Global Series: Reinhart wears gold helmet for practice in Tampere

TAMPERE – When in Finland, right?

Adopting a local hockey custom, Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart proudly sported a shiny golden helmet for the first couple of drills during practice at Nokia Arena on Thursday.

In Liiga, the top men’s league in Finland, the helmet is worn by a team’s top scorer.

With a team-high 16 points already this season, it was certainly a fitting honor for Reinhart.

“It seems like there’s a couple leagues where it’s a tradition,” said Reinhart, who’s cracked the scoresheet in nine of 11 games out of the gate to help the Panthers get off to a stellar 7-3-1 start. “It was in the stall, so I thought I’d give it a go for a couple drills.”

How did the gilded bucket end up in his stall?

Paul Maurice said he’s heard at least one theory.

“Chucky (Matthew Tkachuk) put it in his stall,” the Panthers head coach said with a big smile. “Actually, Chucky went to put it in Barky’s (Aleksander Barkov) stall, but then Barky said that he’s not the leading scorer and it has to be Reinhart. I think that’s how that went.”

Even though the helmet isn’t made of real gold, Maurice believes it’s still priceless.

Well, the idea behind it at least.

“Those are the things that happen on these trips,” he said. “It’s the small little things. It’s a guy getting up and singing karaoke. It’s somebody trying reindeer for the first time. Those are the little things that happen. You can tell these trips work because any time you walk by our locker room there’s two or three guys laughing in the corner or joking. When you walked by the room today, they were all laughing together. They were sitting around telling stories.”

With a few days still left in Finland, the Panthers will try to create even more fun stories when they face the Dallas Stars on both Friday and Saturday for the 2024 Global Series.

And even though he likely won’t be able to wear the gold helmet in either game, Reinhart dug the look.

“It felt good,” he smiled. “It fit nice.”