Pens adapt to life on the road
PITTSBURGH-The Pittsburgh Penguins wrapped up a week-long trip and were finally back home on Thursday morning. Their stay lasted less than 48 hours, though, and included a full practice, a game-day skate and Friday night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
Then it was back to the airport, and back to the road for another trip. This one is longer and farther: After Saturday night’s game at Carolina, they’re scheduled to hit Dallas, Anaheim and Phoenix before they get back home on Nov. 7.
Add it all up and it’s 15 of 17 days on the road. (Official disclaimer: There are people who spend months on the road at a time and aren’t nearly as well compensated as hockey players are. This isn’t an effort to emphasize their hardship, but rather to show how a team reacts to an odd stretch of schedule).
Winger Matt Cooke wasn’t too concerned about it, but remember that he spent eight seasons with the Vancouver Canucks. Long trips are a way of life for Western Conference teams, and Vancouver is the most remote spot in the NHL. The Canucks regularly log more miles than anyone else.
“This is the first I’ve seen anything like this since I’ve been in the East,” Cooke said.
In a perfect world, there would be a better balance between home and road games, so that a cluster like this wouldn’t exist. But there are a number of factors, including building availability. Every arena has other dates booked.
The New York Rangers have to hit the road for an extended time each season because the circus takes over Madison Square Garden.
Some teams share their arena with an NBA franchise, so squeezing in dates for both is a challenge.
The Penguins will later have a stretch where they’re home the majority of the time.
It isn’t an issue because the Penguins are selling out every game, but some teams don’t like a big home stretch because of the strain it puts on selling tickets.
Players? They just adapt.
“The schedule is the schedule,” Cooke said. “You just deal with it.” If there’s anything good about this collection of road dates, it’s that it comes early in the season.
“You’d rather have it now than have it in March,” Cooke said. Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman always maintained that the biggest burden in travel was crossing time zones. After this western swing, the Penguins play just three games in 2011 outside the eastern time zone, and only one of those (Colorado) is beyond central time.
“With our division and conference, everything is fairly close,” captain Sidney Crosby, said.
“It’s something we get used to, I guess.”
Philadelphia, Washington and the three New York area franchises are just one-hour flights. Maybe that serves to make something like the current trip seem like more of an adventure.
The brief return home was something players call a laundry stop. Empty the suitcase, the re-pack and get ready to hit the road again.
For the players with families, technology makes it easier to stay in touch. A lot of players carry laptop computers and smart phones.
“You can get on there and talk to the kids and see them,” Cooke said. “That makes it better than just calling on the phone.”
Staying in touch with teammates is much easier because they’re always around.
Is there a danger that the closeness could make them weary of each other?
“That would never happen on our team,” Cooke said. “We have guys here who are close and we get along well.”