Where It All Began | BIG READ

Even if your parents gave you the ‘All clear,’ that the ice was ready to go, there was still always that little anxious moment.

The first step onto the open-air ice, in the middle of a pond or a lake, or any body of water, there’s always a perturbed moment.

Please let it be ready.

At a young age, Nathan Bastian would slowly tip his toe onto the pond ice. It’s early winter months in Mississauga, Ontario, but there has been a cool in the air.

Is it time? Has it frozen over?

It’s the most anxious moment for any young kid heading outdoors for a game of pickup. Will the lake or pond be frozen over enough to safely play with your friends?

Carefully, and with a prayer, you put a little weight on your toes. No cracks yet. Okay, this is good.

A little more weight, a little more of your foot.

This is looking promising.

A little tap of the ice with the stick. Still no cracks, seems pretty thick.

It’s ready.

Dawson Mercer, out in Atlantic Canada in Newfoundland, would wait for the go-ahead from the adults of the town. Just waiting for that ice to be thick enough to support the endless carving of skates and the hours upon hours of endless, free-spirited fun.

The adults always checked first and then it was go-time.

“You’re always checking it out, wondering if it’s ready to go,” he said, “You’d get a cold (day) and might think it’s ready, and (the parents) would go check it out with an ice auger, and then they’d say it’s no good. You’d just have to sit and wait to the next day. The worst was when it was cold and it was snowfall and then you’d have to wait again.”

That’s the worst of the outdoor experience. The long wait for the ice.

“I remember the times I would go out there and you’re not sure (if the ice is ready),” Nathan Bastian recalled, “And you’d get out there, and it’s not, and you’re devastated, it’s just not ready to go. You’re jumping the gun a little too much. It’s November, and you’re trying to get the pond, I loved it so much.”

But once it was ready. Oh, those were the best of times.

For Jesper Bratt, back home in Sweden, he’d jump on his bike with his pals and head to the local outdoor rink before their organized practice started.

“As soon as school was over, we’d all jump on our bikes,” Bratt said, “Even if it was snowing, we all rode our bikes to the practice and before our own practice started we’d get to spend a couple hours outdoors. We’d play scrimmage games against each other outdoors, it was just great memories back home. Bringing it back like this, playing on the level that we do, it’s awesome.”

Everything, though, was about waiting for that ice to freeze over before any of the fun could begin.

But when it did, everyone had an adventure or story to share.

Thick enough ice and anything can be supported. Even cars, if need-be.

For Brendan Smith, when the cold was enough, and the ice had thickened, he’d sometimes have to hop into a car to get to the side of the lake that was the spot. Except, he’d take the shortcut – right across the ice.

“In Wisconsin, there would be one side that would really freeze over and everybody would be there,” Smith said, “You could kind of drive your car out because everyone was ice fishing, people would be driving out to their huts. We would kind of have an area where we’d have to shovel and put together the rink and play. Obviously if the truck can go, we can go.”

There’s a lot of work to prepare for the outdoor hockey playing season growing up. Some were lucky enough to have rinks built for them, but others, like Mercer took part from the very beginning.

“I built rinks in the backyard, me and my brothers and my dad,” Mercer said, “We used to go out there and work on it at night when it got dark and flooded it, to make sure it was ready for the next day, that was pretty fun.”

On Saturday, they won’t have to be checking the ice. That’s been tested over and over, and the technology mastered. It’s a little different than the days of clearing off a pond or a lake, but they all lead to the same thing:

It’s time to play hockey.

THE MEMORIES RUN DEEP

The memories of growing up playing in the outdoors run deep. They’re some of the most freeing moments for a kid, throwing caution to the wind (sometimes literally), and while when you first ask players about their childhood days outdoors, they may insist the memories are slightly foggy, you also notice those memories clear up as they continued to share. There is a certain joy about remembering those times.

“I spent so much time, every free minute on the ice,” Timo Meier, who grew up in Switzerland recalled, “I was never tired, never complaining that my feet were hurting, I just had so much fun and I just didn’t want to get off the ice. My parents literally had to drag me off the ice.”

Everyone, so it seems, remembers having to be dragged off the ice by the adults in their lives. The outdoor rink clearly was where all the passion and ambition began to emerge.

“Your parents are calling you, wondering when they can come pick you up to get you home, you’d have school the next day,” Mercer remembered.

“It’s where you really fell in love with hockey,” Smith added, “You’d go until your toes froze and I remember there were always tears coming off (the ice) added you didn’t want to come off the ice. And then your feet hurt and you’re crying. But it was where you fell in love.”

“It’s part of every Canadian kids growing up,” Curtis Lazar shared, “It’s part of your childhood, getting out on the outdoor rink. I played my Junior hockey in Edmonton. It was cold. But after practice my billet brother and I, we would make our way over to the outdoor rink every day. We’d get out there for a couple of hours and play. It’s just so easy, it’s so fun. It doesn’t matter how cold it is, you’re just out there… there’s nothing better.”

There are often no rules, other than to show up, it didn’t matter who you were, what level you played at, at the root of it all was just the love of the game.

“It was just so fun,” Mercer said, “There was no age group, like you’d show up and there’d be 16-year-olds, all the way down to like eight. It was just such a good time.”

And then there were those Dad’s that would show up and lace them up. Lazar remembers them well.

“There’s always that one hard-o dad too, that shows up,” he joked, “He was out there trying to skate circles around you and whatnot. But its really fun, it’s all the small things, you’re out there with three pucks, you’d be shooting them off the crossbar out of play and you’d be like, ‘Well, that’s it for the day,’”.

All these memories and moments are what led all these players to where they are today, on the biggest stage hockey has to offer. They’re NHL players now, with those countless hours culminating in fulfilling dreams.

The Youngest and Eldest One

Simon Nemec turned 20 years old two days ago and it’s the first thing he mentions when he thinks about Saturday’s Stadium Series game.

His face lights up. He’ll have his girlfriend in town and roughly seven friends from back home in Slovakia.

There’s a level of emotion behind this game, because as much as an outdoor game brings players back to their roots of playing and falling in love with hockey, for Nemec, watching these games on TV at home in Slovakia was just as much a part of his for the game as it was part of his drive to make it to the NHL. When he was growing up, he and his father Jan would watch all the Winter Classic games together.

The first was when he was just five years old.

It was January 1, 2008. The Pittsburgh Penguins were up against the Buffalo Sabres at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, New York. Šimon was just a little kid, unable to see where he’d be 15 years later, ready to suit up in one himself.

It’s not lost on him that at just 20 he’ll be playing in a coveted outdoor game. Some players, he reminds himself, have been in the league for years and have never had the opportunity.

It is nowhere near something he takes for granted.

“I’m so excited,” he said, “because it’s my first season and some guys they never played (in one). It’s special for me, I hope it’s going to be fun, I’m going to try to enjoy it, because like, maybe it never happens again.”

When Nemec was watching that Winter Classic Game in 2008, home in Slovakia with his dad, it likely never even occurred to him that one day, that very same head coach behind the Sabres bench would also one day be his head coach, in his first NHL season and his first NHL outdoor game.

"Being one of the first games to be played outside and in a snowstorm at the same time, that was certainly memorable," Ruff said of his time coaching the first Winter Classic. "I still remember being asked by the press after the game, 'Does (playing outdoors) make it a real hockey game,' and I felt it made it even more real for a lot of guys who, back then, maybe played on outdoor rinks.”

While his players like Hischier and Meier were skating to the backdrops of Switzerland’s scenery, Lazar out on the lakes and ponds, the Devils head coach, who will celebrate his 64^th birthday at the Stadium Series game, had a rather different experience growing up in the small town of Warburg, Alberta in the Canadian prairies.

"We didn't have an outdoor rink but had cattle and a cattle pond that froze over,” he shared, “We played hockey on that. I mean obviously the cattle couldn't drink anymore, so we would shovel that and play. When the hay was not in the top part of the barn in the loft, we would play ball hockey. There wasn't a lot of things to do in that small town. We used a hard sponge puck on the cattle pond. It was like a normal puck, but it was sponge.”

We all know about that wait for the water to freeze over. But during his childhood, Ruff simply had created other options for himself as they waited for the ice to be thick enough. He’d head to the farm lofts for a little ball hockey.

“When we played ball hockey,” he began, “we rolled up a pair of socks in a ball and then shoved that pair inside another sock and sewed that really tight into a ball that you could shoot really hard. It didn't hurt anybody. I didn't patent it, but I think I should have."

MORE MOMENTS 

At 22 years old, Dawson Mercer grins wide thinking of the outdoor experience. Already, so quickly in his career, he’ll get to be part of this type of game.

“It’s pretty special,” he said, “You see all those teams have Europe trips, those outdoor games, it’s finally nice to get one in-house, something here. It’s just another one of those special moments in your career that you hope you get to experience. I’m pretty excited, like a lot of guys.”

Nemec is in his first season, Mercer is in his third, but Curtis Lazar has had to wait quite a bit longer to take part in one of these experiences. In his 13^th NHL season, this will be his first outdoor game. He’s had to wait for one of these, he couldn’t be more delighted to get the opportunity.

Nico Hischier and Meier, who both grew up in Switzerland, have memories, too, of playing a game of pick-up outdoors. They didn’t have the 70,000 fans that are expected at MetLife, but they had backdrops of Switzerland’s mountains, which paints an incredible picture.

For Hischier, it wasn’t always pick-up games either. Some of the teams he faced in Switzerland growing up had no roofs on their rinks. It wasn’t completely outdoors, but it’s the closest the Devils captain has to an experience of a game that counts for something in the outdoors.

“When I was younger growing up my hometown team had some teams in the mountains that had ice rinks with no roof,” he said. “I also did some skating on some frozen lakes. I was probably 10 years old, so it’s been a while.”

Meier remembers much of the same.

“There were certain teams that only had outdoor rinks,” Meier recalls, “So we would play outdoor and have like snow on the ice. I was always like shooting the puck somewhere and acting like I was searching somewhere else, and I always knew the puck was in the other end and I’d just sprint over there and I’d have a breakaway.”

There won’t be much of that type of trickery, unfortunately, when it comes to Saturday’s game at MetLife. It’s all completely curated now to an NHL game.

THE GAME

For Brendan Smith, an outdoor game is nothing new, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t special.

When he walks out onto the ice at MetLife Stadium, he will be preparing for his fifth NHL outdoor game, tying him with Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby for most outdoor games played in league history.

It doesn’t matter how many times he’s been part of one, he says, each one is unique in its own way and has been incredibly special to be a part of.

When he was injured on Dec. 27, he had a goal thinking about his recovery.

“I was talking to (my wife) Sam, about it during my injury, ‘I gotta get back because I may never have the chance again,”

He’ll have at least one more, expected to be in the lineup on Saturday night. And because of all his experience, he does have some wisdom to impart on his teammates prior to Saturday’s game.

“Take it all in,” he says.

It sounds funny coming from him, ye of five outdoor games, but he continues with “you may never know if you’ll get the opportunity again,” smirking, fully well understanding how that may sound.

But because he has that experience, he has plenty of wisdom to impart.

Outdoor games, when you break it down to its bare bones is just another hockey game, but there are a lot of things that will also feel different that you have to manage.

Starting with the crowd.

It’s an experience like no other, says the players who have had the good fortune of playing in other outdoor games.

Over 70 thousand people will sift into MetLife Arena on Saturday. The roar of the crowd will echo and rain down, the Devils and Flyers will walk from their locker rooms to their benches, like gladiators entering the ring.

It’s incredibly unique.

“It’s always a longer walk,” Smith joked, “Normally, you’re going out into the cold too. I’ve always enjoyed it because you just try and take it all in, look, see everything. You feel it, you smell it, it’s all different. That’s a great feeling, just walking out. That’s something you’ll always remember.”

Players have been in MetLife before and attended many other large-crowd sporting events, from NFL games to Premier League, those arenas offer completely different setups to an NHL rink. Understandably so, given the nature of each different sport.

This time, however, it will be Devils who are the athletes of the day at the football stadium. Fans are there to see them play their game. In an NFL arena, the script has been flipped.

“I’m a huge sports fan, so I go to soccer games that have that many people, or football games, but it’s always different when you’re on the field,” Meier said, “It’s definitely going to be exciting. I haven’t got the chance to experience it yet, so I’m definitely excited about it, just try to enjoy every second.”

“I can tell you that after the game,” Hischier joked when asked what he thinks the crowd will be like, “I’ve never been part of anything like this, I’d like to answer the question, but I cannot yet.”

"Our rinks are like 20 thousand max, that we see," Lazar said, "I can't really process it. Every single one of us has watched a football game, but being in the middle of the spectacle, it's going to be pretty cool."

They're only a few hours away from it.

With crowds that size, with the open air and no encasing like an NHL rink, one of the stranger things to get used to, and you’ll have to get used to it quickly, is the experience of feeling the crowd during play. Where crowd reactions are so much a part of the NHL game, the Ooo’s and Ahh’s reacting to big moments, swings in momentum and of course the sounds of Shoooooot on the power play, it all arrives a little late to the players on the ice.

“It’s really different because you almost hear the cheers like half a second late,” Smith said, “It’s literally half a second late, but it’s kind of funny and it really is great. You can’t really do anything about it.”

Tyler Toffoli, who has played in one outdoor game before, also had a similar experience. He told NHL.com’s Mike Morrealle, about that delay. It’s a rare time where players get to experience a moment with just their teammates before the roar reaches them.

"The fans are so far away, it's almost like a delayed reaction a little bit," he said. "But I think it kind of makes it more cool because after a goal goes in, all the boys are cheering, so you hear them first and then you get the fan noise after, so it's definitely a really cool experience. Hopefully we hear the boys cheering a lot."

… BUT WHEN THE PUCK DROPS, THERE ARE POINTS ON THE LINE.

And as much hoopla as there is surrounding the game, all the festivities, the build-up and the family and friends in town, there are two huge points on the line. The Devils are five points back of the Flyers in the standings and New Jersey is trying to stay in the Wild Card race, hopefully climbing their way further up the standings.

Strip it down to the basics… this is a game that counts in the standings, with big implications and when the puck drops, that’s where the focus has to be, which is where players like Smith, Toffoli, Ondrej Palat Tomas Nosek and Erik Haula can step in. They’ve been a part of these games before. They know what to expect from it all.

As soon as the walk to the benches are done. It’s go-time.

“From that point on,” Smith added, “it’s business. You’ve got to win. You’re there to win that game. It’s almost like you have to compartmentalize. You try to have fun early on, but once you get to the game, like the two hours before, you’re ready, you dial it in for the game. You try to get to your routine that you’ve been doing through your whole career.”

“The stakes are high," said Jack Hughes. "It’s a four-point game against a division rival. To get this one is a big win. No matter if it’s played in front of zero people or 60,000, it’s a really important game.”

“The message was we really have to wrap our arms around the opportunity that it’s such a big stage but also we’re chasing them down for the playoffs,” Ruff said, “When you play a team that’s one spot ahead of you it’s a big game,” said Ruff. 

It's what everyone always comes back to, talking about the lead-up to the Stadium Series game. 

"It will be fun to be in the middle of it, but it's an important two points up for grabs," Lazar said, "You want to enjoy it, all the build up is special, but when that puck drops, its fun, because there's no snowbanks out there like on a pond, there are real boards, it's a big game, especially for us. But that's what's going to make it that much more sweet. We can all come together."

Having practiced at MetLife on Friday, had their family skate and taking it all in, today the focus shifts. These players are on this stage because of all the work they’ve put in, the physical drive, the emotional drive to be at the top of their class.

They are NHL players, going back to the very roots that got them there. Whether you’re remembering being out on the ice playing against your big brothers or sisters, your mom or your dad, and even your friends, the goal remains the same as when you were a kid, to when the points are truly on the line.

 As Brendan Smith said: “You’re there to win.”