Florida Panthers kept keeper of Stanley Cup busy over the summer
SUNRISE - All right now, listen, we keep saying we're moving on. It's a new season for the Florida Panthers, but when you win your first Stanley Cup ever, you're always going to have a reason to talk about it. Especially the keeper the cup, Phil Pritchard, who was in town for the Panther's season opener.
Pritchard spoke to CBS Miami's Mike Cugno about some of the crazy summer memories he had with the Cats. He said where the cup goes he goes, and he had a busy summer.
"Mileage wise, holy crap. How do I how do I answer that? 100 days of fun, 100 days of smiles," said Pritchard.
Those smiles took him across the United States and overseas. Pritchard saw Lord Stanley go fishing in Sweden with Gustav Forsling and his son. That trip included a helicopter ride, but in terms of travel, jumping in a chopper for a few minutes was just scratching the surface.
"I think we were five countries, northern Latvia, north to south in Finland, west to east in Sweden, we did six provinces in Canada and nine states in the U.S. I think we had 76 commercial flights, five private flights, three trains, two helicopters, and we're late two hours once," said Pritchard.
Some of the journey included stops that would pull on your heartstrings, from making appearances at children's hospitals to visiting Aleksander Barkov and his family in his hometown in Finland.
"When we were in Finland, we've been there lots of times, but we were never at Barkov's house on the water before. So with Sasha being there, everything he did was related to his upbringing and that, and that's what makes each Stanley Cup day so unique," said Pritchard.
When asked which Panther did something they were not supposed to do, a certain quick dip came to mind.
"Matthew Tkachuk obviously, as we know, went in the Atlantic Ocean, so we kind of looked the other way on that one that one," said Pritchard.
That required a little bit of cleaning, but it's touched up at the end of each day.