Card games, books, movies all part of long cross-continent flight ahead of Game 3
© Brian Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images
EDMONTON — At some point Saturday, the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers filed onto their respective planes for a cross-continent flight to Florida to continue the Stanley Cup Final.
Even with favorable tailwinds, it required more than five hours in the air. With customs and transit to and from the airports, it was an all-day affair.
The travel day started less than 12 hours after Game 2 ended, a double-overtime affair the Panthers won 5-4 on a goal by Brad Marchand to even the best-of-7 series. Game 1 went to the 19th minute of the first overtime before Leon Draisaitl secured a 4-3 victory for the home team.
Still, there likely weren’t too many frowns when the players dragged their tired, battered bodies onto the planes to head to Florida for Game 3 on Monday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).
“If you are ever in our room, you hear guys talking about (the plane) and how excited they are to get on the bird,” Edmonton forward Evander Kane said before the series, when talking about the arduous travel on deck during the Final.
Why, you ask?
Does anyone look forward to a long, demanding flight after emptying their emotional and physical tanks across more than three hours of high-stakes hockey almost two months into the playoff marathon?
But this is different. Nobody is crammed into a middle seat. There are no unruly passengers. The food is plentiful and abundant.
“We eat like seven meals a day,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said of his team’s charter before playing in Game 2. “So, it’s as good and as easy as it possibly can be. You take the bus, you get off the bus, you get into the same seat, you can do whatever you need to do.”
Therein lies the appeal to the players.
It’s a freedom of movement that doesn’t exist on a commercial flight. The ability to do anything you need to do to beat the monotony of an all-day flight is at the fingertips of the players.
Edmonton’s Jeff Skinner has been flying with NHL teams since he joined the Carolina Hurricanes as a teenager in 2010.
Fifteen years later, the 33-year-old is a pro at plane life. He never leaves without his iPad, loaded with movies and shows, a book squirreled away — just in case — and a fully charged phone.
“The gadgets certainly help,” Skinner said when asked what’s different now from his early days. “You have more options.”
“Back then we still made do. I feel the card game has always been there, it just depends on the game.”
Ah, the card game.
It doesn’t matter what team plane you board, there will be a card game — or multiple games — going on.
For the Oilers, it is eight players playing Texas Hold ‘Em, the popular poker game.
The game starts before the plane is wheels up. It doesn’t end until the landing gear is chirping the runway at the destination airport.
It’s not a quiet game.
Skinner sits close to the poker table. It’s a double-edged sword. When he is bored, it provides entertainment, especially the non-stop chirping. When he’s tired?
“Sometimes if I want to take a nap, it’s not much of an option because they are a loud group going back and forth to each other,” he said, laughing.
Rookie forward Mackie Samoskevich sits next to the card table on the Panthers plane.
He says he loves it and suggests it was part of his entry way into the fabric of the team.
“I was like why not, just jump right in and I was able to mesh with some guys right away,” he said. “Playing cards is a great way to create new friends when you are the new guy.”
The other vocal contingent on most team charters is made up of the players who play the video game Mario Kart. It’s also a staple on planes across the NHL.
T.J. Oshie of the Washington Capitals sports a tattoo of Wario, one of the playable characters in the head-to-head racing game. Oshie has said the time spent playing Mario Kart allowed the Capitals to escape the pressure generated by their successful pursuit of the Cup in 2018.
Quieter pursuits? They are available too.
Maurice loves the long flights because it gives him the opportunity to be more methodical in breaking down video from the previous game.
Players don’t watch game clips. They escape with movies and television series.
Edmonton forward Trent Frederic is a sucker for true crime.
During the five-game series against the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference Final, Frederic devoured “Cold Case: The Tylenol Murders,” a series about the 1982 murders of seven people in the Chicago area through Tylenol laced with cyanide.
He is browsing for a new one for this series, although he said he might give the series “Peaky Blinders” another try.
Not too far away, Swedish teammates Viktor Arvidsson and John Klingberg of the Oilers sit next to each other and watch movies and series together, in Swedish and English.
“We hit play at the same time,” Arvidsson smiled when pressed on the specifics.
There are still readers on each team, but those numbers dwindle with the other options available.
Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse is a voracious reader. He always has a book in his hand, according to teammates.
The current book of choice for the man his teammates call “Doc”?
“I’ve been working on ‘War and Peace’ for a month, month and a half now,” Nurse said of the Leo Tolstoy epic. “Maybe I can find a way to finish that one.”
The odds increase with the longer the Stanley Cup Final stretches.
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