Double Dip: Grimaldi Looks Back on Playing Two Games in Single Day

Rocco Grimaldi once participated in 10 games in one day when he was growing up playing roller hockey in California. Three contests in a morning tournament, another four in the afternoon and a final trio before bedtime - a total such as that wasn't unheard of for an active kid on the west coast.
So, when Grimaldi was asked to skate in two professional games in one day - the first in the American Hockey League, the second in the NHL - he had the experience to handle it. Well, sort of.
When Grimaldi woke up in San Antonio, Texas, on Nov. 18, 2014, he couldn't have imagined he would end his day at a Denny's in Los Angeles. But the life of a pro hockey player is hardly ever mundane, and on that Tuesday, Grimaldi witnessed just how much of a whirlwind the occupation can be.

The alarm clock went off earlier than usual that morning for the then 21-year-old rookie forward. Grimaldi, a member of the Florida Panthers organization at the time, was playing for their AHL affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage. The team was holding their annual game for school-aged children to attend - at 10:30 a.m. local time - a common occurrence once per season for a number of minor-league clubs.
Besides the schedule being adjusted accordingly for the day, things were relatively normal through the game's first 40 minutes. But as Grimaldi grabbed his stick and headed back toward the ice for the final frame, his itinerary took a turn.
"I'm walking out to the rink for the third period, and the general manager of the minor-league team was down there in the tunnel which is really unusual," Grimaldi recalled. "GMs are never down there. He stopped me as I was walking on the ice, and he was like, 'Hey man, you've got to go.' I'm thinking like, 'It's a big game, I get it, we have to win this game,' but he was like, 'No, you've got to go, you just got called up and you play tonight. You have to leave right now.'"
The third period of the game Grimaldi was currently participating in quickly became the least of his worries. Perhaps even more amusing, the general manager didn't have time to alert Grimaldi's coach of the transaction, so the winger had to skate out to the bench to tell head coach Tom Rowe he wasn't about to be able to kill a penalty before making his way back toward the locker room.
But there was still one more person to alert.
"My mom was there at the game, she happened to be visiting me that week, and I was trying to wave at her and say, 'Mom, I'm leaving! I got called up, I'm leaving!' And she couldn't understand what I was saying, but all the fans around her picked it up and told her," Grimaldi chuckled.
Meanwhile, the Panthers were currently in Los Angeles preparing to play the Kings that night when they requested Grimaldi's services. Conveniently, in an inconvenient situation, the forward's family happens to be from the Los Angeles area, so Susie Grimaldi decided she too would head back to California in an effort to see her son suit up in L.A. that night.
As quickly as he could, Grimaldi headed home to pack a bag and then made his way to the airport for the three-hour flight west. The Panthers were expecting him to be in the lineup when the puck dropped at 7:38 p.m. PT that evening at Staples Center, but traffic in Southern California isn't always the easiest challenge to navigate.
The travel process went about as smoothly as possible, however, and at 5:51 p.m. PT, Grimaldi arrived at the arena - and that was as far as he got for a bit.
"They wouldn't let me in the rink because they didn't know who I was," Grimaldi said. "I was telling them like, 'Hey, I've got my gear here, I got called up,' and they wouldn't let me in for a while. Finally, someone had to come and get me, and I'm pretty sure they rolled me in on a cart you see guys driving around on the event levels of arenas."
With Grimaldi's identity confirmed, he made his way to the visitors' locker room just in time for a team meeting. He also realized the sandwich he had consumed hours early in the San Antonio airport wasn't about to keep him fueled for the next four hours, prompting a search for nourishment.
"One of the trainers had to run around the rink, and he found me a burger bun with no meat in the bun, and I spread peanut butter on the bun. It was disgusting," Grimaldi laughed. "That's all I had, but I played that game, so it worked out OK."

Grimaldi ended up logging 10:36 of ice time as Florida fell to the Kings, but the result of the second game of the day didn't leave him too disappointed.
With the matchup taking place close to home, Grimaldi was able to have not only his mother and father in attendance, but also his grandma and grandpa as well - the first game the grandparents had seen him play in the NHL.
Both have since passed away, causing Grimaldi to cherish that moment much more than he may have if the destination would have been different.
"It was cool to hang out with them after the game, because we were flying to San Jose the next day," Grimaldi said. "There's nothing open that late in the night, so we ate at Denny's, the five of us, but my grandpa was obviously pretty old and he was struggling to walk because there was a lot of walking around town to find a place to eat. I was like, 'Hey Gramps, how are you holding up?' And he goes, 'Rocky, this is awful. I'm an old man. I'm a really old man, and I shouldn't be walking around. But for you, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.' It was just really special, especially because he passed the next year. It's a really cool overall story, but I think that's the best part for sure."
That night in Los Angeles marked the rookie's fifth NHL game, and he stuck with the Panthers for two more games on their road trip, ironically scoring his first NHL goal four nights later during a shootout loss to the Predators in Nashville.
Four years later, Grimaldi joined the Preds to become a fan favorite and enjoy the best numbers of his career, while becoming a full-time NHLer. Because of that success, the chances he'll ever play two games in the same day in two different leagues again seem slimmer than one of his European teammates' suits.
Nevertheless, it's a tale Grimaldi is glad he has in his memory bank. Perhaps, it's one he'll tell as a grandfather someday.
"It's really cool to say that I've done it," Grimaldi said. "I don't know if it'll ever happen again. I mean, I doubt it, just the situation of how everything went down, and you would have to fly west to gain some hours. But I just think it's a really cool story, a cool situation. Hopefully I never have to do it again, but if I do, I'll be ready for it."