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Fellas, how many pairs of shoes is too many pairs of shoes to bring into the NHL bubble?
A fascinating thing is happening in American (and Canadian) sports right now, where professional athletes are currently quarantined like Seinfeld’s bubble boy. The ultra-contained nature of the NBA and NHL league setups, in concert with social media feeds like @NBABubbleLife and @NHLHubsLife, have given sports fans a locker-room look at the lives of their favorite superstars. Suffice to say, what we’ve discovered is a hell of a lot more interesting than a game of trivial pursuit.
There’s been fishing and golf and wine and tennis and, of course, a dangerous amount of Tim Hortons, but perhaps the most interesting thing we’ve learned is that these guys have quirks, flaws, and outright fixations just like we do. Take, for instance, Colorado Avalanche forward André Burakovsky, who showed up in Edmonton packing 13—AS IN DAN MARINO’S NUMBER—pairs of shoes, much to the amusement of teammate Gabe Landeskog, who posted the entire baker’s dozen to social media on Wednesday. Behold the insanity.
We now pause for a brief musical interlude.
So to answer our initial question, how many pairs of shoes is too many pairs of shoes to bring into the NHL bubble? Let’s crunch the numbers. You’re going to want at least two pairs of sneaker for chilling—one in a solid color that goes with everything, and a slightly flashier pair for specific use cases. You’ll also want something to workout or run in, so let’s be generous and say four pairs of sneakers. Then you’re going to definitely want something dressier for the hotel steakhouse, press conferences, Stanley Cup victory parade etc. Finally, you’ll need something for just kicking down to the ice machine—a pair of slides or giant pink bunny slippers. That brings the total to number to six, with some flexibility if you want to swap in a pair of boots or something.
If we’ve done the math correctly, that’s LESS THAN HALF of what Burakovsky showed up with, and his entire collection is just different variations of all-white or all-black. It’s absolute madness. In his defense, however, the Avs have semi-real shot at this thing, and if you know you’re going to be spending the rest of your summer hanging around an Edmonton hotel, you gotta do what you gotta do to stay sane.