I witness Joey Kocur chew out two refs while scorekeeping a game his son was playing in. The two refs were giddy af once they found out who was chewing them out.
heislegend99
Met Paul Kariya at his BC hall of fame induction. Super nice guy he posed for a picture with me while his dad took the picture, unreal moment for me.
Pratius
I played beer pong against Blake Wheeler and Kyle Okposo once lol
RedHotChiliPotatoes
I was a stoner in college, working stock at a grocery store in a small town north of Detroit. This was barely a month after David Legwand was traded to the Red Wings. I was stocking some shelves when Legwand came down the aisle, and I had just gotten back from my “lunch break.” At first I didn’t even realize it was him until he asked me where the minced garlic was. That’s when I realized who he was, told him I was excited to see him with the Wings then we talked about spicy taco recipes for a few minutes. Chill guy.
Additionally, back when the Grand Rapids Griffins were in the Calder Cup finals, my buddies and I took a trip to GR. The Van Andel Arena wasn’t too well prepared for such a packed crowd and as we were coming upto the stadium, the security allowed some of us to enter through a VIP entrance to get us inside. We had been drinking pretty heavily at this point, and as we were getting led to a private elevator – I ran into Kris Draper and Chris Osgood. I yelled in Osgood’s face “holy fuck, you’re Chris Osgood.” He laughed, told me not to swear, and said Go Griffins. Draper was just cracking up.
Lastly, I had just gotten multiple stitches in my hand and was hopped up on a ton of painkillers for slicing open my hand. I was walking into a Detroit Tigers game when I saw Chris Chelios doing a singing outside at Cheli’s Chili (back when that was a thing). I didn’t notice the long ass line because I was loopy as hell so I just walked right upto him and sat next to him for a picture. I asked him how his day was, security grabbed me before Chelios stopped them and talked to me for a few minutes. I think he was high as fuck too, but he was cool about it.
Good times.
rageharles
Met Matt Murray at some corporate event. He didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to be there, we both pretended to enjoy ourselves and moved on. Neither particularly successfully.
boredandmotivatedV2
Michael McLeod :/
Hungry-Mammoth6036
Gordie Howe, Mark Howe, Jonathan Quick and Eric Boguenicki
Atomic-pangolin
Tyler Seguin at the vets office. Nice enough, didn’t really care about me but perked up when my sister came to get me and was chatting her up
Reallyme77
Marchand, Crosby, MacKinnion, Al McInnis and Mike McPhee. Yes I’m originally from NS. Also Fleury when he played junior there.
wmmnhv
Served Mike Vernon when I was a bartender, gave him his privacy until he was putting his jacket on to leave before I acknowledged who he was and he was a jerk
Ca1fSlicer
Met Nazem Kadri at a coffee shop in Denver, he seemed like a really good dude
LeafsNatlon
John Tavares, only because I grew up with him.
Illustrious_Toe_4755
Lindros and Desjardins. Lindros was an absolute wall of a man. Huge
newO_79
Phil Kessel, James Reimer, Henrik Lunqvist
antilockcakes
Since I’m involved in rehabilitation sciences, there have been a few. Crosby sticks out as both someone who was humble and kind, I wouldn’t even have known he was a pro athlete if I met the dude randomly and didn’t know who he was. A past player on the flames stuck out as the hugest asshole I’ve ever had to deal with, and not a smart one either. Most of the guys I’ve met have just seemed like fairly regular dudes. They stopped being heroes and started being clients a long time ago, but J Toews was a (great) guy and I met him when he was still a superstar to me. That was definitely the most flustered I’ve been professionally.
Most of the guys are average famous dudes, no horror stories come to mind.
Got *smashed* with Kirk McLean couldn’t tell you too much about that night other than he loves beer and servers. That was the only time I’ve hung out with an NHLer outside of work.
Mr_lojorising11
Chris chelios. Said ” Hey, nice shirt” I was wearing a Wisconsin hockey shirt
malrosen
Evan Rodrigues! He came into the Starbucks I work at and then saw him the following summer at the restaurant I bartend at. WICKED nice guy!
RaiderMike824
Not a hockey player (have never been lucky enough) but…
I met Nathan MacKinnon’s GF at my Apple Store. Her iPhone was having issues. I saw her wallpaper and it was her and Mack holding the cup. I was like “Ohh you’ve met MacKinnon? Cool! He’s the man!” She said “Yeah, he’s my boyfriend.” I felt dumb. She was cool, and very cute.
Aromatic-Wing-877
Not a player per say….but a lovely kind man, …Walter Gretzky
Imrealcrossedup
I met Patrice Bergeron, he was the nicest human being I have ever met with no exaggeration
FatherFenix
Shane Doan.
Huge reputation in AZ for being a legitimately nice guy. My FIL is an electrician who did work at his house as a favor to the builder, knows absolutely nothing about hockey so Doan was just another dude to him, and he said Doan was the nicest guy he’s ever met. Wanted to hang out and chitchat with my FIL the whole time, remembered his grandkid’s names from the first time they chatted, offered to sign stuff for the grandkids since they liked the Yotes, etc. Just genuinely cared and treated him really respectfully and politely, despite my FIL being some random electrician in a multi-million dollar neighborhood.
Yotes did a little practice for the public during my kid’s Little Howlers (learn to skate) program session and Doan showed up unexpectedly and stuck around for the lines and lines of people on his own time. He was as nice as his reputation suggested, met my kid, took a minute to say hi and talk, I told him he knew my FIL for a laugh (he remembered his name when I said he was an electrician and he asked how he was doing), he signed my kid’s stick, and he didn’t leave until everyone got to see him. Just a genuinely nice guy.
On the other end, my FIL also met Mike Smith before he was traded from AZ. FIL was doing his new house in Paradise Valley. Said Smith was a dick. Super rude to everyone, seemed annoyed all the time, and when his daughters were doing a lemonade stand for fun, my FIL gave them a $5 or whatever to be nice and Smith told him to take it back because they needed to learn the value of money or whatever. Said he wasn’t cool about it at all, just snapped at him and seemed really pissed off. His wife was nice, apparently, but the feedback was that Smith was consistently a dick to everyone.
Terrible-District943
Sergei Federov – when I was like 10, I had a white pair of shoes on, which he signed for me, and said “I have never signed shoe before”. What a dude.
Dura-Ace-Ventura
I once carried out Georges Laraque’s groceries and he tipped me 5 bucks and I honestly remember that more clearly than my wedding day or birth of my first child
DarthWenus
The Great One.
I was four or five and was in the hospital. He came to visit the kids.
luncherton
got to meet the whole pens team when i was in 2nd grade during a make a wish event!! marc andre fleury talked to me for like a half hour 🙂
VolubleWanderer
I met Mario Lemieux and I didn’t know who he was at the time. I worked at a very upscale hotel he was staying at. He was checking out early to go to San Jose and I mentioned the Stanley cup was there if he was interested. He said he was and asked who I thought was going to win. I told him the Sharks were going to take it. I had some relevant talking points he entertained and the guy behind him was almost in tears holding back laughter. Mario was super composed and just told me “well we will see” and walk off. The guy behind him was his jet pilot and was also checking out. He asked me if I knew who that was and I told him I had no idea so he told me to just google him and damn I felt like a fucking moron. Doubly so since they won the cup that year.
cedarswanpig
Mario Lemuiex. And he winked at me. If you know anything that’s a very important wink.
27 Comments
I witness Joey Kocur chew out two refs while scorekeeping a game his son was playing in. The two refs were giddy af once they found out who was chewing them out.
Met Paul Kariya at his BC hall of fame induction. Super nice guy he posed for a picture with me while his dad took the picture, unreal moment for me.
I played beer pong against Blake Wheeler and Kyle Okposo once lol
I was a stoner in college, working stock at a grocery store in a small town north of Detroit. This was barely a month after David Legwand was traded to the Red Wings. I was stocking some shelves when Legwand came down the aisle, and I had just gotten back from my “lunch break.” At first I didn’t even realize it was him until he asked me where the minced garlic was. That’s when I realized who he was, told him I was excited to see him with the Wings then we talked about spicy taco recipes for a few minutes. Chill guy.
Additionally, back when the Grand Rapids Griffins were in the Calder Cup finals, my buddies and I took a trip to GR. The Van Andel Arena wasn’t too well prepared for such a packed crowd and as we were coming upto the stadium, the security allowed some of us to enter through a VIP entrance to get us inside. We had been drinking pretty heavily at this point, and as we were getting led to a private elevator – I ran into Kris Draper and Chris Osgood. I yelled in Osgood’s face “holy fuck, you’re Chris Osgood.” He laughed, told me not to swear, and said Go Griffins. Draper was just cracking up.
Lastly, I had just gotten multiple stitches in my hand and was hopped up on a ton of painkillers for slicing open my hand. I was walking into a Detroit Tigers game when I saw Chris Chelios doing a singing outside at Cheli’s Chili (back when that was a thing). I didn’t notice the long ass line because I was loopy as hell so I just walked right upto him and sat next to him for a picture. I asked him how his day was, security grabbed me before Chelios stopped them and talked to me for a few minutes. I think he was high as fuck too, but he was cool about it.
Good times.
Met Matt Murray at some corporate event. He didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to be there, we both pretended to enjoy ourselves and moved on. Neither particularly successfully.
Michael McLeod :/
Gordie Howe, Mark Howe, Jonathan Quick and Eric Boguenicki
Tyler Seguin at the vets office. Nice enough, didn’t really care about me but perked up when my sister came to get me and was chatting her up
Marchand, Crosby, MacKinnion, Al McInnis and Mike McPhee. Yes I’m originally from NS. Also Fleury when he played junior there.
Served Mike Vernon when I was a bartender, gave him his privacy until he was putting his jacket on to leave before I acknowledged who he was and he was a jerk
Met Nazem Kadri at a coffee shop in Denver, he seemed like a really good dude
John Tavares, only because I grew up with him.
Lindros and Desjardins. Lindros was an absolute wall of a man. Huge
Phil Kessel, James Reimer, Henrik Lunqvist
Since I’m involved in rehabilitation sciences, there have been a few. Crosby sticks out as both someone who was humble and kind, I wouldn’t even have known he was a pro athlete if I met the dude randomly and didn’t know who he was. A past player on the flames stuck out as the hugest asshole I’ve ever had to deal with, and not a smart one either. Most of the guys I’ve met have just seemed like fairly regular dudes. They stopped being heroes and started being clients a long time ago, but J Toews was a (great) guy and I met him when he was still a superstar to me. That was definitely the most flustered I’ve been professionally.
Most of the guys are average famous dudes, no horror stories come to mind.
Got *smashed* with Kirk McLean couldn’t tell you too much about that night other than he loves beer and servers. That was the only time I’ve hung out with an NHLer outside of work.
Chris chelios. Said ” Hey, nice shirt” I was wearing a Wisconsin hockey shirt
Evan Rodrigues! He came into the Starbucks I work at and then saw him the following summer at the restaurant I bartend at. WICKED nice guy!
Not a hockey player (have never been lucky enough) but…
I met Nathan MacKinnon’s GF at my Apple Store. Her iPhone was having issues. I saw her wallpaper and it was her and Mack holding the cup. I was like “Ohh you’ve met MacKinnon? Cool! He’s the man!” She said “Yeah, he’s my boyfriend.” I felt dumb. She was cool, and very cute.
Not a player per say….but a lovely kind man, …Walter Gretzky
I met Patrice Bergeron, he was the nicest human being I have ever met with no exaggeration
Shane Doan.
Huge reputation in AZ for being a legitimately nice guy. My FIL is an electrician who did work at his house as a favor to the builder, knows absolutely nothing about hockey so Doan was just another dude to him, and he said Doan was the nicest guy he’s ever met. Wanted to hang out and chitchat with my FIL the whole time, remembered his grandkid’s names from the first time they chatted, offered to sign stuff for the grandkids since they liked the Yotes, etc. Just genuinely cared and treated him really respectfully and politely, despite my FIL being some random electrician in a multi-million dollar neighborhood.
Yotes did a little practice for the public during my kid’s Little Howlers (learn to skate) program session and Doan showed up unexpectedly and stuck around for the lines and lines of people on his own time. He was as nice as his reputation suggested, met my kid, took a minute to say hi and talk, I told him he knew my FIL for a laugh (he remembered his name when I said he was an electrician and he asked how he was doing), he signed my kid’s stick, and he didn’t leave until everyone got to see him. Just a genuinely nice guy.
On the other end, my FIL also met Mike Smith before he was traded from AZ. FIL was doing his new house in Paradise Valley. Said Smith was a dick. Super rude to everyone, seemed annoyed all the time, and when his daughters were doing a lemonade stand for fun, my FIL gave them a $5 or whatever to be nice and Smith told him to take it back because they needed to learn the value of money or whatever. Said he wasn’t cool about it at all, just snapped at him and seemed really pissed off. His wife was nice, apparently, but the feedback was that Smith was consistently a dick to everyone.
Sergei Federov – when I was like 10, I had a white pair of shoes on, which he signed for me, and said “I have never signed shoe before”. What a dude.
I once carried out Georges Laraque’s groceries and he tipped me 5 bucks and I honestly remember that more clearly than my wedding day or birth of my first child
The Great One.
I was four or five and was in the hospital. He came to visit the kids.
got to meet the whole pens team when i was in 2nd grade during a make a wish event!! marc andre fleury talked to me for like a half hour 🙂
I met Mario Lemieux and I didn’t know who he was at the time. I worked at a very upscale hotel he was staying at. He was checking out early to go to San Jose and I mentioned the Stanley cup was there if he was interested. He said he was and asked who I thought was going to win. I told him the Sharks were going to take it. I had some relevant talking points he entertained and the guy behind him was almost in tears holding back laughter. Mario was super composed and just told me “well we will see” and walk off. The guy behind him was his jet pilot and was also checking out. He asked me if I knew who that was and I told him I had no idea so he told me to just google him and damn I felt like a fucking moron. Doubly so since they won the cup that year.
Mario Lemuiex. And he winked at me. If you know anything that’s a very important wink.