The Winnipeg Jets are all back together for the first time in four long months.
The Jets kicked off the NHL Phase 3 return-to-play plan with the start of a two-week-long training camp on Monday at the Bell MTS Iceplex. Thirty-three players are trying to shake off the rust ahead of their Aug. 1 start to the qualifying round against the Calgary Flames.
“It’s a good feeling, just having a real practice with coaches on the ice,” forward Mathieu Perreault said. “The last few days, we skated with just the guys, and now today, to actually have a coach running the practice — so it was a guy score a goal and guys cheering around — so it was actually a fun day to get back on the ice.”
Split into two different groups, players skated for about an hour to start, however this is anything but your typical camp.
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“Obviously, the whole process isn’t ideal,” Perreault said. “I talked about the nose swab every other day is painful. Wish we didn’t have to do all that stuff, but it is what it is. Like I said earlier, if you want to win a Stanley Cup this year, this is how it’s going to be.”
“It’s not quite life as usual, you know,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. “It’s not business as usual.”
And for some players, just getting back to Winnipeg was half the battle.
“Especially flying from Europe, you’re going through a lot of airports and sitting on planes with a lot of people,” Nikolaj Ehlers said. “But I had the sanitizer by me at all times. I had a mask on throughout the whole 16-hour trip, so I wanted to come back and play. Obviously, you don’t want to get it (COVID-19). I think I did as well as I could to keep my self safe.”
In a usual training camp, players are all on the same level — in peak physical condition. But here you have some players who have been back skating for months, while others have barely stepped foot on the ice, depending on where they were isolating.
“I skated twice the week before I came to Winnipeg,” Ehlers said. “So I haven’t skated much before I came over here.”
“There was an anticipation that this would have kinda a summer hockey feel,” head coach Paul Maurice said. “A certain casualness about it. I didn’t feel like that. Players were really focused on the hockey part of it.”
Flames defenceman Travis Hamonic of St. Malo, Man., is one of a number of NHL players who decided to opt out of the playoffs. While no one on the Jets team is taking a pass, the Jets captain completely respects each player’s decision.
“It’s not easy,” he said. “I think everyone throughout this whole pandemic has a different level of comfort.
“Every situation is unique. Every guy’s comfort level with their family situation or individual situation is going to be different from guy to guy, and so you respect anyone.”
In just two weeks, players will be locked down inside a hotel in their so-called bubble, where teammates will suddenly become like family.
“We’re going to have to lean on each other, certainly,” Wheeler said. “Everyone is going to be homesick. Everyone is going to miss their families. We’re really going to only have each other.”
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