The Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks dropped the puck on the 2022-23 regular-season on Friday in Prague. A handful of other teams will get the regular-season underway starting Tuesday.
But the St. Louis Blues?
They don’t play until Saturday, Oct. 15 when they host the Columbus Blue Jackets in the season-opener at Enterprise Center.
With nearly a week between the preseason finale and the start of their regular season schedule, the club opted to take a four-day team-building trip to Charleston, South Carolina.
“We’ve got some new guys (on our team), and even if we didn’t, it’s good for guys to get away,” Blues Head Coach Craig Berube said. “Get some cohesiveness, some chemistry together, just bond a little bit. It makes you tighter – you have to be a tight hockey team to be successful in this league.”
While in Charleston, the Blues will practice Monday through Wednesday at the North Charleston Coliseum – the home of the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays. Practice sessions on Monday and Tuesday are open to the public from 10:30 until 11:30 am
Of course, the trip won’t be entirely for work. The players have organized a golf outing, made plans to go fishing, sorted out a team dinner and even carved out a daytime lunch to relax and watch some football.
“Our schedule is set up where we’re able to have (a good amount of) time together,” Brayden Schenn told stlouisblues.com. “If you look back to last year with some new faces coming in, you get more comfortable with each other with trips like this. In training camp, guys are all over the place and you don’t even get to skate (in the same session) with some of the guys. This is a chance to go out, have a beer with each other and get to know each other. That stuff goes a long way throughout the season.”
Charleston was considered one of the largest and wealthiest cities in colonial America and claims the first public college and museum in the country. The town was targeted frequently by pirates in the 1700s, and the first golf club in North America was established there in 1786.
Celebrities with ties to the town include actors Bill Murray – who is a part-owner of the town’s minor-league baseball team – and Danny McBride. Darius Rucker, now a country music star and the frontman for Hootie and the Blowfish, is a native of Charleston.
A few Blues have ties to Charleston, too. Torey Krug has a home there, and Nathan Walker played six games with the Stingrays in 2014-15.
The Blues visited the town once before during a team-building trip in 2013. In recent years, the team has taken similar trips to Ann Arbor, MI, Annapolis, MD and Vail, CO.
“Team trips like this, you have dinner with guys or different conversations or go fishing on a boat, you get to spend more time with your teammates,” Schenn said. “But at the same time, we’re going there to skate and get ready for the season and for puck drop on Opening Night. We’re going to have some fun and get to know our teammates but it’s a work trip, too, and we all know that.
“I’ve never been to Charleston,” Schenn added. “But [former Blue] Jaden Schwartz told me it’s one of the best places on earth, so I’m looking forward to checking out the town.”
From Charleston Image by David Pixabay
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