For the Blackhawks’ young players, life on the road is good (and, sigh, clean) fun

WINNIPEG — Shortly after he parked his car right outside his gate and walked straight out onto the tarmac and up the stairs — nary a line or a bin to be found — Frank Nazar plopped down into his wide, comfortable seat on an all-first-class private jet. He was handed a menu with a variety of real meals to order — healthy salads, hearty steaks, all on real dishes with real silverware.

The plane taxied to the runway and took off in a matter of minutes. No delays. No O’Hare runway traffic jams. Nothing but legroom and clear skies ahead, followed by a dozen days of Ritz Carltons or Four Seasons or whatever the nicest five-star hotel in town is.

As he sat there, a thought dawned on him: It’s pretty cool to be on an NHL road trip.

“It’s funny you say that, I was thinking about it, legit, on the plane yesterday,” Nazar said in Winnipeg on Thursday. “From my first game, first time traveling, the food you’re getting, the seats you’re sitting in, everything’s pretty crazy. Just don’t take it for granted. Be thankful for where you’re at and the opportunity you get and everything that’s given.”

The Blackhawks hit the road this week for their longest trip since 2016-17, the final year of the famed Circus Trip and Ice Show Trip, when the Ringling Brothers and Disney, respectively, would evict them from Chicago’s United Center for a couple of weeks at a time. Winnipeg, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary and Detroit. Six cities, 12 days, 4,363 air miles.

And they couldn’t wait.

“I still get excited,” captain Nick Foligno said. “There’s the hard part — as my kids get older, they love that I play hockey, but they also get sad that I’m leaving for (12) days. And you feel that pull. But I’m still a kid at heart. I get excited to get on the road with the guys. This is my second family.”

Of course, Saturday will be Foligno’s 14th game in Edmonton, spanning two arenas. It’ll be his 15th time in Vancouver, his 14th in Calgary and his 20th time in Detroit. He’s got a restaurant and a place to grab a drink in every city in the league. Been there, done that, over and over again. For the Blackhawks’ bevy of younger players, though, these are still often new experiences.

Nazar might be an entrenched NHLer with a long-term contract, but wandering around Vancouver or Seattle will be an entirely new experience for him.

“I thought about it before the season,” he said. “I was trying to count up the spots I haven’t been to (or) haven’t played at. Both the New Yorks, Philly, Toronto. I think I’ve played against every team, but not at their barn.”

There’s something special about walking into an arena for the first time, checking out the facilities, staring up at the banners hanging from the rafters and pondering some of the legends that have skated on that same ice before you.

“It definitely dawns on me,” rookie defenseman Sam Rinzel said. “It’s definitely cool. Every new team I play is like a new thing I get to see. It’s exciting, and it’s fun.”

The fun is the key here. Being on the road means hostile crowds and tougher matchups and unfamiliar surroundings, but it also means long dinners at nice restaurants, casual hangouts and video-game sessions at the hotel and unscheduled field trips. Even at the rink, players are more relaxed for an off-day practice because there’s no home to rush back to.

Wyatt Kaiser and Louis Crevier walked around Seattle aimlessly for hours last year. A handful of Blackhawks went on a scenic hike through Stanley Park in Vancouver. On last year’s California trip, the beach was a popular destination, and a handful of Blackhawks popped into Disneyland before the Anaheim game. Nazar will catch a movie when he gets a chance. Even with coach Jeff Blashill’s demanding practice schedule, there’s plenty of downtime on the road.

The young guys haven’t been doing much homework for this trip. They’re not scouring TripAdvisor for restaurants or museums to check out. Sometimes, they’ll ask Foligno or Connor Murphy or Jason Dickinson for a recommendation, but eventually, they’ll all discover their own favorite haunts. Blindly stumbling into a new favorite spot is part of the fun of traveling.

“I’m starting to write down a list of spots to go eat in different cities, so in the future, you know to come back,” Nazar said. “And if someone you know is coming in for the game and asks you for recommendations, boom, just send them that list. Some of the guys are really good at that, and I’ve got to take notes from them. They know exactly what we’re going into, what to go see, where to go eat.”

The social scene on the road is pretty tame these days, for obvious reasons. Social media and the ubiquity of cameras have made it a lot dicier for a hockey player — famous or relatively anonymous — to go out on the town and blow off some steam. Furthermore, the new generation of hockey players treat their bodies like temples. For many of them, it’s a glass of water with dinner and off to an early bedtime.

Wednesday night in Winnipeg, Foligno crashed the room of Nazar and Connor Bedard to watch Game 5 of the World Series. In another era that would have happened at a bar, and the bill at the end of the night would have been jaw-dropping. The Blackhawks of the early 2010s were well known for rolling into bars 15 or 20 strong, taking over a spot like Legends in Nashville or the Roxy in Vancouver. But those days are long gone.

“That’s not my style,” Nazar said. “I don’t do any of that stuff.”

Much to Foligno’s chagrin.

“The last time I did that was with the Bruins (in 2022-23), when we had that incredible year,” Foligno said. “Older team. I swear to God, I never drank more in my life. And we won every game. So maybe there’s something to it. If you booze, you never lose! It’s the guilt you feel — makes you work harder the next day. An older team understands that. Young guys are always like, ‘I’m so tired.’”

Foligno was laughing through all that, of course, but there’s a bit of truth in every joke. What Foligno really misses about the old days are the plane rides and the bus rides in an era before cellphones, when guys would be kneeling on their seats, leaning over the back of them to hold lengthy — often heated — conversations on every topic imaginable, or simply share funny stories and rag on each other.

These days, everyone’s got headphones on, their noses buried in their phones and iPads.

“Honestly, it’s sad,” Foligno said. “The phones and Wi-Fi on the plane have ruined it. I’m guilty of it, too. I’m on my phone talking to my family or whatever. But you used to talk to your seat partner. On the bus we’d be playing Chase the Ace or yelling at each other. It just made it a little more fun. Now you’re just consumed with your own mind. I know it helps the flights go faster, but I do love and miss the days of everyone playing and hanging out together. You have guys leaning over chairs, talking. It was fun. We don’t have that as much. I definitely do bring it up a lot. But they’re probably rolling their eyes every time I bring up the old days.”

That camaraderie still exists once they get to the cities, though. When the team files off the bus and into a hotel lobby, one player will announce he’s going to an Italian joint, maybe another will say a steakhouse, and whoever wants to join them is always welcome. If a player is going out for a walk, he’ll let a couple of buddies know or notify the group chat.

What’s most encouraging for Foligno is how random the pairings are. As a veteran and as captain, sometimes it falls on him to orchestrate the camaraderie. But with this group, he hasn’t had to do that much.

“Now it happens organically,” he said. “It’s amazing how this team really enjoys hanging out with each other. I’ve been on teams, earlier in my career, where, unfortunately, it’s little cliques. But everybody here likes hanging out with everybody. You see different groups of guys going out for dinner, or all of us going for dinner. It makes it a lot of fun. It’s great getting on the road, especially with this group.”

The hockey’s still the focus, though. Blashill scheduled off-day practices in Edmonton, Seattle and Calgary, and there’s a game every other night. The Blackhawks might earn themselves an extra day off with a particularly strong performance, but after a sloppy game such as Thursday night’s 6-3 loss in Winnipeg, practice is not only needed, it’s welcomed.

“We’re a hard-working team, we’re here to work,” Crevier said. “So we see it as a business trip. You do your stuff and then you come home.”

That said, Crevier’s mom asked him on Wednesday if he had played in every NHL arena yet. Sixty-six games into his NHL career, he’s not even close. Every city is a new experience, Crevier said, offering a new perspective.

And, yeah, the hotels are pretty sweet, too. Especially when you’ve played a couple of years in the American Hockey League.

“The treatment we receive is awesome,” Crevier said. “Those nice hotels — you feel really nice.”

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