In the immediate aftermath, it was hard to find much of a silver lining from the Bruins’ 10-day preseason trek to China in September.
“Going through adversity on a trip like that — I mean, that was a shitshow,” Brad Marchand said last week.
What was envisioned as an avenue to grow the game of hockey in China — while sandwiching in a pair preseason tune-ups against the Calgary Flames — got off to an inauspicious start.
Already dealing with the expected jet lag that comes with a 16-hour flight across the globe, the club’s first scheduled practice on ice was cancelled outright — with over 100 pounds of equipment held up at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport by customs, forcing the team to instead organize a workout inside their hotel’s gym.
Putting in work.#NHLChinaGames pic.twitter.com/KFzSHmOOAK
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) September 13, 2018
After closing out their first preseason bout with the Flames in Shenzhen, it took the team eight hours via both plane and train to get to their next destination in Beijing, with yet another practice delayed by five hours after the truck carrying their equipment was snared up in traffic.
After a trek out to the Great Wall of China, the bus carrying the B’s fell victim to gridlock that would make I-93 in rush hour look like a speedbump — with the team stuck in on the road for over 90 minutes at one point.
The Bruins pose for a team photo in a traffic jam after they visit the Great Wall of China on September 16 (Photo by Brian Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images).
Add in poor ice conditions and the subsequent cross-globe flight back that provided the subsequent second wave of jet lag, and the crew dispatched abroad were none too thrilled when asked to recap their trip upon their return — less than two weeks before the regular season got underway.
“
You just want to feel in the preseason like you're always going up,” Charlie McAvoy said back on September. “Like every practice, you get out of it like,
'Alright, I got better today. I got better today.'
To the point where finally you hit a stride and you say, '
Alright, bring on Washington.
I'm ready to go.’
“It was so hard to pull good positives out of those practices over there because of how I was feeling, with our gear getting held up by the government for like almost two days -- almost missed another practice, so we ended up skating at five in the afternoon versus after a day of doing nothing, like sitting at the hotel. It's kind of hard."
It was an ugly way to start what was poised to be a promising 2018-19 campaign. And yet, nine months removed from that grueling trek, Marchand credited the trip as being a key step in setting the groundwork for a Stanley Cup run.
And given Boston's current standing — down 3-2 to the Blues in the Stanley Cup Final — weathering that early adversity could go a long way in what could be another iconic championship rally, or fizzle out into a heartbreaking exit.
“
When you have trips like that, you’re able to work on your chemistry,” Marchand said. “To go over there and to go through it all together and just kind of joke around about it and go through it all — that’s what builds teams and builds relationships and those are things that you look back on when you get to the end of the year that you can laugh at.”
With veteran stalwarts such as
Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci
and
Torey Krug
avoiding the trip due to rest or injury, just five of the 23 players on the sojourn east were 30 years or older (
Tuukka Rask, Jaroslav Halak, David Backes, Kevan Miller
and Marchand).
Regulars like Backes, Marchand and Miller still set the tone in the locker room, but the trip allowed the next crop of players like McAvoy,
Jake DeBrusk, Danton Heinen, David Pastrnak
and others to serve as more vocal leaders on a group that featured a slew of prospects.
“Our younger guy — guys like Charlie and DeBrusk, Heinen who have been here — felt more empowered in terms of being leaders,” Cassidy said. “I think it helped them become a little more open with the group because there were a lot of young guys there — (Trent) Frederic, (Jack) Studnicka, (Zach) Senyshyn. We had some younger centermen over there — we didn’t take Bergy and Krech. But the togetherness part was excellent for the younger guys.”
Chris Wagner
John Moore.
"Even if you wanted to be buried in your phone, you couldn’t," Moore said of the experience abroad. " You really had to interact with your teammates. I was very grateful to be there and spend a lot of times and really get to know guys. I sat with Chris Wagner on the longest flight of my life — like 16 hours — so we really got to know each other. He taught me how to play backgammon. I’ve played backgammon all year."
Joakim Nordstrom
Jaroslav Halak
Tuukka Rask
"You go through some things that didn’t go as smoothly as we would have liked, but it kind builds the locker room up a bit," Wagner said. "You can look back now and laugh about it. How many months has it been, like nine? It’s been pretty cool to see how our relationships have grown from then — just being the new guy to now and it’s June.”
Lining it up like this in the desert.#NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/Cz8bTEkMrE
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) November 18, 2018
"I don’t how much got done over there, to be honest," Cassidy said with a smirk. "It was more bonding. ...
Would I do it again? Not this year.
