Roman made a little joke the other night about how much he wanted to win. He grew up less than three kilometers from the arena, and he played for SC Bern. This is home for him. You know how much it meant for him to score two goals and to be named the first star.
It was a balance for us. We had this discussion as players: "It's an exhibition game. Where do we draw the line as a physical team?' I thought we managed it well. We wanted to play hard and compete for Roman and Nino Niederreiter, who grew up in Chur, Switzerland, in the eastern part of the country. I think the guys just did a great job at that.
I didn't play, but I got to soak up everything down at ice level for the majority of the night. The atmosphere was so good. It was just a special night. You could kind of see the emotion in Roman, especially at the beginning. We all kind of looked at each other, and we had goosebumps when he was introduced.
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The other cool moment for me was when Sebastien Bordeleau dropped the puck. He played for SC Bern from 2002-09 after playing for the Montreal Canadiens, Predators, Minnesota Wild and Phoenix Coyotes from 1995-2002, and he's now a skills coach for us. Just seeing how much hockey means to this community and how much those guys mean to this community, that's cool.
My wife, Tara, and I have two kids: a 2-year-old son, Miles, and a 6-month-old daughter, Leigh. I had my phone out. I took some videos. I was sending videos to my wife. My son loves hockey. He loves the Preds. Any time he sees the Preds, he's like, 'Daddy's team!' I FaceTimed him when he got home from school and then, when the game was on, I brought the phone over to ice level and let him watch a bit of the game, and he was just glued to the camera. It's special, for sure.
This trip has been so cool, and this community is so special, my wife and I are like, "When the season's over, we're coming back here." It's just an awesome community.
I just don't think I'll forget this night. Preseason games, sometimes as an established guy, you can kind of take them or leave them. This was a special one. To be around the atmosphere and soak it in, it was cool.
I'm just so happy that Roman and his family got to do this, and Nino and his family got to do this. I can't say enough. I love 'Jos.' We love 'Jos.' He's really become a brother, and we'd go through a wall for that guy, and to see how much this meant to him, it was really, really cool.
