Life Update

Playoffs

I don’t really know how to put those two months into words — it was a wild ride! The worst, best experience of my life.

The highs were so high, the lows were soooo low and everything in-between was off the charts, just stress and anxiety. This may sound weird from the outside looking in, but I never really gave much thought to how stressful playoffs can get the further you go. Looking back, I don’t know why I let myself get so worked up during that time, but I was not the only one. It seemed like most of the other wives were right there with me. By the time we got to finals, my anxiety felt debilitating. Sitting down at my computer on a game day was a joke. I would sit there for hours getting nothing done, not being able to eat and just constantly feeling like there was an elephant sitting on my chest. BUT OH MAN, did the wins (especially OT wins) make it all feel worth it! I have never had more fun celebrating a game win in my life than during game six, when we beat Las Vegas. That goes down as one of my favorite hockey memories of all time.

I think being in the playoffs during such a crazy and uncertain time made the experience that much more stressful. We were living in a “hockey bubble”, which pretty much consisted of us not being able to do anything — we were not even allowed to see others who were in the same bubble. Being a Canadian team and in Quebec we had the most restrictions out of all the NHL teams, but even as restrictions in Quebec lifted we were still expected to follow the rules set by the NHL and the team. It was frustrating when people would get up in arms about the hockey team getting special treatment (being allowed to play, crossing the border, etc.) but I don’t think people realized how much harsher the restrictions were for the guys and their families. Even when traveling to the USA, they were not allowed to do anything, see anybody, heck they were not even suppose to go outside! The guys were being tested daily and it even got to a point where they were tested twice a day. The families were tested 2-3 times a week, thankfully not as often as the guys. Even when we were doing everything we were supposed to be doing, the families constantly felt like they had the weight of the organization on their shoulders. We were being reminded that we wouldn’t want to be the reason the Habs would have to forfeit during the playoffs. That thought made us nervous to leave our homes — which I think was the point. And then of course there was the border issue — the families in Montreal were not able to get any other family members into Canada to help during such a stressful time and even some of the player’s families who had stayed behind in the US during the regular season weren’t able to come back quite yet. It was all just so crazy and I found it almost laughable hearing other teams talk about the “challenging year”. It felt like the only other team that could fairly say that was Vancouver. However, with all that said I would do it over and over and over again!

Expansion Draft

Holy S%@#, that was a crazy few days.

Coming right off of playoffs, we began to wrap our minds around Carey’s injury and the need for surgery, so the decision was made to leave Carey unprotected during the expansion draft. Really, there was no other option. With the unknown result of Carey’s surgery and recovery time we couldn’t risk losing Jake — the back up goalie, who Seattle would have taken, for sure. I was not stressed about it at all — because of Carey’s contract, his age and his injury Seattle wouldn’t even give him a second glance . . . or so we thought. Obviously, we knew there was a risk and if we HAD to go to another team Seattle is close to home, so it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. But like I said, we weren’t even considering that at the time.

I really hated that the decision to lift his no trade was announced before the details on his injury were. His injury was the entire reason we had lifted his no trade and he was left unprotected. It hurt my heart to read that people thought we wanted out of Montreal. I was so thankful when it came out the next day that Carey was going to need surgery, but at the same time Carey’s agent was calling to say that Seattle didn’t seem too concerned about his injury and him being picked up could really happen. So naturally, I spent the next couple of days living on Twitter, reading every little thing and over thinking it all. It definitely got to a point where I thought we were for sure headed to Seattle, so I let myself start mentally preparing for it and even talking about it. Just in case it did happen. Of course, there were benefits to being only a 3 hour drive from home — I could be there for every single holiday and my parents could come up on the weekends. I have a lot of friends and family in Seattle, so that could be fun! And being state side during all of this COVID stuff, yes, yes, yes that would make my life soooo much easier. I was hyping it up in my head to a point where I began to think ‘heck, why wouldn’t we want to go to Seattle?’.

It was the evening before the draft and we were scheduled to fly to New York the next day. Carey’s agent called to tell Carey to keep his phone on him tomorrow morning. If Seattle does take him, we will change our trip and head to Seattle, scheduling the surgery in New York for a later date. And that is when it hit me. I looked at Carey in shock and said you can’t go to the draft party and put on a Kraken jersey, parading around in front of everyone! How disrespectful to all the Habs fans and that franchise! We continued to discuss how, at the end of the day, it is a business and players get traded away all the time. I understood that, but it still didn’t feel right. I couldn’t wrap my mind around Carey doing that. It was then that I realized although playing in Seattle would make our lives so much easier, our heart, my heart is with the Canadiens organization.

Now that we’re at the end of it all, I can say it was quite the mindf***. With your world dependent on what seemed like a game of chicken was bizarre and something I hope to never experience again. I really feel for those families who experience it once or multiple times throughout their guys’ career

New York - Carey’s Surgery

We headed to NY for Carey to have knee surgery. We had a good idea during the hockey season that it was needed, but put it off as long as possible.

Once the hockey season ended, we decided this was the time. While we were still in Montreal, the doctors were hopeful that they could just go in with a scope and do the repairs on his injury and clean it up, but we were also told to prepare for a more extensive surgery where the recovery time would be much longer. We would have liked to put the surgery off longer to be able enjoy a little down time, but with the uncertainty of the outcome, everyone wanted Carey to get the surgery done ASAP to get a good idea of recovery time. I knew we wouldn’t be able to travel and get the three kids out west with Carey on crutches, so we pushed the surgery off a few days and flew out to Kelowna. We were able to check on our home renovation there and then traveled down to the states to drop off the kids with family. That meant I could go to New York with Carey and help him after his surgery. Carey’s surgery went exactly how we had hoped and it looks like he has just a couple months of rehab ahead of him and then we hope his knee will be as good as new!

I had a few people ask for NY trip details and while we really didn’t do much, I’m happy to share! We stayed at The Mark Hotel. It was beautiful and the location was great, right next to Central Park! This was perfect for Carey, he was able to get out of the hotel, crutch over to a park bench and do a little people watching. I did zero research into restaurants before going, so we pretty much just hit up the most well-known names. Our favorite meals were from Nobu and Catch. We went to the Nobu on 57th and it was probably the most casual or least impressive Nobu I have been to, but the food was amazing as always. I would definitely try the Nobu downtown next time, though. Catch I loved because it is in the Meat Packing District which is my favorite area of Manhattan. I would definitely recommend spending an evening in that area and eating at Catch. The food was perfection. Other than that it was doctors appointments, physical therapy appointments, ordering Uber Eats and watching Netflix in the hotel room.

Summer

What is left of our summer will be spent in Tri-cities.

Carey found a good place for physical therapy there and we will be able to enjoy some down time with friends and family. We did get an airstream, but now that Carey is recovering I am not sure if we will get to take it out at all. We will, however, enjoy it in the driveway, haha! Liv starts kindergarten in the fall, so we really only have a couple of weeks before we head back to Montreal.

Vestibular Migraines

Oh man, my health took a major hit these last couple of months.

My vestibular migraines are just as bad as they have ever been. I’ve been playing phone tag with the doctor, so I still haven’t even gotten my test results back from the balance test I took months ago! The stress and lack of sleep (those 8pm games were killing me) during the playoffs really set me back and it’s just something I have not been able to get ahold of ever since. It’s super frustrating, but I hope to take the time needed to really focus on my health from here on out.

If you’ve read this far, thank you for being here. While I tried to enjoy every single moment during the playoffs, I am happy to have the time now to take a few breaths and get back to somewhat of a normal schedule. I’m sure with all of the adventures coming up with Liv going to school, the Habs starting another season and our renovation well underway, there will be so much to share! I hope you are all having a really fun summer and I’ll share some more of what we’re getting up to very soon!

Much Love,