Chris Hadfield (center) with Hockey Hall of Famer Bryan Trottier (left) and Ed Olczyk at NHL Alumni Awards Gala in Toronto on Oct. 22.
You returned to Earth from the International Space Station in a crew of three most recently May 13, 2013, undocking in the Soyuz capsule one minute after puck-drop in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference First Round series between the Boston Bruins and the Maple Leafs. During your re-entry, Toronto would go up 4-1 early in the third period but ultimately lose 5-4 in overtime. You touched down in the steppes of Kazakhstan 26 minutes after Patrice Bergeron's winning goal was scored. If the Leafs are eliminated while you're not on Earth and out of radio contact, does it count?
(Laughs) The Leafs also went down in flames that night. I knew the game was going on and I listened to the preamble before I got in the Soyuz. But I was the pilot. It's a huge task, there's all sorts of things we have to do to safely get back to Earth. I hadn't flown the Soyuz in five months so you're really focused. But in the back of my mind I was thinking about the Leafs. I also wondered, 'How can I best support my Leafs while I'm doing this?' So under my Russian spacesuit I was wearing my Leafs T-shirt, which is completely against the rules but I figured it's the best I could do. Just like all those players, I was sweating into my T-shirt coming down, hoping they'd do OK.
We came thumping down on a windy day into the plains of Kazakhstan, the vehicle rolls to a stop, I'm hanging from the ceiling, they roll it the right way, I'm the third and last to come out, after Tom (Marshburn) and Roman (Romanenko). You can walk OK but they carry you because they want to prolong your adaptation as long as possible so they can gather as much medical data as they can, and that's fine. They plunk me down in a chair, give me a cup of tea, loosen my collar and then they hand me a satellite phone to talk to my wife and tell her I was OK. I said, "Helene, how are you? I'm back, it all worked out great." She said, "That's wonderful." I said, "How did the Leafs do?" And she said, "Oh, I'm sooooooo sorry." Oh well. So be it.