Hockey Wives continues: Winnik and Prust prepare for season, Getzlafs show charitable side

The long, dark, cold nights are finally over, and the new season is finally here. That’s right —Hockey Wives is back with the second installment of season two. Isn’t it exciting?

As far as first episodes go this one is a bit slow. It’s a mid-season premiere so it doesn’t have to introduce the cast members, but at the same time, the audience needs to get reacquainted and it’s not the time for huge bombs. Last time we saw everyone, it was summer and the players and their families were enjoying their downtime. Now we’re approaching the end of the summer and players are readying for the start of the season — and that timing is what makes this episode interesting.

In present day, the NHL regular season is nearing its end. Teams have already surprised and disappointed. There are a few weeks remaining, but for the most part storylines have settled. But in this episode we travel back in time, just days before training camps, and are exposed to the optimism, excitement and uncertainly that accompany a new season.

Take Taylor and Daniel Winnik, who are packing their belongings, including two dogs, and prepping for their road trip from San Francisco to Toronto because Daniel has signed a two-year contract with the Leafs. Throughout the episode, Taylor is beaming because not only is she returning to a familiar team, but also it’s a multi-year contract, which ostensibly means future stability.

She even teases Joe Thornton, who makes a cameo during a Sharks workout Dan attends, that San Jose will lose when they visit Toronto. If that’s not sheer optimism, I don’t know what is.

“Two-year contract, finally,” Taylor says, confiding in her cousin. “It’s the first time since I’ve been with Dan that he’s had an extended contract for a period of time over a year. Thank God. Normally what happens is I go to a team and I have to meet all these new people have to re-establish friendships with people that I don’t really know that well which is really hard, surprisingly.”

This show has taught us that hockey wives can be catty, and it can’t be much fun having to form new connections year after year. It’s all very sweet to watch her glow talking about returning to friends in Toronto. But from our point of view, we know Daniel gets traded to Washington at the deadline. Like in a horror movie when you want to warn the teenage babysitter that the murderer is in the house (!), when Taylor is gushing about returning to Toronto, I just want to warn her – a trade is coming! Alas, I have to just sit back and watch.

Speaking of warning people of foreboding news, how about Carey and Angela Price? Before the goaltender’s season was derailed by injury, the Prices were white-water rafting, sharing the news of their pregnancy and looking ahead to another strong season with the Montreal Canadiens.

When asked whether the baby would be born in Canada, without hesitation Angela answers, “Yeah because we’re definitely going to make playoffs so we’ll definitely be in Montreal.”

Well…that doesn’t look like it will be the case, but on the bright side, now maybe Angela will be able to have her baby in the United States surrounded by her family like she’d prefer.

If watching Taylor and Angela showed us pre-season optimism, then watching MP was a front-row seat to pre-season anxiety.

We open with Maripier Morin (MP) shooting her brand new TV show in Montreal. Remember, hosting this show is why she can’t accompany her fiancé Brandon Prust to Vancouver, where he was traded during the off-season. Hosting a show solo, she says, is “the biggest opportunity in her career.” Plus she got a sweet trailer — who would want to leave that?

When Prust visits the set, he’s on brand as the boyfriend exhibiting the enthusiasm of a teenage boy shopping with his mother. While he approves of the trailer — who wouldn’t? — Prust doesn’t seem all that interested in watching his girlfriend work. Sitting in the control room, Prust asks if she could “wrap this up so he could watch the Jays game.”

Maybe that explains why MP says she’ll miss their dog, Lola, who’s moving in with his parents, more than her boyfriend.

“It sounds crazy to say that I’m going to miss my dog more than my boyfriend but she’s always there when Brandon goes on the road. I’m used to him leaving, but Lola is always there,” she says.

But during a surprise going-away party with friends, Prust finally begins to show some emotion over his departure from Montreal, his friends and, of course, his fiancée. MP makes the point that Prust is sad, he’s just “trying to hide it.”

Throughout the series, the producers routinely present Prust as a boyfriend who seems like he’d rather be somewhere else. In the first season, it was so we could watch in suspense over whether they would get engaged or not (they did). Now it’s likely so we can ruminate about whether these two can handle a long-distance relationship. For all we know, Prust is boyfriend of the year annually. The show mostly does a good job of sticking to documentary-style realism, but every now and then it creates a bit of drama – it is about entertainment after all. Judging from a teaser where MP says, “didn’t you see I’m not wearing my ring anymore?” it seems we’re again being set up for a will-they-won’t-they narrative.

The last storyline of this episode wasn’t concerned with hockey, but instead the charitable work of the Getzlafs. In the first five episodes, I didn’t get a good picture of who Paige Getzlaf was. She was Ryan’s wife; she raises three children; she’s a member of the mile-high club (you’d think that means we know her intimately, but it was only mentioned as an aside in episode 2). But I didn’t see much emotion or personality from her last half. That changed this episode.

We followed Ryan and Paige as they put on their charity golf event benefiting the organization CureDuchenne, which funds research for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The Getzlafs have been working with Hawken Miller, a 20-year-old who has Duchenne, and his family for years. Just speaking about the disease brings out a lot of emotion from Paige.

“You take things for granted. You just expect your kids to be able to run and to play. If my boys couldn’t play sports with Ryan it would be devastating. I can’t even imagine,” Paige says, fighting through tears.

Athletes put their name behind a cause routinely, but it’s pretty clear the Getzlafs aren’t backing this charity for PR reasons or good karma. They’ve genuinely formed a personal connection with the Miller family and want to use their celebrity for good.

If you want to read more about the friendship between Ryan Getzlaf and Hawken Miller, there’s a wonderful story written a few years ago by Sportsnet’s Dan Robson.

Three Stars of the episode:

Third star: Maripier’s new trailer

Second star: Ryan and Paige Getzlaf

First star: Hawken Miller

Best line of the episode: Angela Price’s family is discussing the sex of the baby and her mom says she wants a girl. One nephew asks, if it’s a girl, who will be the next great goalie after Carey? Angela responds even if it’s a boy, they don’t know if he’ll want to be a goalie. Then just as Angela says it herself, her younger nephew Ahmad pipes up to say, “You know, girls can be goalies too.”

Misplay of the episode: Daniel Winnik should maybe not cook. Winnik is shown preparing food in his wife’s family’s kitchen when someone suddenly shouts, “Dan, you got another thing on fire” as the camera shows a potholder inside the oven engulfed in flames.