ARLINGTON, VA — The Washington Capitals had some VIPs join them at the rink on Thursday.
With the Capitals set to hit the road for their annual Mentors’ Trip on Thursday, the team hosted dads, brothers, and other loved ones as they watched practice at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. Head coach Spencer Carbery hopes the quality time with family will give the group a much-needed boost.
“It kind of breaks it up a little bit, this final push to the Olympic break,” he said. “So I think it does come at a good time.”
This year’s Mentors’ Trip will kick off in Chicago, where the Capitals will face the Blackhawks on Friday, before heading to Nashville for a game against the Predators on Sunday. The traveling party left DC Thursday afternoon, posing for photos before getting on the plane.
While the team usually opts to bring the mentors to a warm locale, Carbery was excited about the less conventional destination.
“The automatic default mentors’ trip is Florida, right?” he said. “This, I think, is great, because you get — Chicago’s a great city in the United States. And then you get Nashville, which is in itself an interesting city.”
Carbery still remembered when he first went to Nashville, though the trip would mark his father’s first time in the city.
“First time was when we played that rookie tournament a few years back when I was with Hershey,” he said. “And I just didn’t really understand (beforehand) the grasp of Broadway, and how that is, and the amount of people, and the music from every different place. I’m like ‘Oh my gosh.’ So that’ll be cool, to be able to share that.”
For goaltender Charlie Lindgren, the weekend harkened back to his youth hockey days, when he spent many a night on the road with his father, Bob.
“He always comes away saying it’s his favorite time of year,” Lindgren told RMNB. “Throwing it back to what we used to do growing up, when we were playing holiday tournaments on the road, where it’s just staying in a hotel room with your dad or parents…It’s so much fun, and it’s so meaningful for the both of us.”
This year will mark Bob Lindgren’s fourth season coming on the trip—”He’s kind of a veteran,” Lindgren said—and he’s become friends with Jeff Chychrun, Chris Strome, and Dick Carlson.
“My dad’s maybe a little bit more introverted than maybe a lot of the other dads are, but he certainly loves hearing stories of the different backgrounds of the different guys on the team,” Lindgren said.
Carbery, meanwhile, was looking forward to seeing another side of his players’ lives, including any juicy childhood stories.
“You just get a glimpse into a lot of our players, who I know so well, and you get to know so well, just their family life,” he said. “Sometimes you get some good nuggets and good stories of them as their younger selves.”
The trip also offers the Capitals a chance to repay their loved ones for their support. Many of the mentors spent years shuttling young players to practices and games; now they’re getting a turn as the guests of honor.
“I’m fully indebted to my dad, both my parents for that matter,” Lindgren said. “The opportunities they gave me growing up gave me every single chance, every single opportunity to succeed and follow my dreams and play in the National Hockey League. So it’s nice to be able to, in some form, return the favor…it means the world, and it’s really cool that the Caps organization allows for something like this to happen.”
Missing out on family time is a sacrifice baked into professional sports. Many players left home as teenagers to play in juniors, and they now spend most of the year either in Washington or on the road. Getting extra bonding time with loved ones mid-season, then, is even more worth celebrating.
“Being able to spend some time in season with my dad, even though he’s done it before, it never gets old,” Carbery said. “Being able to go through and being able to share our daily grind with them, but also it makes it a little bit more enjoyable.”
