With the holiday season upon us, the Blue Jackets are all preparing for their own holiday plans.
Christmas break is a little different for NHL players. While the team has three days off starting with Christmas Eve, there still isn’t much time for travel after last night’s game vs. Toronto. As a result, many of the players have found themselves hosting their family Christmas here in Columbus.
Cole Sillinger said his first season in Columbus two years ago was unique because of the pandemic, which didn’t allow his family to travel here, but this year Cole and his brother Owen – who is playing with the Jackets’ minor league affiliate in Cleveland – will welcome the family to the Buckeye State.
“My brother is in Cleveland,” Sillinger said earlier this week. “He's going to be driving up and then my parents are going to come in. I have another brother (Lukas) that's here right now. Unfortunately, he can't make it over on actual Christmas Day, but we’ll all be somewhat together here in Columbus."
Erik Gudbranson, who is married and is the father of two, said he will also be hosting family at his place this year.
“I have my in-laws, my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and my two nephews coming down,” Gudbranson said.
He said Christmas was always celebrated at his parents' house growing up, but now he and his wife of 10 years go back and forth for the holidays.
Things are a little different for the players who grew up a bit further away. Kirill Marchenko said he and the Russian Line, including Dmitri Voronkov and Yegor Chinakhov, will be spending the holidays together.
“I think we will be together,” He said. “Have a good dinner, just rest. We live in one building so it’s really easy for us. I think it will be a good time together."
For first-year NHL player Adam Fantilli, the holiday season has been spent with his teammates – more specifically, with another former University of Michigan player in Kent Johnson. In recent days, the two decided to get into the holiday spirit together by watching a classic Christmas movie.
“I haven’t seen (Home Alone) in a while, so KJ came over, I decorated the tree and got the fire going,” Fantilli said Thursday. “We got in the Christmas spirit last night. We just really wanted to get in the spirit.”
It must have been a good time, as the two got together Friday night to watch Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.
Marchenko is also a fan of Home Alone around the holidays, though there’s a slightly different version that airs in Russia.
“I think everybody watches the movie with, I don’t know how to say in English, but the kid stays at home,” he said. “It has a different name in Russian, but Home Alone, yeah. It’s similar here. It’s very interesting. We like it."
Family Traditions
No matter how long or short each player has been in the NHL, they have all acquired their own holiday traditions. Some have continued on from their childhood, while others are new.
For Gudbranson, growing up, his family all got matching pajamas the night before Christmas, and this is something that he wants to continue with his own family
“Yeah, we'll do that,” he said. “We'll do it with our kids. That's going to stick around for sure.”
When thinking of the holiday season, spending time outdoors isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind. But for some of the Canadian players, being outside in the elements is a time-honored tradition.
“It's tougher now with being in Columbus, but back home we used to be with our family and extended family – aunties, uncles, cousins, all that – and we used to play big shinny hockey game on a pond,” Sillinger said. “We used to kind of not live on a lake, but we had a place on a lake. We’d shovel it off and play a big game and have some hot chocolate by the fire and hang out and just kind of enjoy the day. So that was our big tradition."
Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy in Columbus, so Sillinger has adapted some new traditions for him and his family, including his father Mike, a former CBJ player.
"We have a traditional Christmas Eve that we just keep kind of casual and just like to make pizzas,” he said. “That's kind of our dinner, versus on Christmas Day we do the whole feast, but Christmas Eve, usually we're coming in from the hockey game. And we're just like, you know, let's just throw some pizzas in the oven or make our own pizzas and have a good time. So that's our tradition.”
For Mathieu Olivier, who grew up in Quebec, spending Christmas outdoors was also normal.
“Everyone used to come to our house, and we’d always have a family hockey game,” he said. “Everyone on the snowmobiles, too, kind of ripping around. We had a nice place out in a little more rural area. We used to spend our Christmas outside pretty much. We’d do gifts inside, then it was right outside. Kind of cliché Canadian, just hot cocoa, lot of maple syrup products outside, and just enjoy Christmas. We were always outside just enjoying Christmas. We were always outside just doing something.”
For the Fantilli, board games were more common. Adam said his family always plays a game of Pictionary on Christmas Eve, which he admitted gets pretty heated. This also goes along with a gift exchange and a traditional Italian meal.
Gudbranson said his family’s traditions include food as well.
“My in-laws do seafood on Christmas Eve, and they’ve done that for years and years and years,” he said. “So, that's fun. Obviously, turkey’s there, and my brother-in-law has a family tradition. They do some kind of sausage pastry on Christmas morning, so we're going to try that out this year.”
To Give or Receive?
The general consensus among the players is that giving gifts is more enjoyable for them compared to receiving gifts.
Olivier said he may not be the best gift giver, so it’s even more rewarding when he gives a good gift.
“Giving. I prefer giving,” he said. “Because I’m no good at it, so when I do end up giving a gift, I feel proud. I’m terrible at showing how grateful I am. I’ll be like super grateful for a gift and my wife will look at me and be like, ‘Wait, do you not like it?' And I’ll be like, ‘No, I really do.’”
Another dad on the team, Gudbranson, said Christmas is different once you have kids. As a result, he and his wife Sarah hope to instill some traditions into them as well.
“They’re 2 and eight months, and a year and three months,” he said. “So, we got them a few toys. The big one this year for them, for especially my little guy, is going to be to actually pick a toy of his that we can go give to someone else. That’s a big one for us this year. We're going to make that a tradition.”
Sillinger also said he preferred giving gifts but couldn’t elaborate too much because of a current gift exchange taking place among the team.
Even though the Blue Jackets all said they prefer giving gifts, it seems like they have been given some good gifts in return over the years. When asked about the favorite gift they’ve received, they were not short on answers.
Fantilli said his favorite gift came from his parents ahead of a trip to Whistler – a snowboard. While Olivier’s was a new PS4, it meant a lot to him because it was during his time in junior hockey when he lived far from home.
Damon Severson asked for hockey gear, but not what you’d expect. A defenseman now, he and his friends needed a different type of equipment.
“Anything hockey, whether it’s a new hockey stick or mini-stick,” he said of his favorite gifts. "Street hockey was big in my town. One year our whole friend group asked for hockey goalie pads because we didn’t have a goalie and we needed goalie pads to shoot on somebody. I asked for them from my parents or grandparents, and they got them for me, so I was really happy about that. Even though I had no interest in being a goalie, we just needed goalie pads so someone could go in the net so we could shoot on them.”
