"Yoga?"
Wade Flaherty's reaction was straight out of Three's Company. Asked if he had ever considered yoga during his 17-year professional hockey career, the Manitoba Moose goaltender laughed and spit out the sip he just took, spraying water out in front of him.
No joke, Flats.
"I never seriously considered it, but I have thought about it," the Moose MVP said earlier this month. "To be honest, if I was younger and starting my career -- because I knew guys that did it, as far as the stretching ability and stuff like that -- I would probably (do it).
"I've always had, knock on wood, pretty good flexibility but I've had to work at it a lot to get it. I've kind of incorporated some of the stretches or positions into my routine," he admitted. "There are a couple of those in there, but I don't exactly know what they're called or what I'm doing."
But at least it's a start.
Let's try another veteran Moose player who's carved out a nice pro career.
"Actually we had a kids yoga thing where they try to get the kids into it," said Sven Butenschon, adding his wife does yoga and he has tried it. "I don't know if it's for me. I'm so stiff, I can't even get close to the starting points. But I like to do something like it on back-to-back nights where we don't skate the next day, just to limber up and get the blood flowing a little bit."
So yoga hasn't quite infiltrated the Moose dressing room. Not surprising, really, when you consider the hockey environment and the physicality of the sport, but if it's good enough for Mark Messier, then you'd think others would follow suit.
Yes, the most revered captain in the history of the game was a yogi. If memory serves, he put together a nice little career, too.
And if the Moose has done it, surely Butenschon has seen some players, AHL or NHL, getting their yoga groove on.
"Dave Scatchard does it," the big defenceman said, recalling his time with the New York Islanders when he played with the forward. "Scatchard and Messier are buddies, and Messier kind of took him under his wing in Vancouver. That's the connection, that's how he got started with it.
"He would do it before a game, like when some of us would warm up in the gym," Butenschon added.
Bringing us to the obvious question, perhaps the one reason why yoga has not made it completely into a pro hockey dressing room near you. Did teammates get on Scatchard for practising yoga?
"Big time. It was constant," Butenschon laughed. "We were all over him, but he didn't care."
