Content of the article
There has yet to be a positive test at the world’s longest hockey game. It will be game over if there is one.
Ex-Oilers Kyle Brodziak tests the limits in world’s longest hockey game
Advertising
This ad has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Content of the article
But it takes an old pro to keep it going.
Players’ feet are starting to look like hamburgers and the only NHL player in the lineup is getting more valuable by the hour. And there is no special taxi team.
Unlike Edmonton Oilers forward Jesse Puljujarvi in Montreal on Thursday, being the first player from the Canadian Division placed on the COVID-19 protocol list, Kyle Brodziak has been placed on the WLHG ready list as a that person of reference to ensure the show continues.
Brodziak, a veteran of 917 games in 14 NHL seasons, with the Edmonton Oilers for six seasons with the Minnesota Wild and three more with the St. Louis Blues, had just been called up on the ice, not off. ice.
“One of our guys fell,” he said of a Team Hope player who couldn’t continue, suffering from foot problems. “We needed a guy to play the last two hours of his shift.”
Advertising
This ad has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Content of the article
At 36, Brodziak is the youngest man involved. He knows how to play through the pain. He spent his entire career paying the price to stay in the league.
Brodziak called on his mobile from the bench to apologize for missing a phone interview during flooding in Zamboni in the middle of his extended shift.
“I’m not going to water it down. By the time we reached halfway. I already knew it was both physically and mentally the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said of playing in minus-30C conditions. -40°C with wind chill. ” I do not regret it. I wouldn’t change anything. But it’s not easy, far from it.
When he got the call to join these winter warriors and play in the world’s seventh longest hockey game at Saiker’s Acres, 52269 Range Rd. 220, east of Sherwood Park, Brodziak did not hesitate.
Advertising
This ad has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Content of the article
“Having lost my father to cancer when I was 14, I knew straight away that this was something I was going to want to do and had to do. I’m proud to do it and I’m also very grateful, I realized, to have had the opportunity to do so.
A lot of guys who make it to the NHL these days, aside from playing in an outdoor Winter Classic game, have never played hockey outside. But Brodziak played a lot of it and that, he admits, was part of the attraction.
“I was born in Saint-Paul and grew up in Vegreville. My family moved to Vegreville when I was seven.
“A few years ago, when I was young, my father built an outdoor skating rink in the backyard. And when I was around sixth grade, when we moved, there was a pond nearby. I am a pond hockey product.
Advertising
This ad has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Content of the article
“I’ve spent years and years playing on that outdoor pond every winter. So I’m definitely used to playing outside. But it doesn’t help much when you play those type of hours at that guy. of temperatures.
Brodziak knows all about fishing for pucks off the snow banks, but not so much off the net, ending up with a career total of 129. But the third-and-fourth-row player, who wasn’t selected by anyone in his draft year with the Moose Jaw Warriors, had scored 116 here so far.
Brodziak, who carved his way into a full-meal pro career that began the lockout year of 2005, when American Hockey League farm club the Oilers played in Edmonton as the Roadrunners , has never been known to have a particularly hard shot. But he hit the post often enough to break more than his share of pucks in the extreme cold.
Advertising
This ad has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Content of the article
“I think everyone has now exploded a puck on a goal post. Right now in the afternoon you don’t see it as often, but there were times in the middle of the night when you didn’t even have to pull hard. As soon as the puck hit the post, it exploded.
“I’ve never seen so many pucks explode in my life. I saw a couple break up a bit. But it was just crazy for two or three nights there, when it was really, really cold. It was just amazing. I’ve never seen a puck explode into 15 different pieces. I’ve never seen puck after puck disintegrate the way they do.
Brodziak, who has lived in Sherwood Park with his wife and family since turning professional, is unsure if he will return for the half-year spree.
Advertising
This ad has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Content of the article
“It’s a long way to go. And this is certainly not the time to decide. But I suspect I would happily do it again.
“I came out to experience the second edition of the game and I remember being in awe of how crazy these guys were about what they had to deal with that year. Now I feel like I got come full circle. I’m part of it now and I feel like I’m just as crazy.
As the NHL player in those 917 games, he obviously has special status with them. But Brodziak says the guys who have come back to play again and again have a special status with him.
“It’s really amazing. Some of these guys who’ve been there before don’t even seem phased by the cold and the long hours, not much sleep and the pain your skates are causing your feet. It’s pretty remarkable to see how they do it on a daily basis.
“Being here to play this game with them is really something special. I’m just so grateful to be a part of it. It’s for an amazing cause and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of it.
Email: tjones@postmedia.com
On Twitter: @byterryjones
