WASHINGTON • When Blues goaltender Jake Allen was growing up in Fredericton, New Brunswick, there would be drives. Long drives. Practice for some regional teams meant a three-hour drive each way for a one-hour practice. Allen and his father, Kurt, a high school athletics director, would make those trips in the dead of winter, on roads that weren’t interstates. It was not easy.
Fast forward to the present and Kurt Allen is on the road with his son once again. But it’s very, very different. Rather than being in a minivan rattling down some single lane Canadian highway, the Allens are going from a box in an arena to a bus to a chartered airplane that serves real meals en route to another bus that leads to a luxury hotel at the next destination. It is as different as two trips could be.
“I sent pictures of the plane to people back home,” Kurt Allen said Saturday morning. “You won’t believe what life is like on the road: how they eat, how they prepare in meetings. Being part of that is a real eye-opener.”
Kurt Allen is one of 17 fathers along on this Blues road trip. The group started in St. Louis, where they took in the Nashville game Thursday, and has been with the team ever since. They flew with the team to Raleigh, N.C., for Friday night’s game, landing about 2:30 a.m., then hit the road again after that game to come to D.C. for Sunday’s game with the Capitals. They’ve sat in on team meetings, had dinner with general manager Doug Armstrong and senior adviser Martin Brodeur, and lived the NHL lifestyle without having to put on skates. On Saturday, the team and the fathers took a bus to the White House for a group picture and, with no full practice scheduled after back-to-back overtime games, most had the afternoon free for tourism. Whatever they’re doing, they’re having a ball.
“It’s an unbelievable experience to see how they live, how they travel, what their day is like.” said Jaden Schwartz’s father, Rick. “It’s not easy, getting in at 2, 3 in the morning, and you’ve got to get prepared for a game the next morning. You’ve got to be disciplined with your body. The hours are weird. That’s the toughest thing, the hours.”
“It’s been absolutely fantastic,” said Willard Reaves, father of forward Ryan Reaves and a former professional football player. “Getting to meet some of the other fathers, watching my son play, it’s something I’ll always remember.”
The trip has been a thank-you note of sorts from the players for everything that was done before, and there’s the slight possibility that it’s served as a bit of a motivation for the players as well.
“You want to make sure you’re making them proud,” said defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, who has had the winning shootout goal in both games so far. “We were joking before the game, you don’t want to get in the car and have your dad go silent on you or tell you you didn’t give your best.”
“For us, it’s fun,” said forward Jaden Schwartz, “but for them, it’s something that means a little bit more. It’s something they won’t forget, and they’re having a blast right now.”
Other teams have done fathers’ weekends, and Armstrong and coach Ken Hitchcock decided to bring the concept to St. Louis. It’s been an all-inclusive trip. The dads sat in on the team meeting before the Carolina game (Hitchcock warned the parents not to take it personally if criticisms were made of their son’s performance), and they were in the locker room after the 3-2 win, laughing and smiling with their victorious children.
“To allow us to come there and watch the players as they go through their normal routine after a game is really, really good,” said the elder Reaves. “It reminds of you when they were little tykes and you had to lace up their skates. Now they can take their own skates off. But the smell is the same.”
And this hasn’t been an easy trip. With the Nashville game going into overtime and then a shootout, a scheduled late arrival into Raleigh became even later.
“They got a little bit of initiation, getting to the hotel at 3 a.m.,” David Backes said. “Fall asleep, then wake up and try to be productive (Friday). One more win would make it a phenomenal father’s trip and hopefully it will be on the docket every year after this because your dads, your parents, sacrifice so much to get you to this level. To give them a glimpse into how they’re living and they’ve enjoyed it.”
In addition to seeing what their sons go through on a daily basis, the fathers have gotten to know each other, to share mutual experiences and swap stories. Kurt Allen found that while he sometimes waits until the next day to watch Blues games, because they start at 9 p.m. in his far eastern part of Canada, the father of defenseman Carl Gunnarsson, back in Sweden, stays up to watch games live, even though they begin at 2 a.m.
“At the younger age, the parents got together and talked hockey,” said Steve Backes, David’s father. “Now we’re just talking hockey at another level. We used to talk about winning a trophy in the entryway of the arena. Now we’re talking about winning the big trophy.”
The players and fathers are in favor of doing this again, though more than one offered that a slight change should be made.
“I’d like to give the mothers the experience,” Rick Schwartz said. “They’re very proud as well and they did a lot of hard work. The next one, as greedy as I am, they should get a shot at it as well.”
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