Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips April 23, 2020

Columbus Blue Jackets

PAGE 02 The Athletic: Injuries always hurt: Somehow Blue Jackets weren’t knocked out by multiple hits

Cleveland Monsters/Prospects

NHL/Websites PAGE 05 The Athletic: LeBrun: The pros and cons of the NHL still holding the draft in June PAGE 08 The Athletic: Uncertainty clouds NHL’s future, so union puts players’ mental health in focus

PAGE 13 The Athletic: From carrots to carats, the evolution of Stanley Cup rings PAGE 18 Sportsnet.ca: Gary Bettman explains why NHL rinks are best for centralized games

The Athletic: Injuries always hurt: Somehow Blue Jackets weren’t knocked out by multiple hits

By Alison Lukan – April 22, 2020

At points during this season, if you were a Blue Jackets fan, you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The team was surpassing most expectations, but they also seemed to be losing players from the lineup at a furious pace. At present, the team officially states 419 games have been lost to injury. The team played 10 percent of its season with 10-plus starters out of its lineup and averaged six starters out per game. But for those who’ve followed this team for years, something felt similar. Was this like the 2014-15 season when every postgame news conference had then-coach Todd Richards talking about a skater who left the game and every team practice included another release announcing another player placed on injured reserve? Like this year, absences were measured in weeks and months; Four players (Boone Jenner, Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Murray and Nathan Horton) were already on the injured reserve before the puck dropped on opening night. But, there were some things that seem different. That 2014-15 team still holds the franchise record for man-games lost (508). They finished with a 42-35- 5 record (.543 points percentage), earned 89 points and placed 22nd out of 30 teams putting them out of the playoffs. As for this year’s group, when the NHL season hit pause, the Blue Jackets had a 33-22-15 record (.521 points percentage) and were holding onto a wild-card spot with 12 games to play. They also would have likely finished with at least 479 man-games lost (accounting for injuries to Seth Jones, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Josh Anderson, Alexandre Texier and Dean Kukan). Not as many as that 2014-15 squad, but close, yet still in a better overall position as a team. What, if anything, is different between these two rosters that one is right in the thick of the hunt for a playoff spot and one was not? There are plenty of questions we could ask: What did the league look like as a whole, coaching methodologies, scheduling, and on and on, but what decided to look at, at least today, is did either of these two Blue Jackets’ teams suffer more in terms of the overall talent they lost due to injury? Quite often, we choose to look to man-games lost to try to measure the effect of injuries. But that doesn’t equate for who was out any given lineup for any given point in time. It also doesn’t necessarily translate season to season. But we now have a better way to try to answer this question: The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn’s Game Score Value Added (GSVA) data from the past decade of play. GSVA quantifies a player’s “value” so by pulling data from both the 2014-15 and current Blue Jackets’ season, we can measure how much “value” was lost by each team and what was the overall percentage of talent lost to injury. Before we dig in, a few notes: I’ve tracked Blue Jackets’ players game absences for seven seasons. For my purposes, illness is considered a man game lost. Suspensions are not. Also, GSVA only calculates when a player has played a minimum of 12 games in one season. Players with fewer games played are not included here … With one exception! Ryan Murray played 12 games in 2014-15. We chose to approximate his GSVA for that year by averaging the season before and the season after. Our first pass analysis contemplated only skaters who were on the opening night roster or players acquired via trade for opening night players (we wanted to look at the original design for each team). Goalies were not included, but any significant injuries will be noted below. For players involved in a trade, only their injuries with Columbus were considered. Now let’s see what we find out. Here’s a look at this year’s Blue Jackets. This chart shows each player’s projected GSVA (pGSVA), how that averages out across an 82-game season, how many games a player missed, how many were due to injury and the total resulting GSVA loss per player. At the bottom, we see the totals, as well as the percentage of the team GSVA, lost due to injury. (click chart to enlarge) What do we see? First, a shout out to Jenner, Gustav Nyquist and Pierre-Luc Dubois who managed to play all of the 2019-20 season to date and didn’t suffer an injury (Dubois has yet to miss a game in his NHL career). But other than that, we see the biggest impact came from the loss of offensive talent like Oliver Bjorkstrand, Cam Atkinson and Josh Anderson. Murray and Jones’ injuries hurt, too. As we said, we didn’t factor in a long injury to goaltender Joonas Korpisalo or a nine-game absence for his partner, Elvis Merzlikins, and still, all in all, the Blue Jackets lost 18.39 percent of their expected talent due to injury this year. But wait. There have only been 70 games played. Can we project what a full 82-game season might have felt like in terms of injury lost? We can. Here’s what a full season looks like using projected GSVA. We adjusted Jones, Kukan, Texier and Bjorkstrand’s totals to anticipate that they were likely to be out the remainder of the regular season. We also added five games to Murray’s total as he has been managing his back injury and surely would have wanted to be healthy for a postseason. The impact jumps a bit to 23.5 percent, over a fifth, and almost a quarter, of a roster’s talent lost to injury. So, is this one of the biggest impacts a Blue Jackets team has felt? What did that 2014-15 season look like? Here it is. We don’t account for a rough season for goaler Sergei Bobrovsky, but this Blue Jackets team, while it lost more man-games, the overall percentage of talent loss was lower than either of our scenarios for this team’s losses (19.90 percent). So this has been a significant accomplishment by the Blue Jackets overcoming a severe depletion of talent as the roster was originally designed. It feels like what this team was doing as far as their record and place in the standings was remarkable in the face of an anticipated talent loss of almost 25 percent. Is it remarkable outside the Ohio borders? Another team that has faced a similar narrative this season is the Pittsburgh Penguins. They’ve been besieged by long-lasting injuries to key players, including Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. How much talent did their roster lose if we put their opening night roster through our exercise? (click chart to enlarge) We went ahead and adjusted for an 82-game season here and extended the injuries for Nick Bjugstad, Jake Guentzel, Dominik Simon and Zachary Aston-Reese through the regular season’s end. The Penguin’s total talent loss is at 23.66 percent, right about where the Blue Jackets wound end up. (For what it’s worth, the 70-game scenario for Pittsburgh had them losing 20.82 percent of their value. The advantage of having players like Crosby and Malkin back and healthy helps cover for other injuries. In summary All in all, it’s fair to say that Columbus faced one of the organization’s toughest years in terms of overcoming injury. Even though it didn’t look like it would hit a new franchise record in terms of man- games lost, it was a season in which they found an impressive way to deal with the loss of value when a player would get hurt. It’s hard to think of teams that have dealt with bigger challenges, but the Penguins also faced a similar challenge in compensating for the value their team missed when a player was injured. And while we didn’t touch on the multitudes of variations each team’s roster took through their seasons, it’s important to acknowledge the incredible performances by Pittsburgh’s and Columbus’ depth to keep both teams rolling along. Again, the reasons why Columbus fought its way into the playoff discussion this season are likely many: coaching, team structure, that feeling of “belief” that so many players mention time and time again … but to put it all together and overcome a loss almost 24 percent of your roster’s value is definitely a feat worth noticing.

The Athletic: LeBrun: The pros and cons of the NHL still holding the draft in June

By Pierre LeBrun – April 22, 2020

It was a bombshell revelation in the NHL news cycle, though one not necessarily met with universal praise. A day after the league told GMs on a call that it was considering holding the draft in June before a possible season resumption in July, it was very much the talking point of the industry. I reached out to front office sources on 25 different NHL teams Wednesday, and I would say the negative feedback outweighed the positive but there were also many mixed responses. And I will be the first to admit that at first blush I loved the idea of a draft before the summer playoffs. I’ve often accused the league of not thinking outside the box enough and being too conservative. But as I put more thought into it, I could also start to see the perils in it. There are pros and cons. “On the positive side, for the scouting fraternity, the players are still fresh on their minds from the last time period players were scouted,” said veteran Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill. “If you go too long, Images of players are going to become ‘less clear’ over time. On the downside, many obstacles to overcome in regards to lottery, trades contingent on playoffs, a lottery team potentially winning the Stanley Cup that is played later in the summer/fall after picking high in the draft. There is going to be no perfect resolution to any decisions the league as a whole has to make on all scenarios as we move forward in this new world. “We are in a time of uncertainty and the league has done a very good job of analyzing all scenarios, with the welfare of all being priority No. 1, which I am proud of,” added Nill. “They have shown great leadership.” That’s great perspective from Nill, who understands that no matter what the NHL comes up with, there will be no appeasing everyone. But on this specific idea, there will be pushback. “It’s the dumbest thing ever,” said one team executive. “Don’t like it,” said another. “Too many draft decisions are based on how we evaluate our team’s performance in the playoffs.” “I hate it,” said yet another. The case against it: The likely mechanism would be to use points percentage in the standings at the season pause to figure out the teams in the draft lottery and the rest of the draft order, a number of team executives told me Wednesday. OK, but what if a team wins the draft lottery and picks third overall in June and then when the puck drops in July that team gets hots in the regular season games that are held, squeezes into the playoffs and wins the Cup? So a team could pick top-five in June and then win the Cup in August or September? (One GM asked that very question on the GMs call Tuesday, and the answer from deputy commissioner Bill Daly was that yes that was possible albeit the odds of it happening are pretty unlikely). That’s not the only issue, though. The playoffs determine a number of conditions attached to some draft picks. Take Vancouver as an example. The Canucks traded their 2020 first-round pick last year to Tampa Bay in the J.T. Miller deal. That pick now belongs to New Jersey from the Blake Coleman trade before the deadline. The condition to the pick is that if the Canucks miss the playoffs this season, that first-rounder goes to 2021 and Vancouver keeps its first-rounder for this year. The Canucks right now are right on the bubble to make the playoffs. What happens if the Devils use that first-round pick in a June draft but then Vancouver just misses out on making the playoffs in July? Too late to get that 2020 first-round pick back. And conversely, if it’s ruled that Vancouver gets to keep its 2020 first-rounder as a preventative measure since the Canucks are on the bubble right now, and Vancouver goes out and reaches the conference final two months after the Canucks got to use that draft pick, how fair is that to the Devils that they have to wait for the 2021 draft to get that asset? Holding the draft before the season resumes would be a draft devoid of player trades. You could make trades involving draft picks, but not players for obvious reasons with the playoffs around the corner. So from a fan perspective, that would dilute the entertainment. From a team perspective, it would take away an important tool at draft time. As one team executive pointed out, using Tampa Bay as an example, the Lightning are going to be up against the cap this offseason and would normally use the draft to make a trade or two to address their cap situation while also getting a draft pick or two in the process out of it. But under this scenario, the Lightning would have to make those moves after the summer playoffs are over and the draft has already been held. My counter to that would be that Tampa would have to settle for trading for 2021 draft picks, but I understand why that’s less appealing. One team executive also pointed to Montreal as another example. They’ve got 14 draft picks this year. No doubt, the exec says, that the Canadiens would have tried to flip some of those picks for roster help at the draft. Under this scenario, they wouldn’t be able to do that. Montreal’s best play if the draft is held before the season resumes would be quantity for quality in a picks-only deal, trading up in the draft. On the flip side, there were other teams executives Wednesday who saw the positives in the proposed June draft before the season resumes: “Brilliant idea,” is what one team exec said, pointing to the idea of using the draft as a launching point to bring hockey back into the public consciousness. “I get what they’re trying to do, stay relevant during this time,” said another team exec. “Plus, when do you fit the draft in? If this season resumption keeps getting pushed back and pushed back, when do you fit it all in? So I have no problem with the idea to go in June.” Another team executive didn’t hesitate. He very much liked the idea. “I think it is great for the health of the league to have the draft in June,” he said. He said it was different and a change to a major event which is good for the league. “It gives hockey a chance to show some life, showcase itself and take centre stage,” he said. He also felt the long-term impact of pushing the draft to the fall is being underestimated by some. Agreed another team executive: “I’m fine with the idea. I don’t think we should be waiting until September.” I’m sure the 2020 draft prospects agree. You know, the people that the event is actually about. Those kids no doubt would rather know their NHL fate in June as per normal rather than wait until some time in the fall. Overall, the No crowd outweighed the Yes crowd. So there’s a clear sense, I think, of how the idea has been received. But I will end this piece with this thought: I have covered the NHL for 25 years. One thing I have learned over time is that when the NHL commissioner gets on a GM call and suggests an idea which is being considered, it’s normally a lot less about actually wanting to get feedback from the teams on it and more about warning them what is coming and to start wrapping their minds around it. Now, maybe this is different. Maybe because we are in unchartered waters with the pandemic’s impact on life and sports making these types of decisions for the league so difficult. Perhaps Bettman and Daly really do want to gauge feedback before deciding whether or not to proceed with this draft idea. If that’s true, then they already have their answer. But if they already feel like it’s the right thing to do, and feel strongly about it, then the discourse won’t matter. The more the NHL thought about neutral sites, the more it realized over time that what made more sense is, in fact, using their own buildings as centralized sites. NHL rinks would be better for TV, for starters, but also offer the better amenities needed to accommodate 3-4 NHL teams per city if the league goes this route. Again, as sources confirmed Wednesday, nothing firm is in place, but playing in NHL rinks as centralized sites will be the way to go instead of non-NHL rinks. Beyond that, be careful with all the speculation you’re going to hear over the coming weeks. Yes, places like Buffalo, Minnesota, Edmonton all make sense as centralized sites because of the amenities but the reality is that the league, I believe, will come up with a list of 9-10 NHL cities and only end up using 4-6 of them because it has to wait and find out where the hot spots remain or emerge with the pandemic. But the idea of centralized NHL sites makes sense on many levels, including being able to play three games a day and lessen the travel for teams which will help eat up regular season games on the schedule more quickly. Come the playoffs? Again, nothing decided. But one idea has the first round of the playoffs based in four centralized NHL rinks, then perhaps go down to two sites for the second round and one site for the final two rounds. Nothing set in stone. But these are the type of things being discussed right now.

The Athletic: Uncertainty clouds NHL’s future, so union puts players’ mental health in focus

By Katie Strang – April 22, 2020

As the NHL entertains the multitude of scenarios under which play could eventually resume, players are finding creative ways to connect with fans as all 31 teams stay idle. There have been pictures of newly adopted puppies, news of newborns and glimpses into players’ day- to-day activities, which include their means and methods of staying in peak physical shape. Some have been more conventional, others unorthodox (see: Nico Hischier’s pushups-to-backflip maneuver). But as players hunker down and ponder what a protracted layoff can mean, their physical health will not be the only concern. When will play resume? What will that look like? What risks might be associated with returning to the game for the players? Their families? The fans, arena workers and support staff that make it all possible? And there’s another important question to consider: What impact will all of this have on players’ mental health and emotional wellbeing? “There are huge psychological, mental and emotional impacts for absolutely everybody, and professional athletes are included in the absolutely everybody,” said Kate Hays, a Toronto-based psychologist who specializes in performance and sports psychology. “In general, human beings are hard-wired to be social and to connect. Being separated for anybody is difficult … (and) if you add on to that somebody whose profession and sense of self is about being part of the team, it’s that much more strange and distressing and sometimes overwhelming.” This is not affecting the NHL in a vacuum. All major professional sports are confronting the challenges and acute stressors created by the layoff. The NBA has been proactive in its outreach. According to a recent article in USA Today, the NBPA’s director of mental health and wellness William Parham and player wellness coordinator Keyon Dooling have had “daily phone and texting conversations with players.” The NHL Players’ Association is aware of the additional stress this situation is putting on its members and is trying to prepare them, as well. Union leadership has connected with all 31 teams on conference calls, keeping them informed and making clear what resources are available, including access to teletherapy and programs facilitated through the Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program. The NHLPA recognizes it’s a difficult time for all its members, some of whom are already battling mental health and/or substance abuse issues. Additionally, some players may start recognizing some of these signs for the first time now while under such extreme stress and during such uncharted circumstances. Golden Knights goaltender Robin Lehner, who has been one of the league’s leading advocates for mental health awareness and education, said that financial insecurity, potential loss of livelihood, and the stress both can exert on family and relationship dynamics may compound and exacerbate these feelings. “This is what a lot of (the symptoms) of mental health issues are. A lot of people are going through them right now — isolation, anxiety and depression,” Lehner said. The NHLPA, which is collaborating with the league to game out different return-to-play options, is working to make sure players’ emotional and mental wellbeing remains critical to that effort. The union is providing online resources on health and exercise, and even offering recommendations for podcasts and other outlets to help build community and professional development among those reeling in the absence of hockey. “Pro athletes have a lot of the same experiences that any normal people do and they are the same fears and anxieties over similar things,” NHLPA executive Mathieu Schneider said. NHL players are well-compensated, which can alleviate some economic turmoil, but they also face a constricted earning period, which can cause anxiety. “(Players) have a very short period of time to earn a living,” Schneider said, “and potentially losing a big portion of that, it affects you in a different way.” Take a player like Devils defenseman Connor Carrick, for example. He’s 26 years old, playing on the biggest contract of his career – a two-year, $3 million deal – and when the season was halted, he felt he was finally starting to round back into form following an injury that sidelined him for more than two months. Carrick explained that many athletes derive a sense of fulfillment and purpose in their careers, and have exhausted virtually every resource they have – time, money, energy – to thrive in a very niche role in society. If the average NHL career is between three to five years (as per current NHLPA estimates) and you shave off 25 percent of that, that comes at a significant price, not just in a player’s earning power, but in his opportunity cost for his future, too. “That’s the time frame where we’re chasing a dream,” said Carrick of the years most people devote to growing a career and building a family. “No one is going to feel bad for you, but we certainly have put a lot of eggs in this basket, and culturally, we’re not at a point of a ton of diversification just yet.” Even if players wanted to take this time to diversify their skill set and begin preparations for future post- playing endeavors, it’s not quite that easy. Resumption of play scenarios are simply too murky for players to lay much tangible groundwork such as taking time to go back to school or applying for internships, or something similar. NHL players, and most professional athletes, are also deeply entrenched in routine. Whether it’s the game day regimens — morning skates, pregame nap, postgame protein drink, etc. — or offseason training, elite performers often find solace in fastidious adherence to these daily methods of controlling their environment. This situation has thrown a wrench into all of that. “If we’re all creatures of habit, I suggest elite pro athletes tend to be even more creatures of habit because their day-to-day world is so structured,” said Joel Fish, a licensed sports psychologist who has worked with the Philadelphia Flyers for almost two decades. Fish noted that when the NHL season was paused, there was little warning or foresight. And not long after the league shut down, life as most have known it changed completely, as well. It was both jarring and abrupt. “If you’re in the NHL, you’ve been moving 100 miles an hour without any preparation for slamming on the brakes, forcing you to go from 100 miles per hour to zero miles an hour overnight,” Fish said. “I think human nature is better able to deal with disruption when you know a week or two or three in advance and were kind of able to mentally and emotionally prepare.” With the NHLPA making professional help available to all of its members, teletherapy is a critical option for anyone dealing with the triggers of this unsettling time period. It allows players the option of seeking professional help from the comfort of their home. Others who have been vocal in their own mental health advocacy have offered up additional tools to augment this effort. Lehner has been vigilant about staying inside for the past month, abiding by nationwide social distancing guidelines. He has been mindful of the risk COVID-19 poses to his wife, who has asthma. He encourages anyone experiencing a tough time to focus on the short-term rather than absorb the totality of the pandemic. He also warned about the effects of substances and said that one of the key mantras he learned in recovery — “This too shall pass” — has helped provide him the patience to take these challenges day by day. “Honestly, you have to understand that life is not always perfect and be fine with that,” Lehner said. “For me, it bothered me a lot when I had bad days and bad weeks. I’ve had to accept the bad times because that’s part of life and not do anything too impulsive or use substances to get through it. Before, I always thought (substances) made it better because it did at the moment, but it always makes it worse in the long term.” Carrick, who has been outspoken on mental health awareness, particularly via social media, said he allots time for specific activities in his day that will be uplifting, both to himself and others around him. That’s helpful when he’s riding the waves of uncertainty and starting to go down a path of wondering, “What if?” He writes down tasks and goals he wants to accomplish, gets the blood flowing with workouts, connects with his social network of friends and family, and also tries to incorporate some fun or “play” time – like taking his rollerblades out for a spin – to keep his mind occupied. Carrick also relies on journaling and breath work to keep him centered, and he has used some of this period to grow his podcast and pursue different philanthropic endeavors. “It’s interesting. I find every day different, frankly, and I think there’s a lot of idle time mentally where you go through ups and downs,” Carrick said as he was taking a weekend stroll in his Chicago neighborhood. “Today I woke up a little antsy, and I’m going for a walk now. I think the whole goal is to understand where you’re at mentally, understand the version of you that you want to be in that moment, that day, and having some tools to shift in the direction you want to go instead of riding the roller coaster of ups and downs.” Both Hays and Fish stress the importance of setting up routine and structure, even if those built-in windows feel arbitrary. Anything that helps the body and mind re-establish a sense of rhythm and daily accomplishment can be beneficial. Jamie Baker, a former NHL player who now works as a color commentator on San Jose Sharks broadcasts, said he has set up stations within his home to spend blocks of time daily. Baker, who opened up last year about his battle with depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, makes time each day for journaling, exercise and even mindfulness activities like coloring and putting together puzzles. He listens to music — jazz and The Doors are his consistent go-to’s — and watches WWII documentaries about history when he needs to relax and escape. If he finds himself particularly anxious, he tries to go for a walk outside and avoids social media. The toughest thing for him is the loneliness; Baker is an extremely social person, so isolation has been difficult. “I like being around people,” Baker said. “It doesn’t have to mean a full house, but sometimes you just want someone to hang out with.” The lack of contact with the outside world can also make mental health issues trickier to spot. Baker suspects that many people are recognizing feelings they may not have recognized had the world around them not essentially stopped. Hays said that athletes can use some of the techniques they use to train their bodies to recognize when their mental wellbeing takes a turn. “One of the things that is really helpful in physical training is this concept of FIT — Frequency, Intensity and Time,” Hays said. “If one wants to get better (in physical fitness), he gradually increases each of those. As a metaphor, it almost works in terms of (assessing) mood (and) behavior. If you’re anxious, tense, stressed — I think you’d use some of those same three elements — how frequently, how intensely, and how overwhelming does it seem? How long does it last?” Hays also feels like this period could provide players a catalyst for thinking about what they want to do beyond their playing careers. Fish said the lack of in-person contact may spur more deliberate efforts at connectivity through different channels, with players becoming more proactive about building the type of “community” and familial atmosphere that many teams try hard to cultivate. “Who today do you need to reach out to?” Fish asked. “Players have always defined being a good teammate as celebrating each other when things are going well and being there for each other in times of adversity. What does that look like today?” Baker, who was forced to take a leave of absence to deal with his own mental health and substance issues in the fall of 2018, said sometimes it takes something drastic to effect a more healthy lifestyle or a more nuanced understanding of one’s own mental health. “(This is) an obstacle, but now it’s also an opportunity to grow in different ways that, when you’re so busy, you haven’t stopped and thought about,” Baker said. “Busy-ness is a coping mechanism and people don’t even realize it. It’s tough to talk about.” Above all, Baker said, players and their families need to treat the situation with the sort of kindness and understanding that is required of the moment. Leaning on the greater NHL community can and should provide a needed safety net at a time of extreme stress and anxiety. “We need a lot of compassion and empathy right now,” Baker said. “We’re all in this together.”

The Athletic: From carrots to carats, the evolution of Stanley Cup rings

By Eric Duhatschek – April 22, 2020

In October 2019, the St. Louis Blues handed out Stanley Cup rings to the team prior to the start of the 2019-20 season. As is the case with every championship ring in every sport today, they are all detailed, elaborate and expensive. The Blues’ ring has nods to the famous Arch, to the series’ scores in the Blues’ march to the championship, plus references to the song “Gloria” and the inspiration provided by 11- year-old Laila Anderson on their historic worst-to-first journey. But the practice of including those sorts of esoteric details directly on a Stanley Cup ring may date back to 1984 when the Edmonton Oilers won their first of five Cups in a seven-year span. The Oilers rings of the 80s were still a more plain, class-ring style but include one curious addition – a partially eaten carrot. A carrot on each Stanley Cup ring? Signifying what exactly? According to former Oilers’ defenceman Kevin Lowe, it was meant to symbolize the practice introduced by owner Peter Pocklington – of dangling a motivational carrot in front of his players tied to playoff success. “You can’t do any of that today because of changes to the standard player’s contract,” Lowe said, “but how the carrot started out was this: As we started to evolve as a playoff team, Slats (Oilers general manager/coach Glen Sather) was always big about having traditional team dinners before the start of every playoff series. It became almost like a superstition. Typically, Peter Pocklington would come to these dinners and Peter was always big on incentives. Dave Lumley was pretty instrumental in all this because he was bold enough to say to Peter one time, ‘What are you going to give us if we win the next series?’ So, Peter would say: ‘Everybody’s going to get a new suit from Sam Abouhassan (a local tailor).’ Another time, it would be a set of Ping golf clubs, which were really hot at the time. That’s how it started. That was the carrot. “Then, as the years went on, the carrots became more lucrative. Besides the bonus money you’d get from the NHL, we would always get something extra – a trip to Hawaii, or something like that.” In all, 24 players have won the Stanley Cup six times or more, but only five have done so without playing for the Montreal Canadiens. They are: Red Kelly (Toronto and Detroit), Bryan Trottier (New York Islanders and Pittsburgh), plus a trio of ex-Oilers-turned-New York Rangers: Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson and Lowe. Five of Lowe’s six rings – the ones he won playing for the Oilers – are on display in the foyer at Rogers’ Place. On each ring, the nibble taken out of the carrot goes just a little lower down the stalk. Ultimately, the carrot came to represent the group’s collective hunger – for more championships (and more gifts from the owner). The Oilers won back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1984 and 1985, lost in the Smythe Division final to Calgary in 1986 and then won back-to-back again in 1987 and 1988. The summer after the Oilers’ fourth championship, Pocklington traded Gretzky to the Kings, who then proceeded to knock them off in the opening round of the ’89 playoffs. In 1990, the Oilers returned the favor, defeating L.A. in the second round on route to their fifth championship in seven years. “Each year, we added another bite out of the carrot as we another Stanley Cup,” Lowe said. “By the time 1990 came around, there were five bites out of the carrot. As we moved along over the years, the guys would give some thought to it and say, ‘OK, what are we going to ask Peter for? What’s fair?’ It got to be a serious thing. Everybody started to become a little bit more aware of what a playoff victory meant financially to the owner. But overall, I think Peter was fairly generous in that regard.” On one memorable occasion, Pocklington took the lead himself. “We were up 3-2 in a series against L.A.,” Lowe said. “Before Game 6, Pocklington came in with a gunnysack and he had some carrots sticking out the top. He took it over to the ping pong table and he explained to a few of the new guys what the carrots stood for. Everybody laughed. Then he dumped the bag on the ping-pong table and there was something like $50,000 in cash there. And he said, ‘if you guys win this game, this is all yours to divide. You can take it home tonight.’ “When you think of it from a business standpoint, what he did made sense. If we didn’t win, we’d have to go to L.A. for a Game 7. It would have meant another charter plane trip, plus hotels, plus other expenses. So, it was worth it as an incentive to him.” The tradition of creating a Stanley Cup ring dates back to 1893 when the Montreal AAAs won the Stanley Cup and rewarded all seven players with a ring, inscribed MHC (for Montreal Hockey Club). It didn’t happen again until 1927 when the Ottawa Senators gave rings to its championship team. Nowadays, rings are a standard reward for a championship season, even at the minor league levels. For example, currently, Jostens makes the NHL rings, but Baron manufactures them for the AHL. Scotty Bowman may have the most varied collection of championship rings ever assembled in hockey. Between 1973 and 2015, Bowman earned 14 Stanley Cup rings – nine as a coach, five more as an advisor – and over the arc of his life in hockey, Stanley Cup rings have become far more detailed and elaborate. His collection represents the full gamut from the championship ring’s relatively understated beginnings to modern decadence. His first ring – won with the Canadiens in 1973 – is probably Bowman’s favorite, in part because it was first and also because of its simplicity. But 1976 was a special year too because it included a Stanley Cup championship, a Canada Cup championship, plus the birth of his twins. In all, Bowman won five Stanley Cups in Montreal, two in Pittsburgh, four in Detroit and then the last three in Chicago, where he acts as a consultant for the Blackhawks and his son, Stan, is the team’s general manager. According to Bowman, the last ring that he received – in 2015, for the third of the Blackhawks’ three titles in six years – is so big that he cannot actually wear it on his finger – or properly close his hand when he has tried to put it on. Bowman doesn’t wear any of his rings anymore – they are stowed away in a safety deposit box until they can be dispersed to his family. Bowman says his rings have come from three separate manufacturers over the years, but he always gravitates back to that first one, from 1973. “Of all my rings – when I put up against all the others – I like the first one from Montreal because it wasn’t big or gaudy,” Bowman said. “It had beautiful diamonds with the CH crest. It’s a beautiful ring, but small – sort of like the Hall of Fame ring. If you look at mine, you can see it’s been worn. “Then they just got bigger and bigger. You can see the evolution. The last two or three, you could hardly wear them. I mean, you could wear them, but they are so wide that they push your fingers apart.” Ron Francis, general manager of the NHL’s new expansion team in Seattle, was part of Bowman’s two championship clubs in Pittsburgh and said the difference in size between the first and the second rings was quite noticeable. “My first one in Pittsburgh in 1991, I would describe it more like a high school ring or a college ring,” Francis said. “It had the Penguin on top that was diamond-encrusted. It was very cool looking, but it was something you could wear every day and feel comfortable wearing. It wasn’t crazy. The next year got a little bigger – not like the rings of today – but with black onyx on top, with two diamonds, signifying the back-to-back, and then 16 chips around it, one for each victory of getting to the Cup. It was a little bigger than the first one and not as easy to wear every day, but not as big as they are today, right? I usually keep mine in a safety deposit box. “They’re a little bit small on my finger, so I tend to go to the Hall of Fame ring, if I wear any ring at all, just because it fits better.” Some years ago, NHL teams began donating Stanley Cup rings to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, where they are on permanent display. According to Kelly Masse, the Hockey Hall of Fame’s director of corporate and media relations, the fascination with Stanley Cup rings had become so great that during the current closure caused by the coronavirus, the HHOF renovated the bank vault in one corner of the Great Hall to include a special display area for its collection of Stanley Cup rings. Winning the Cup isn’t the only time a ring is presented. The Hall of Fame annually bestows its newest members with a ring as part of their induction weekend. In June of 2018, as part of a fundraising effort called 75/25, the Hall created a newly updated ring that chairman Lanny McDonald wore to the ceremony. Subsequently, some of McDonald’s Hall of Fame colleagues asked if they too could order one of the newly redesigned rings. Ultimately, the Hall of Fame acceded to the request but limited each member to just a single additional ring. (Some wanted to order multiple copies so they could pass along one to each of their children). But when it came time to place their orders, Yvan Cournoyer (Hall of Fame class of 1982) put in a special request to Masse. Could he style it differently? “Yvan said for example, ‘Can we have gold instead of silver on the side?’” said Masse. “So, I asked Jeff (Denomme, CEO of the Hall) and he said, yes, we could do a variation. So, Yvan redesigned the ring and took out all the silver and replaced it with gold. That then became a second option. Then Yvan also came up with a third option, so we sent that out as well. And I would tell you, most people liked Yvan’s take on it. There are just subtle differences. When I told him that, he just put it down to being a stylish Frenchman.” The Hall of Fame was willing to accept Cournoyer’s input, in part because chairman McDonald remembers a time – after the Flames won the Stanley Cup in 1989 – when the players suggested the ring design that differed from what management had in mind. “Guess who won?” said McDonald, with a mischievous smile. Uh, management? “Right. But when you think about it, in the end, it didn’t really matter,” McDonald said. “The most important thing was, we won the Stanley Cup.” In all, McDonald earned three rings over his career and says he rotates them depending upon the event that he’s attending. There is his Flames’ ring, his Hall of Fame ring, plus, a 2004 world championship ring, which he wears whenever he appears on behalf of Hockey Canada at an international function. Unlike some players and executives, McDonald wears his rings but understands that it can be more complicated nowadays, given the physical size of the newer generation’s hardware. “If they continue to go this way, pretty soon they’re going to have to have one that goes into your safety deposit box and another, smaller-sized ring that you can actually wear every day,” McDonald said. “Ours – from 1989, you can feel comfortable wearing every day. “But I remember Joel Quenneville showing me his, from the first time Chicago won in 2010 – and he had it in a box. I said, ‘Joel, can you wear it?’ And he said it was so big that he couldn’t even bend his finger when he had it on.” Bowman calls his collection of rings his most prized possessions. They have been collected during a lifetime in hockey – not just his Stanley Cup rings, but also championship rings from junior, minor pro and international competitions, plus all the commemorative miniatures that the league provides as a keepsake whenever a team wins the Stanley Cup. So when the time comes, Bowman has a plan to divvy up the hardware among his children — he’s going to conduct a draft. Either there’ll be a draft lottery to see who gets to pick first, or he’ll simply go by age, which would then mean his eldest, daughter Alicia, would have the first choice. Naturally, to enhance fairness, the format will be a traditional snake draft so that whoever happens to choose last in the first round will then get the first pick of Round 2. Bowman said the idea of a draft to disperse those items came to him from an old friend who did something similar – retired goalie Glenn Hall, who played for Bowman in St. Louis during the NHL’s 1967-68 expansion season. Hall and Bowman were together on the inaugural Blues’ team that advanced to the 1968 Stanley Cup final. Despite losing in four straight to the Canadiens, the Blues provided rings to the team to commemorate that historic occasion. That ’68 finalist ring is also part of Bowman’s vast collection. According to Bowman, when you get to a certain age – he is 88 – estate planning just becomes part of what you do. Even if he hasn’t set an actual date yet to conduct the draft, Bowman said it could happen as early as this summer. “We shouldn’t put it off much longer, because you never know,” Bowman said. Scotty and Suella Bowman have five children: Alicia, Stan, the twins Robert and Nancy and David, who was diagnosed with hydrocephalus (commonly known as water on the brain) shortly after birth and now lives in a long-term care facility in the Buffalo area. Bowman said Hall’s plan “sounded right for me.” “For your most valuable possessions, let your family choose what they’d like, rather than have them worry about who gets what later,” Bowman said. “We haven’t done it yet, but that’s the plan. And then you tell them they could take everything now, or leave them with us.” Lowe doesn’t wear any of his six rings anymore either – five are on display in Edmonton and the sixth, he’s loaned to his brother-in-law. “You wore it initially because you’re proud of it and also because people wanted to see it,” Lowe said. “I wore my ring on my right hand and of course, that’s the hand you shake hands with. If you were wearing your ring and people would shake your hand, it would crush your fingers because it was so big. Our rings were bigger than the ones from the 1970s, but they pale in comparison to the ones that they have today. “I don’t know who would think about wearing them – because they’re so gaudy. That was part of the decision for me too – not only did it hurt to wear it, but it almost felt as if you were flaunting it, so I chose not to wear it anymore. It’s kind of like the old Hugh Campbell expression: ‘Act like you’ve been there before.’” More than three decades ago, Lowe said he learned how important a Stanley Cup ring could be to a first-time winner – after he’d made a tentative suggestion to veer away from them once for a different option. “What I found, after a number of years, was that I wasn’t wearing the rings,” Lowe sais, “and I remember reading that the Montreal Canadiens, way back, used to give their players gold watches when they won the Stanley Cup, with the Canadiens’ emblem on them. “I always thought that was so classy, so I tried to convince our guys, after about the third or fourth Cup, that we should opt for a watch instead of a ring, because you’re always going to wear a watch, right? So, why don’t we get a nice Rolex instead of a ring? “But of course, all the first-time guys said, ‘are you out of your mind?’ I said, ‘trust me, 10 years from now, you’ll be wishing you got a Rolex instead of a Stanley Cup ring’ – but I could never convince them to do that.”

Sportsnet.ca: Gary Bettman explains why NHL rinks are best for centralized games

By Josh Beneteau – April 22, 2020

Commissioner Gary Bettman says the facilities in NHL arenas are too important for the league to resume play at other sites. “We can’t play in a small college rink in the middle of a smaller community because if we’re going to be centralized, we need the back of the house that NHL arenas provide,” Bettman told Ron MacLean on In Conversation Wednesday. “Whether its multiple locker rooms, whether its the technology, the procedures, the boards and glass, the video replay, the broadcasting facilities. Those are the things that are in place in NHL arenas and that’s what we’re going to ultimately need if we’re going to come back in a centralized basis and play multiple games a day.” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Tuesday that a plan to host NHL games in neutral sites like North Dakota or New Hampshire was off the table. Instead, Friedman reported, the league was considering hosting each of the four divisions in one NHL city to play out the remainder of the regular season. Bettman emphasized that nothing has been decided yet, but said that while the games might see teams face their own division, the cities chosen won’t necessarily be based on divisional alignment. He added that whatever cities do host games, the buildings would need a practice facility and at least four NHL- calibre locker rooms so that up to three games a day could be played. “This is just part of the modelling… we’re making sure we’re prepared for any eventuality,” Bettman said. “It’s not something that we can predict right at this moment. “There’s a lot that would have to be done and frankly our buildings are the best equipped in North America to deal with what our needs may be, if we go this route.” You can watch the entire interview below, where Bettman addressed the debate over when to hold the NHL Draft, how governments at all levels play a role in deciding when the league can return, and how the NHL is getting creative to engage with fans during the shutdown. “Nothing is more important than everybody’s health and well-being and any decisions we’re making and anything we’re considering doing starts with health and well-being,” Bettman said. “In the final analysis, we are hopeful that, by doing the right things in the short term, we’ll be able to come back and hopefully complete this season on some basis that is fair and has integrity.”