Leafs get ready for what they hope will be extended stay in NHL bubble. DiManno,
When 22 charter flights land in Toronto and Edmonton on Sunday, disgorging up to 52 players, coaches and staff from every NHL post-season club, the whole slew of them will be entering into parts unknown — a hermetic hockey biodome.
The Maple Leafs may have a theoretical advantage in that Toronto, hub bubble city, is home. They will have some familiarity with a sphere that extends from Scotiabank Arena to the team hotel to the nearby outdoor recreational area on the Exhibition Place grounds — all sealed by perimeter fencing and security, providing what NHL commissioner Gary Bettman described as an “impenetrable barrier.”
But with deserted rinks — no-fan zones — there essentially will be no telling the difference in atmosphere or mood when the Leafs host the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Following a final convening at their suburban practice facility, the Leafs headed home Saturday to pack their bags and enjoy one last evening with family and friends before disappearing into a playoff vacuum that could extend for two months. (They wish.)
Or, in the case of Tyson Barrie, make no big deal of it.
“A little laundry,” said the one-year-a-Leaf as players rotated through Zoom scrums. “Nothing too crazy. Probably just order something in and just relax, lay on the country. Probably it’s going to look a lot like what it’s going to look like inside the bubble. Very low key.”
Well, that’s one way to sidle up to the hockey hereafter in this resumed season amidst a global crisis.
In fact, just another slice of the coronavirus crazies.
“It’s weird,” Barrie observed. “End of July and we’re still at the rink. The whole thing has been a bit bizarre. It’s a weird climate right now.”
Climate-controlled, for the most part, except when the players — both here and in Edmonton, Hub City West — venture outdoors to compounds that include existing restaurants, pop-ups, coffee shops, workout kennels and some finer amenities offered to clubs that, in Toronto, ended up in Hotel X rather than the Fairmont Royal York, where the Leafs are congregating.
They’re all accustomed to the hotel life, of course. But this is odder, exactingly restrictive and potentially cabin fever maddening. Players are compelled to stay within the lines, transported as necessary by sanitized buses and walking from hotel to rink through dedicated tunnels.
Hundreds of NHLers in town and don’t you dare try to get an autograph. Virtual fans only, with LED screens and banners to — on the TV feed anyway — cover up the vastness of empty seats. With canned crowd noise and cheers, the NHL having also invited season ticket holders to submit videos supporting their teams and jeering opponents. For a Toronto crowd, this might actually have been the sounds of silence, 19,000 people sitting on their hands.
Goal songs and goal horns but, alas, no Smell-O-Vision to mimic the scent of popcorn and … sushi?
Into this mystifying other world John Tavares will steer his teammates, called upon to do what was never asked of his Leafs captain predecessors — steer the club through pandemic playoffs.
“From what I understood, there’s going to be some meals together and obviously we’ll be a the rink quite a bit,” Tavares said. Players are encouraged to watch other games — three a day to start at Scotiabank — from the luxury suites. “We have our treatment room, our lounge as well. Obviously quite a bit of planning and quite a bit the league is putting into this that has been really timecrunched, so we’re still getting some details.
“We’re all going through this, all of us are leaving what we’re used to every day, leaving our families, our loved ones. We’ve got to really lean on each other. So there’s no doubt that we’ll be spending a lot of time together. It should be a ton of fun. Be supportive of whatever anyone is going through, especially knowing the restrictions that we have.”
Tavares points out the obvious: They’re privileged to be playing the game they love, in the crucible of the playoffs, despite a pandemic that has convulsed the entire planet. No one can predict how events will unfold or how a team will cope if stricken by a COVID-19 infection through the lineup, always a possibility even with all the precautions taken, which include daily testing for the players and a fortnight of total quarantine at the front end.
So, indulgences for pro athletes — ones that weren’t provided to the go-away Blue Jays — but one shouldn’t underestimate their sacrifices and stoicism either.
Zach Hyman is abandoning a wife pregnant with their first child, for instance, though she will be in good hands, moving in with the Hyman family.
“Unfortunately, I’ve got a baby coming. I’m lucky that the baby’s due in December. Some guys, they’re leaving young kids and expecting mothers during the time we’re away. But we’re going out there and doing what we love. Everybody going in the bubble understands. You make sure your family is taken care of while you’re away.”
They’re all curious about what lies straight ahead, especially in this coming first-week intro to seclusion. One can only play so much Fortnite, poker and pickleball — though Jake Muzzin announced he would be humping his golf clubs for some hallway chipping.
Hyman said he expects Muzzin and Mitch Marner to be stirring the pot for team shenanigans. “We’ll have a bunch of gamers there too so there’ll be some heated competition on the side.”
The Leafs will have a preview of what this post-season will entail when they face off against Montreal in an exhibition game Tuesday.
Although a friendly can hardly replicate the intensity of a real contest, especially in the mania of a best-of-five first round play-in.
“You have to treat it like a real game,” said Hyman. “Pretty intense and uptempo so I don’t think anyone will be holding back. One tune-up before it’s the real thing.”
They’re all treating it like a grand adventure, albeit the novelty will likely wear off quick. But boredom is also a fact of life for players in the fat margins of any season.
Coach Sheldon Keefe is eagerly anticipating this queer chapter in a season that began with him behind the Marlies bench. Adjustment redux. So many teams occupying the same hotels, getting on the same physically distanced elevator cars, overlapping on practices and everybody wanting to get on the first bus back to their nest.
With a foot out the door and on the eve of isolation, Keefe had one core message for his players.
“Expect the unexpected and be comfortable being uncomfortable.”