Cam Talbot’s quest to keep his three-year-old son out of harm’s way during the heart of the pandemic led to a rather interesting solution.
The kind Chevy Chase would have approved.
"We Griswolded it all the way home," laughed the Calgary Flames netminder of a five-day, 3,200-kilometre adventure from Calgary to Ancaster, Ont., in a rented R.V.
There were no promises of Walley World, uncomfortable moments with cousin Eddie, or chance encounters with Christie Brinkley. Just 36 hours of trekking down the Trans-Canada Highway with wife Kelly in the back with their twins, Landon and Sloane.
"My son has asthma, so we’re not really sure how COVID would affect him," explained Talbot of the rationale behind renting their very first R.V. for an early-May sojourn across the country.
"Putting him on a plane was not a good situation and we wanted to keep him out of restaurants and hotels as well. The R.V. provided us with a fridge and stove, and my wife loaded it up with five days of food to shelter the kids as much as possible. They never got out unless to stretch while I stopped for gas, because you just don’t know how the virus would affect him, or kids in general."
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So the puckstopper made like Clark Griswold and hauled them eastward, a la “Family Vacation.”
"I’ve never driven one before – it was like driving a sailboat: it was all over the place, one side of the road to the other," he chuckled.
"Going around the lake in Ontario, I was white-knuckling it because if you crossed the line you’d have an 18-wheeler coming at you, and on the other side you’d be hopping the fence and into the lake."
After a two-month stay in their home outside Hamilton, Ont., Talbot left his family behind and hopped on a plane with an eye on piloting the Flames through their qualifying-round matchup against Winnipeg starting Aug. 1 in Edmonton.
It has yet to be determined if he’ll get the call to start ahead of David Rittich, but he certainly wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to continue proving what he set out to demonstrate in Calgary after two seasons of struggle: he’s still a reliable NHL netminder.
"There were never any thoughts I wouldn’t come back," said the man who turned 33 last week, when asked if he contemplated opting out of the return-to-play plan.
"It’s definitely an ongoing concern, but we can protect my son by keeping him at home, and we’ll take extra precautions when I go back to Ontario. We’ve talked about when the playoffs are over I’m not jumping back in the house with them. I’ll take seven, 10, 14 days before going into our home. That’s the hardest part – guys take a long time away from families and that’s a lot for the wives to handle, with no outside help."
Talbot is still able to read bedtime stories via FaceTime to the twins while living at Milan Lucic’s Calgary home during Camp 2.0.
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A fitness fanatic who had a full gym put into his Ontario home during the pause, Talbot was on the ice a dozen times with his long-time goalie coach with an eye on being fully prepared for a return.
"I never really took a break – my mindset was, ‘I’m going to continue to work out until they cancel it,’" said Talbot, who backstopped the Oilers to within one win of the conference final in 2017.
All things being equal through intrasquad games next week, the rest is out of his hands as he hopes management sees his playoff experience, consistency and second-half surge as reasons to pick him over Rittch on Aug. 1.
"We see what you guys are saying, but between the two of us we have such a healthy relationship," said Talbot, an unrestricted free agent at season’s end whose goals-against avaerge (2.63) and save percentage (.919) are shockingly similar to that of the Jets’ Vezina counterpart Connor Hellebuyck (2.57, .922).
"I hope I get the nod, but it’s nice to have two guys the whole team feels comfortable with."