Inside the Vancouver Canucks’ team plane during a breakthrough season
harman dayal for the athletic (full article below)
random fun bits:
ian cole on flight rites: “Long trips like three hours (or longer), you don’t wanna be sitting in your dress pants and a dress shirt,” he explained. “It’s pretty funny seeing 20 guys on the plane just shedding all their clothes as fast they can.” and: “You can’t take a poop on the plane"
conor garland eats and yaps: “I usually try to get a salad,” said Garland. “I don’t like the chopped salad but sometimes you gotta eat it. I eat the nuts, chopped salad and I bring my own coffee.” and “Garly’s pretty chatty,” said Boeser. “He’ll always be in the aisle talking to other people." “He’s pretty wild on the plane,” Joshua added.
the myers/demko/miller/boeser in-flight movie club: “Best [at picking movies is] between Demmer and I. Worst is between Brock and Millsy,” said Myers. “Millsy is a good movie guy but he has a tough time grasping the concept of what types of movies we’re trying to bring into movie club.
Flying on an NHL team’s charter plane is a one-of-a-kind experience. The amenities and perks are five-star. There’s a distinct camaraderie in traveling with teammates as well as some traditions and guidelines to consider.
Dressing for flights, for example, has quirks. The collective bargaining agreement requires that players wear jackets, ties and dress pants while traveling to and from games. But since teams are relaxed with this rule once players have boarded the plane, it can result in a hilarious scene minutes before takeoff.
“I remember my first (dad’s) trip (in the NHL), we get on the plane, all of a sudden guys start whipping their clothes off (and changing into sweats) and it’s like ‘What are you guys doing?’” said veteran defenseman Ian Cole.
“Long trips like three hours (or longer), you don’t wanna be sitting in your dress pants and a dress shirt,” he explained. “It’s pretty funny seeing 20 guys on the plane just shedding all their clothes as fast they can.”
Players then change back into their formal attire before deplaning. It’s just one example that shows how an NHL player’s charter plane experience isn’t a typical travel day.
As the Vancouver Canucks embark on the most pivotal trip of the year to date for Games 3 and 4 in Nashville of their first-round playoff series, here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s been like on the team plane this season.
First-class seats, top-notch dining and special recovery tools
The Canucks are serviced by Air Canada’s Jetz division. Their aircraft features two first-class-sized seats on each row, two card tables and space in the exit row for recovery work. It’s comfy and spacious.
“Being a bigger guy, the bigger seats obviously are nice for me,” Tyler Myers said with a laugh. “We have the same flight attendants all year and they get to know you, you get to know them really well. They know exactly what we want when we get on the plane.”
Veteran players typically sit near the back, whereas players with fewer NHL seasons under their belt are farther up.
Brock Boeser explained that the team caters food from the airport when leaving Vancouver. During the rest of a road trip, plane meals are from a high-quality restaurant in the city where they’ve just played.
“The meals on the plane are nice, (especially) compared to stopping at the gas station after the games for food (in the minors),” said Dakota Joshua, who’s also experienced the much more unglamorous travel in the AHL and ECHL.
Some players like Conor Garland are fairly regimented about what they eat on board.
“I usually try to get a salad,” said Garland. “I don’t like the chopped salad but sometimes you gotta eat it. I eat the nuts, chopped salad and I bring my own coffee.”
Others like Phil Di Giuseppe like to rotate through dishes like steak, fish or pasta.
“Huggy’s (Quinn Hughes) by me and he’s always snacking on something,” said Boeser. “He’s a health nut.”
Another perk of flying on a charter aircraft is that the exit rows have space for players to do recovery work. This includes tools such as blood flow recovery (BFR) or Normatec technology, which is marketed to increase circulation and reduce delayed onset muscle soreness.
“BFR is good for your legs, you can jump on those for a bit, maybe for 25 minutes. You can lay down, stretch,” said Garland. “Anything you really need, they’ll get it for you on the plane recovery-wise.
“(Mark Cesari, Canucks strength and conditioning coach) and Alex Trinca (Canucks director of sports performance) are great, even if you have a question about like ‘What should I be drinking on the flight?’”
The card table: ‘Too much bickering’
How do Canucks players pass the time on flights? It varies.
Joshua tries to take a nap because he doesn’t like plane rides, but most players said they have trouble falling asleep.
“It takes you like 5-6 hours (after a game) to try to decompress and calm the central nervous system down,” said Cole. “There’s not a ton of sleeping going on unless it’s a long flight from one side of the continent to the other.”
There are book readers (such as Cole), movie watchers and players who rely on iPads to keep them entertained.
“Garly’s pretty chatty,” said Boeser. “He’ll always be in the aisle talking to other people. A guy that’s pretty dialed in on his laptop is Casey (DeSmith), I don’t know what he’s doing on there.”
“He’s pretty wild on the plane,” Joshua added about Garland.
There will usually be a group of Canucks playing cards for small sums of money, too.
“I’ve been on some teams where it (the money being wagered) gets real aggressive,” said Cole. “It’s not that aggressive here, which is good. We’ve got some boys trying to rein it in a little.”
The players have shuffled throughout the year, but Garland, Sam Lafferty, Filip Hronek and Pius Suter were at the card table early in the season playing a game called 13 Up.
“The highlight of the trips is getting to laugh at the card table,” said Garland. “In Arizona, my card table was my three best friends. it’s been new this year with guys you didn’t know before. Usually you end up going for dinner with those guys because you end up making plans on the plane.”
J.T. Miller and Boeser retired from the card table after spending most of last season with the group.
“(We were) taking too much of their money,” Di Giuseppe joked when asked why Miller and Boeser left. “No, I think they were saying they were playing for so long that they wanted to watch some movies. Maybe it was because of me.”
“Too much bickering,” Boeser said with a smile, explaining his departure.
Garland claimed that he’s been cleaning up this season because the newcomers aren’t very good.
“We have a bad table,” he said. “Last year, Millsy’s a really good player, (Jack) Studnicka was a good player. Boes is OK. This year they’re bad, so it’s pretty easy.” He acknowledged that Di Giuseppe’s “not bad.”
“I’m surprised he said I wasn’t bad, usually he gives it to me,” Di Giuseppe said with a chuckle.
“After a game, I like playing at the table because we’ll dissect the game. That’s another way to flush it out is if it’s good, everyone’s happy and you’re shooting the you know what. And if it’s bad, you just kinda let out the demons.”
The Nintendo Switch turned movie club
At the start of the season, Boeser bought Nintendo Switches and formed a group that would play a PGA Golf video game. Miller and Elias Pettersson were the other regulars, with Myers and Thatcher Demko joining once in a while, according to Boeser.
“It’s one of the only games that most guys would enjoy and play against each other,” said Boeser. “We’re all even right now. Nobody gives strokes yet.”
They still play every so often but over the season, it’s transitioned into a movie club.
“Millsy and Brock were just so much better than everybody else that they just kinda cut us out. They were just being really bad guys doing that,” Myers laughed. “Movie club kind of took over.”
The players will synchronize their iPads together to start a film at the same time. They take turns choosing the movie.
Who’s the best and worst at picking them?
“Best is between Demmer and I. Worst is between Brock and Millsy,” said Myers. “Millsy is a good movie guy but he has a tough time grasping the concept of what types of movies we’re trying to bring into movie club.
“Demmer and I seem to be quality control and Brock isn’t as familiar with movies so he tends to bring in a lot of random ones that probably would never make Demmer and I’s list.”
Forgotten passports and unwritten rules
Most of the Canucks’ plane rides are routine, but The Athletic was curious if the players could share any funny or unique travel tales from this season.
Boeser immediately turned when he heard the question, stared at Joshua in his dressing room stall and smiled: “Just Dak holding us up this year for 45 minutes.”
“Who forgot their passport?” Brock continued while still looking at Joshua.
“Bainsey! (Arshdeep Bains),” Joshua replied.
“Yeah, Bainsey, we had a preseason game going to Seattle and he forgot his passport so that was pretty funny,” said Boeser.
Speaking of passports, crossing the border and clearing customs is something players like to groan about because it adds another layer (and time) to the trip.
“If (it’s another Canadian team) you’re just pulling up to the plane but since you gotta go over the border it’s more of a hassle. It’s not that bad, but we like to complain about it,” said Joshua.
Once players board the plane, there are a couple of unwritten rules for etiquette.
“You can’t take a poop on the plane,” said Cole.
Cole also said that when the team gets off the plane or bus they’ll typically exit from the back forward, with veteran players off first.
“But it’s also not a hard and fast rule,” he explained. “If someone steps up and goes, whatever. Or if someone’s taking a while, guys go, it’s never like a ‘Hey, you guys need to wait.’”
Vancouver’s travel over an 82-game schedule is grueling, with substantially longer flights on average compared to Eastern Conference teams. For example, the trip between Vancouver and Nashville is by far the longest distance of any first-round series. Their travel situation is a disadvantage the Canucks have to accept, but they try to make the most of it.
“It’s a pretty chill group, we’re not the ’86 Mets on the plane, you know?” Joshua said with a laugh.”We just go about the business, get on and get off.”
With the Canucks arriving in Tennessee on Wednesday, they’re preparing for arguably their biggest challenge yet. Many of Vancouver’s core players will be playing in front of an intimidating road playoff crowd for the first time, Demko remains out with an injury and the series is tied 1-1 after a Game 2 loss.
It’s a season-defining trip — and the result will swing the mood of the flight home to Vancouver after Sunday’s Game 4 for better or worse.
(Photos of Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua and Brock Boeser: Sam Hodde / NHLI via Getty Images and Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press via AP)Z
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