ST. LOUIS – Inside the hanger at Montreal Saint-Hubert Longueuil Airport late Wednesday night, mechanics went through a mental checklist of ways to thaw a frozen piece of equipment that was vital to starting a charter plane that was supposed to carry the Buffalo Sabres to St. Louis.
Space heaters were used to no avail. Batteries were burnt out during the troubleshooting. Nearby, two buses carrying the Sabres’ players, coaches and staff sat idle, awaiting word on when or if they could leave for the second stop on this three-game road trip.
“It was crazy,” recalled General Manager Kevyn Adams.
It wasn’t the first or last hiccup in the Sabres’ travel plans over the span of three days, but this delay occurred hours after a 4-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens in the Bell Centre. Multiple Sabres played through a stomach ailment that night – Victor Olofsson and Kyle Okposo were sidelined with the non-Covid illness – and no one was in a cheerful mood.
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The plane never started that night. The team bused 40 minutes to the airport, only to turn around over an hour later for another night in a hotel. Another problem the next morning sent them back on the bus for a longer journey. Nearly 24 hours after puck drop against the Canadiens, the Sabres arrived in icy St. Louis, where there was only time and energy for dinner before a long night of rest ahead of a game Friday.
It’s the latest unusual situation for the Sabres in a season filled with calamity. And when it finally ended, all they could do was laugh when recalling a travel itinerary unlike any they’ve experienced.
“Looking back on it, it’s kind of funny now,” Sabres winger Alex Tuch said with a chuckle. “Someone on the bus said, ‘It can’t get much worse than this,’ and little things kept adding on. Then we blamed those guys for speaking too soon. It makes you really appreciate how good you have it. You know what, our tough times don’t compare to what’s going on in the world today with a lot of people. You have to go in with as positive an attitude as possible and sometimes it’s not the easiest to do.”
The problems began before the Sabres reached Montreal. An issue with the pilot for their flight from Buffalo to Montreal resulted in a four-hour delay, as the team waited for a replacement to operate the aircraft.
The game went even worse. With multiple ill players in the lineup, the Sabres committed bad turnovers and succumbed to the Canadiens’ forecheck. Defenseman Henri Jokiharju suffered a lower-body injury in the second period, and Buffalo never mustered a comeback.
Then the “craziness,” as Tuch described it, began. The Sabres couldn’t fly to or out of Montreal-Trudeau International Airport, the city’s main hub, because the 7:42 p.m., puck drop would not allow them to leave before a noise ordinance went into effect. This forced the team to use Saint-Hubert, which typically only runs flights across the province of Quebec. The traveling party was informed minutes before arriving at the airport that there was a mechanical issue with the aircraft.
Since the airport doesn’t typically handle bigger planes, its only start cart big enough for the Sabres’ charter was completely frozen and there wasn’t another one to borrow from a commercial airline. The cart generates high-velocity air to start a plane when its auxiliary power unit isn’t working. There was no heat on the plane or any way to start the engine. Personnel at the airport insisted the error would be corrected within 15 minutes but the timeline was extended as thawing efforts failed.
“Waiting on the bus after the game, some guys were trying to get some sleep and relax,” said Tuch. “At least the bus wasn’t moving. That was a positive. Either play some cards or chit-chat about guys’ lives or families. You’re with each other all the time on the road, so it wasn’t that big of a difference.
“I felt really bad for Brandon Biro. His first road trip was a little bit of a weird one to say the least. We were all telling him this is what happens every time. Welcome to the NHL, this is how we do things here. It was good jokes, and it was a good learning experience.”
“It was a little different, but I guess it beats busing everywhere like the AHL,” added Biro, who made his NHL debut Wednesday night. “I’ll definitely never complain about it.”
Finally, when an hour had passed, the airport staff conceded defeat. The Sabres would have to return to their hotel in downtown Montreal, where staff there rushed to clean rooms, program key cards and organize a team meal for the following morning. A different plane was needed, but there were more details to sort out.
The Covid-19 testing results the Sabres gathered Tuesday had expired according to laws that govern cross-border charter flights, and the molecular testing results needed take 5-to-6 hours. Cole Burkhalter, the Sabres’ director of team operations, and Kyle Kiebzak, manager of hockey technology and team operations, came up with a backup plan.
With practice canceled Thursday in St. Louis, the Sabres boarded their buses for a 75-minute drive to Plattsburgh, N.Y., where a different plane would take them to their destination. In Plattsburgh, the airport only had one employee handling multiple duties and the conveyor belt broke twice. Some items had to be loaded by hand.
“In all my years, I don’t know if I’ve been in that situation where you’re sitting there on the tarmac, you’re on the bus, then you’re back in the hotel, you’re busing to a different airport,” said Adams.
The plane had different specifications than the one the Sabres typically use for charter flights. The seats were closer together – Tuch joked that a few of the taller players on the team had to adjust to the close quarters, himself included – but the engine started, and the team was off to St. Louis.
With 30 games remaining, the Sabres have dealt with a Covid-19 outbreak, a situation in which there was only one healthy game-ready goalie on the NHL roster and a batch of false positive Covid-19 tests in Phoenix. In the end, the team missed a practice that was likely going to get canceled because of the non-Covid illnesses and everyone was back on the ice Friday morning with a travel tale to tell.
“You get some experience out of it because it’s not always sunshine and rainbows when you have to travel for work and you’re in a place like Buffalo with the weather,” said Tuch. “You know what, I think it will help guys going forward to really understand that things might be going well, but you still have to come in and do your job.”
