Ryan Reaves speaks out in debut of ‘Quest for the Stanley Cup’
The opening frames of “Quest for the Stanley Cup” reinforce the fact that this is an NHL postseason like no other.
From the uncertainty of the restart to the behind-the-scenes looks at life inside the bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto — the amenities as well as the daily nasal swabs — the ESPN+ docuseries offers insider access to the players and coaches.
The early upsets. Footage, some of it profanity-laced, from the locker rooms. A rare glimpse of Marc-Andre Fleury in the net.
But the episode debuting Wednesday — new installments arrive each Wednesday at 3 p.m. through Oct. 6 and remain online — takes time to focus on the truly remarkable.
Call it the pause after the pause.
“We were at dinner,” Ryan Reaves recalls, “and Brayden McNabb just said, ‘Do you think we’re gonna play tomorrow?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, why wouldn’t we?’ ”
It was Aug. 26, shortly after the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks jump-started a two-day work stoppage to draw attention to the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“And then I got back to the room,” the Golden Knights forward continues, “and I was like, ‘Yeah. Are we gonna actually play tomorrow? Are we really not going to support what’s going on here? There’s a problem in the States. Are we not going to support all the other athletes in the other leagues that are taking stands?’ ”
His head was spinning, Reaves says. Then he received a text message from Tampa Bay defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk. When Reaves called him, Shattenkirk was with representatives of the remaining Eastern Conference teams. They asked Reaves, who is biracial, what he thought they should do.
The rest — and the postponement of two days’ worth of playoff hockey — is history.
“I get a lot of people saying, you know, ‘Stop bringing politics into sports,’ ” Reaves admits during the lengthy segment, in which he’s shown during practice being praised for his stance by teammate Oscar Dansk. “To that, I say, ‘This isn’t a politics thing. This is a human rights thing.’ It’s an equality issue. Nobody should be scared to walk outside their house. Nobody should feel like the color of their skin leaves them behind in society. Every week, every month, it just seems to be a new hashtag, a new Black life that’s taken.”
Summing up his feelings on the issue, Reaves says, “We’re not politicians, but we have a platform. I think we’re using our platform to better the world.”
Contact Christopher Lawrence at clawrence@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4567. Follow @life_onthecouch on Twitter.