Albert said, laughing. "He must have dreamt that part of it"

But Trotz, now 57, and Albert, 52, tell roughly the same story about the time Trotz, with the help of Capitals security representative James Wiseman, played a practical joke on Albert by having him detained by police officers in Sydney, Nova Scotia on March 16, 1992.
The Skipjacks had flown there for a game against Cape Breton and had to pass through customs when they arrived.

"If anybody knows Kenny Albert, he's an absolutely phenomenal person and a phenomenal announcer, a true pro," Trotz said. "He was so strait-laced at the time we were trying to loosen him up a little bit."

Albert said the scheme was Trotz's promised payback for an incident four months earlier when some of the Baltimore players got a good laugh out of an audio tape Albert played for them of Trotz flubbing some words during a pregame interview. Albert initially thought he was pulled aside by an officer at the airport to answer questions about his luggage.

"He brings me into this room in the airport, which is tiny." Albert said. "And he starts asking me all these questions: 'Is your passport valid? Have you done anything illegal? Have you ever been arrested? Do you know anyone that's in trouble?' They're asking me all these bizarre questions and I know I didn't do anything wrong."

Soon after that, Albert was escorted to the back of an official looking car and driven to an unknown destination while being asked more questions.

"They took him and I get a call from the police saying, 'We've got Kenny Albert here …." Trotz said. "And I said, 'We'll get him later.'"

During the drive, Albert never suspected it was a practical joke, but wasn't sure what was going on.

"Finally, after about 15 minutes, they pull up at what looks like a hotel," Albert said. "The one guy says to me, 'Do you know Jimmy Wiseman?' It turns out [Wiseman's] brother was a police chief in Sydney, Nova Scotia, so he set up the whole thing."

Albert had the last laugh, though.

"They got a good chuckle out of it, but it turns out the team bus got lost," Albert said. "So I actually beat the team to the hotel."

While going on to have great success in each of their fields over the past 28 years, Trotz and Albert have remained good friends.

"He was a phenomenal roommate," Trotz said. "Very tidy, very organized and a really good guy."