|
Travis Green is itching to exercise his coaching muscles during NHL pause |
|
|
|
|
|
Today's dose of positivity...
The NHL content machine is starting to grind back into gear. On Thursday morning, the league presented two webinars for media members featuring one player from each of the Metro Division teams — Crosby, Giroux and the Staal brothers, Jordan and Marc, in the first call and P.K., Ovi, Nick Foligno and Anders Lee in the second.
The guys seemed to be in pretty good spirits under the circumstances — much like the rest of us, really missing hockey, especially at such a key point in the season.
As expected, they said working out is a challenge, especially for the guys who don't have much fitness equipment at home. Anders Lee just ordered a Peloton. Nick Foligno said he has a decent home gym and is doing virtual workouts with his trainer.
The league is also going to be unveiling some new original content over the next little while. P.K.'s excited about a game show — a role he was born to play!
Given how sharp he has been on social media lately, I feel like our boy Petey has the potential to be a breakout content star for the league if he's used correctly. He just needs the right "vehicle," as they say in Hollywood.
Also positive — the Canucks have thrown their muscle behind the nightly 7 p.m. salute to the health-care workers who are on the front lines.
And while we're here, let's celebrate our city's only Stanley Cup — 105 years ago today!
My personal positivity comes from the fact that I submitted my big writing project last night, so that's a load off my mind!
Travis Green also made the media rounds a bit on Thursday, checking in on Sportsnet 650 and chatting with Ben Kuzma from The Province.
Some of the players on the call this morning admitted that it's hard to gauge how they should be working out, when they don't have a target date for when they're expected to get back on the ice.
That was also true during the league's past lockouts — and Green said that when he was a 23-year-old player who missed three months of game action during the work stoppage in the fall of 1994, he didn't do what was necessary.
“I learned the hard way,” said Green, who managed just 5-7-12 in 42 games once league action resumed in January of 1995 after hitting 40 points in the previous full season. “I didn’t work hard enough and I didn’t play well. Probably a little bit lazy and not being around long enough to do what I had to do.”
It certainly sounds like Green was hit hard, emotionally, by the sudden pause in this season. Now, he's finding some comfort by turning his thoughts back toward where they'd usually be.
“The coaching side is always there,” said Green. “I’ve started to reach out to our coaches and thinking a little bit out of the box in how we can use this time productively — whether it’s business as usual or going into a new season.
“This is obviously different. You have more time to take a deeper dive into your team. I’ve got a couple of projects on the go with our coaches and analytical team to make a few tweaks — if we come back and play this season.”
While Nick Foligno cautioned on Thursday that a return to play later in the spring or summer will offer plenty of challenges, including the possibility of risks to players' health if too many games are crammed into too short of a timeframe, comments like Green's make me *so* curious about how the deck might end up being shuffled if the season was to resume.
Sid and Ovi said they'd be OK with coming back straight into playoffs if that made sense — and Ovi said he's not concerned about how lost regular-season games might impact his pursuit of Wayne Gretzky's all-time scoring record. Players whose teams were further down the standings hedged their bets a little bit more.
If you missed it, the league did officially take their June events off the calendar on Wednesday — the scouting combine in Buffalo, the NHL Awards and the draft. The draft lottery, which would have been held in a couple of weeks, is also suspended, of course.
It'll be awhile before we even begin to get any answers about the possible return of game action so for now, we've all got to keep doing what we can to stay safe, stay sane, and keep ourselves entertained.
Last night, my pleasure centres got an unexpected dose of deliciousness when I cooked up a duck breast for the first time. And I'm a long-time Survivor fan, so I'm enjoying seeing how this "Winners At War" season is playing out.
Come to think of it — I know CBS has an All-Access streaming service, which includes all the old Survivor seasons. After this season's $2 million-winner is crowned, it might be fun to go back through the full archive and look at how the game has evolved over the last two decades if we're still in isolation mode at that point.
Also, I'll admit, my record has been less-than-impressive on my cleaning challenge so far. I somehow "forgot" that cleaning the dishwasher was part of my to-do list yesterday, so I'll have to add that in with "cleaning the pantry" today.
What are you up to? Have you watched the Tiger snow on Netflix? If so — is it fun, or way too weird?
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»