Love blossoms in crease for Habs’ Scrivens and wife
• After t he Canadiens practised Thursday morning in Brossard, Dale Weise was asked if he had made any special arrangements for his wife on Valentine’s Day.
“I didn’t think about that until you just said it now,” Weise said. “We’ve got some time on this road trip. Maybe I’ ll get on my computer and I’ ll have to pick up a gift for my wife. ... Good thing you reminded me.”
All you men out there who are like Weise, consider yourself warned: SUNDAY IS VALENTINE’S DAY — the ultimate Hallmark holiday.
With the Canadiens leaving on a three- game road trip after Thursday’s practice, Tom Gilbert had already prepared something for his wife on Valentine’s Day when the team will be in Arizona.
“You plan it before,” the defenceman said. “And she’ll be getting something, I’m sure.”
Does Lars Eller have anything planned for his wife?
“We’ll see,” the forward said with a big smile. “I haven’t really been too big on this date.”
Eller then added with an even bigger smile: “We celebrate every day.”
How about Ben Scrivens? “No ... not at all,” he said about any Valentine’s Day plans. “She knows not to expect anything.”
Before you t hink t he Canadiens goaltender has no heart and isn’t a romantic, you have to realize he has a very unique relationship with his wife. They are both goaltenders.
Jenny Scrivens plays for the New York Riveters and also works full- time for the National Women’s Hockey League, handling media and public relations. The couple met when they were both at Cornell University. A love-at-first-sight story? “It’s not my story to tell,” Ben said after Thursday’s practice. “She does a better job of telling it.” OK. Here’s Jenny’s story: Jenny says before go- ing to Cornell she had been told by some of the players on the roster that men’s and women’s teams always got along really well, sharing a practice rink and sticking around on campus during Christmas break, when other students would return home. Jenny decided to do a little research and saw that there was a freshman men’s goalie: Ben Scrivens.
“I remember reading his name and seeing his face and saying: ‘ Oh, I’d really like to meet this guy,’” Jenny recalled over the phone Friday from Brooklyn, N.Y., where she lives. “Just thinking offhand that it would be fun to meet the other freshman goalie.”
They met on their first day on campus in fall 2006.
“We hit it off right away and have been together ever since,” Jenny said. They married in 2012. Jenny grew up in Camarillo, Calif., while Ben is from Spruce Grove, Alta. Jenny says she’s part of the “Wayne Gretzky era” in California, born in 1988, the same year the Edmonton Oilers traded The Great One to the Los Angeles Kings.
“When we were playing hockey in the driveway, everyone wanted to be Wayne Gretzky,” Jenny recalled. Jenny played ball and roller hockey until age 10, when she started playing goalie on a boys’ ice hockey team. That team was coached by female hockey pioneer Manon Rhéaume, the only woman to play in an NHL pre- season game as a goalie with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992.
Rhéaume became Jenny’s inspiration and role model.
“She pushed me to further my career in hockey,” Jenny said. “I set my goals on playing Division I college hockey because that was the best that was available to me at that time.”
She didn’t know at the time that it would lead to meeting her future husband.
Jenny j oined Ben and the Canadiens in Boston for the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day in her role with the NWHL, and during the NHL all- star break Ben joined Jenny and her Rivet- ers teammates on a road trip to Buffalo to play the Beauts. Ben was back in Buffalo on Friday night with the Canadiens to face the Sabres.
“I’m joking that he’s back in Buffalo, but this time he got a chartered plane instead of an eight- hour bus ride with my team,” Jenny said with a laugh. “I think it’s nice for him to appreciate those things every once in a while and remember what it’s like to be on the ground floor in hockey.”
Ben, who was acquired by the Canadiens from the Edmonton Oilers on Dec. 28, was asked what the key is to making a long-distance relationship work.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re on the road so much as it is. It’s different, but it’s not like we’re used to being together all the time anyways. It’s obviously tough, but it would be a lot more difficult without technology these days, with cellphones and texting. I don’t think it’s that tough. You just got to do it and get through it.”
Said Jenny: “We won’t even see each other on Valentine’s Day, but it’s actually nothing new. We’ve both been playing hockey for our entire relationship, so we’re pretty used to it by now.
“I think it really helps that I know what he’s going through as a hockey player and he knows what I’m going through.”