Thursday morning in Florida, three Capitals players sat on a bench and waited for the team bus to take them to practice. Brett Connolly and Andre Burakovsky furiously fidgeted with their mobile phones while Caps goaltender Braden Holtby worked on a crossword puzzle.
Killin' time waiting for 10 am bus. #CapsCats tonight. 7:30 pm on @CSNCapitals #CapitalsTalk @JoeBpXp @Laughlin18 #Capitals pic.twitter.com/Syg4292736
— steve farrell (@capsbigbossman) October 20, 2016
Last season, Holtby was identified by Caps defenseman Nate Schmidt as one of the team’s “cult of crossword men.” The group also includes John Carlson, Justin Williams, Karl Alzner and TJ Oshie while Nicklas Backstrom and Marcus Johansson will sometimes chip in answers.
“With hockey, you don’t learn a lot of stuff outside of the game,” Holtby said to The Washington Post’s Isabelle Khurshudyan in January. “Any way you can do that, be it crosswords, reading, documentaries or whatever, you just try to keep your mind sharp in other ways because a hockey career ends sometime and you’ve just got to prepare and keep your mind sharp when you have to use it again.”
This morning, Justin Williams was also captured with a crossword puzzle after practice.
What a bunch of nerds.
Headline photo: @capsbigbossman
