BLOG: Thanksgiving a family affair for the Oilers

EDMONTON, AB - After a long Training Camp, family comes first on Thanksgiving weekend.
After a short practice on Saturday, Oilers players' kids and significant others were able to join them on the ice and in the locker room for an afternoon of fun ahead of tomorrow's day off.
It wasn't the first time the sounds of joy from kids echoed in the Oilers facilities, and under Head Coach Jay Woodcroft, it won't be the last.
"Sometimes in professional sports the term family gets tossed around a lot. Certainly we think of ourselves as a family here, but you have to live it too," Woodcroft said.
"I think any time you can bring in the players and staff's families, it's a little thank you to them based on the sacrifice that they make in order for their husbands or dad's to work in this field. You want to make them feel like they are a part of what's going on here."

Zach Hyman was one of the people who got to take advantage of the quality time, skating with his son Theo after preactice. While the almost two-year-old still doesn't know which way he shoots or has even laced up a his first pair of skates, being able to share the love of hockey is an important family activity.
"It's awesome, he likes it," Hyman said while his holding his son in this morning's media availability. "You try to create a family environment and introduce each players family into the room so everybody can get to know them. It just creates an awesome environment, and they just love it."
The team building aspect of days like today can't be overlooked. The 20-plus guys in the room will be spending a significant amount of time together over the next several months and this little reminder of why they do it, and how they are able to plays a kid's game as a profession isn't lost on them.
"I think it makes it more comfortable for everybody, we get to know each other," Evander Kane said. "It's fun having the kids out on the ice skating. The family has put in a lot of sacrifice and energy and effort for you as a player throughout the duration of training camp and obviously for the rest of the year so it's nice for them to be included in a day like today."

As Kane mentioned, Training Camp can be a grind. Once the regular season begins, players can be expected to miss so much time with their significant others. Simple experiences like the one that happend this morning can be the start of a memory that lasts a lifetime -- they are the small moments the players can look back on down the road.
"It's my daughters first time skating," Kane said. "She's two and the first time I put on skates I was three years old. I was telling her 'you look better than daddy did when he was three'. These are moments that I'm very happy that I can be a part of and provide for my kids. My son, bringing him on the ice, he's only four and a half months old, it's pretty special. It was a nice day."
The Oilers are about to embark on a mission that will require the better part of seven months of sacrifice and determination just to be one of the lucky 16 teams that gets to battle for the Stanley Cup. Once the team regroups on Monday, the work begins on installing and refining the particulars ahead of Wednesday's season opener at home against the Vancouver Canucks.
The opportunity to spends some time decompressing with the family and enjoying the little things will hopefully provide the added benefit of sharper minds in a very detail oriented beginning of the season.
"I think it gives everybody a little bit of energy. Last night was the last game of the preseason, today was the last practice of the preseason, so we wanted to do something a little bit different a little bit fun, and we wanted to involve people's families," Woodcroft said. "It's just a way to bring everybody together to connect. Anytime you can do that, you're cementing bonds that help you as you go through a tough 82-game schedule."

As Zach and Theo Hyman completed their media availability, the attention turned to first: getting Theo a snack, then enjoying the precious hours of family time ahead of what his hopefully a very long Oilers season.
"It's Thanksgiving, we're away a lot, so it's great to be with the fam and have this day and a half off here," Hyman said. "You're refreshed, you're excited, preseason is over, and it's game week so you're ramped up and ready to go."