Every other Monday, Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukauskas will give you a peek behind the curtain and share stories about what he sees and hears in his job as a rink side reporter.
Based in Ottawa, Kyle’s notes will sometimes be about the Senators, but he’ll also include content from wherever Hockey Night in Canada takes him.
Here’s this week’s collection:
1. Frederik Andersen may have got the night off on Saturday, but he had a busy morning.
As he put in about 30 minutes of on-ice work, a youth hockey team from Frederikshavn, Denmark watched on from the stands. After Andersen’s workout he walked up into the golds at Scotiabank Arena to greet the Jr. White Hawks, who were in the GTA for a tournament over the holiday season.
The Leafs’ backstop spent one season playing pro in Frederikshavn a decade ago. In fact, one of his old teammates from that year, Christian Schioldan, has a son that plays on the team.
The soft-spoken Andersen chatted briefly with each player, signed their jerseys and posed for numerous photos. Andersen said when he was 14-15 years old, he made the same trip to Toronto with his junior team to experience the game of hockey on this side of the pond.
2. Leafs assistant coach Andrew Brewer had four of the Jr. White Hawk players stay at his house while they were in town. One night he had the entire team and their families over for dinner.
What did his wife make for the group from Denmark? Poutine and beavertails, of course.
3. With the world juniors concluding in dramatic fashion once again over the weekend and because John Tavares’ Maple Leafs were facing Jordan Eberle’s Islanders on Saturday, I thought I’d ask Tavares about that wild semi-final against Russia back in 2009.
Like me, Tavares couldn’t believe that was already over 11 years ago. Yet, not surprisingly, he can recount the lead-up to Eberle’s tying goal with 5.4 seconds left as if it had just happened.
He’ll never forget the late Pat Quinn’s demeanour on the bench during the timeout moments before. Calm, composed, making sure that group of teenagers remained focused under the bright lights with some 20,000 people in the crowd all on edge.
The key plays that stood out for him in those final seconds: Ryan Ellis “body checking the boards” to keep the puck in, the stickwork of Cody Hodgson to keep the puck alive and, of course, the hands of Eberle in tight after Tavares shovelled the puck towards the net.
In Tavares’ mind, it was a moment where “time stood still.”
Surely the likes of Barrett Hayton and Akil Thomas will have similar feelings when they take a walk down memory lane 11 years from now.
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4. One more on Tavares. With the Oilers in Toronto on Monday, I recalled a story Sam Gagner told me about his childhood buddy, John, last month.
I’m sure everyone has heard the stories of the two spending day after day on Gagner’s outdoor rink growing up. The two were very competitive. As Gagner pointed out, because he is a year older than Tavares, back then he would often get the better of him in one-on-one games.
Gagner said one time Tavares got so mad after losing “he went into our little ice hut, grabbed an old pair of skates, threw them at me, then ran to his mom’s car and went home.”
“He… threw skates at you?!” I asked.
“Yeah, he does not like to lose,” Gagner said, smiling.
Tavares is much more measured with his emotions now, but that was something straight out of Happy Gilmore’s playbook.
5. I stumbled across one of Luke Fox’s stories from a couple years ago about Mathew Barzal working with former Canadian ice dancer, Victor Kraatz.
Barzal told me he still does sessions with Kraatz in the summer (Kraatz is currently coaching in Finland) and the main focus when the two get together is edge work. Given Barzal’s skating abilities, it’s amazing he never took power skating as a kid.
As he was explaining why he felt he was naturally a good skater growing up, his teammate Michael Dal Colle, who was sitting next to Barzal, turned to him and said, “must be [expletive] nice.”
As someone who took plenty of power-skating lessons over the years and at best would be described on the ice as “choppy and slow,” I would have to agree with him.
