EPIX Road To The NHL Stadium Series Ep. 1: Work and play (Review)

In our preview for the EPIX “Road to the NHL Stadium Series” we brought up California a lot. It was the most exciting part of this upcoming television show between the Sharks and the Kings in advance of their Feb. 21 game at Levi's Stadium.

Southern California has glorious beaches and palm trees. Northern California has Redwood trees and some of the world's best wines. Alas, beyond a few glamor shots of SoCal and NorCal at the beginning, we didn’t see much.

But this brought us back to what this show is about and generally what fans want to see – hockey and a behind the scenes look at NHL teams.

They want to see what coaches have to say to the players in the dressing room. They want to see how players interact with one another on the ice. They want to see a player stitched up when he gets hurt  -- even if we feel like we’ve seen this a bazillion times on the EPIX or HBO 24/7 series. Hello there Matt Nieto.

Granted we got some Cali flavor – but it was a difficult show to do this. EPIX started filming right before the All-Star break when players left for a few days and then returned home shortly after and just a few days before the series premiered on Feb. 3.

But we got to see what we wanted to some degree – Darryl Sutter being Darryl Sutter, and a bonus shot of Joe Thornton going on a fishing grip to Cabo San Lucas with some incredibly random people. But there were some glaring omissions – such as the Mike Richards waivers drama with the Kings. 

All shall be addressed in this review of the first episode.

COORS LIGHT COLD HARD FACT

The Los Angeles Kings team plane had to have been imported from Graceland. Just look at that paintjob. Most teams use corporate charter services. This looks so original.

THIS WEEK ON TRttNHLSC

We open up the series with John Scott getting limber to play a game. And then he starts doing the whole ‘good guy in the room, doesn’t do anything on ice’ thing by being self-deprecating.

“I’m only going to play four minutes, I have to be ready” he said.

John Scott, you are so funny. Haha.

About seven minutes in we get our first f-bomb. And of course it’s Sutter, who is actually quite intelligible when talking to players. Some hockey players probably need simplicity when the coach explains stuff to them. This appears to be Sutter. Makes me think that his chatter with the media and bizarre quotes are all a ruse. I got his message.

It was smart of EPIX to start when the Kings played the Sharks. This is actually a rivalry, and five minutes in we hear of San Jose’s up 3-0 collapse to the Kings in last year’s playoffs. You knew it was going to happen.

And after a San Jose 4-2 victory … we’re off to the All-Star Game with Brent Burns. This produces awesome EPIX moment number one – of Burns in his giant Mercedes van. It looks like a moving van. What does he have in it? Seriously.  And it’s a Mercedes! Young Canadians with money … zing!

Burns is a funny character in general, but EPIX does a good job of humanizing him at the All-Star Game, showing his family and talking to his wife Susan, who pulled out a great quote while they’re all at the Columbus Zoo during ASG weekend.

“Brent would love to have a zoo,” she says. Refuting Brent’s “I would love to have a big gorilla or a lion.” Not gonna happen dude.

Also, Burns calls his daughter, “A little pile of mashed potatoes.” What this means, I do not know.

The All-Star Game provided some fun Kings fodder. Sutter’s son Chris, who has Down syndrome talked smack to Chicago’s Patrick Kane and Duncan Keith. That. Was. Awesome.

The opening draw of the All-Star Game saw Kings center Anze Kopitar and Bruins center Patrice Bergeron plan who would win the face off. Did Vegas have odds on this? I hope not.

Also during the All-Star break we see Thornton in Cabo San Lucas, going fishing with some buddies. This includes Sharks TV play-by-play man Randy Hahn and former San Jose PR guy and current Stars PR head Tom Holy. This feels like a hockey version of “Entourage” but it’s nice to know Joe takes care of his buddies around the team and not just the guys who are on it.

After this is where we have our first whiff of this season. EPIX does not show the Kings waiving of Mike Richards. Apparently travel problems snared this per the Orange County Register’s Rich Hammond. Still, it would have been nice to have gotten some reaction from players right after the break. Maybe famous Richards ‘bro’ Jeff Carter? Chat with Kings general manager Dean Lombardi while showing some stock footage of Richards before the break?

This was a really big deal and there was no mention of it at all.

About midway in, there’s the first reference to the Sharks captaincy issues – where San Jose stripped Thornton of his ‘C’ last summer and gave out a bunch of ‘As’ to the group.

McLellan calls the Sharks an “Organization in transition somewhat.”

Defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic sounds like a company guy when he says, “The captaincy didn’t affect the room at all,” and then saying it was done to take some pressure off Thornton.

Something doesn’t smell right here, but then again what’s he going to say instead?

Then you see both teams come out of the All-Star break. The Kings beat the Blackhawks in a comeback. The Sharks beat the Ducks. Joe Pavelski has a putting green in his backyard, wears a t-shirt and shorts outside in January (CALIFORNIA LIVING FINALLY) … and then it’s back to hockey as we watch Pavelski drive his Audi to that night’s game.

F-BOMB COUNT

For this series at least, this segment shall be discontinued thanks to Darryl Sutter's incredible amount of cursing. Too many f-bombs to count from him.

JOHN SCOTT 'GOOD GUY' MOMENT

Talking to players about their All-Star Game vacation plans. He's totally worth employing folks because he's a good guy in the room and creates momentum by beating up everyone on the ice!

IMAGES OF THE WEEK

1. Darryl Sutter’s white board. What in the world is going on there?

2. Joe Thornton staring pensively off into the distance on his fishing boat like a "The Bachelor" contestant.

He also looked like Mr. Freeze in another spot. (s/t Royal Half for alerting me to this). And he's wearing a Roger Federer hat too. Amazing athlete moment.

3. Chris Sutter meeting Maria Shriver

It was a heartwarming and nice to see.

BIZARRE-O HOCKEY QUOTE

“You have to make sure the squirrels are going as fast as the body” – Todd McLellan

MISSING IN ACTION

Dean Lombardi, Doug Wilson, SoCal freeway traffic.

THREE STARS

1. Brent Burns, San Jose Sharks.  Could have easily been mocked for being Burns, but won us over by being the ultimate family man.

2. Chris Sutter. For chirping the Blackhawks

3. Darryl Sutter, Los Angeles Kings. He lived up to the hype

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Josh Cooper is an editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @joshuacooper

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