Bieksa says ex-Canucks teammate once missed a meeting for a hunting trip

Former Vancouver Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa had an interesting story to share on last night’s edition of Hockey Night in Canada when it came to, err, punctuality.

On Friday, Montreal Canadiens forward Jonathan Drouin was two minutes late for a team meeting, with team head coach Martin St. Louis sitting the forward as a healthy scratch on Saturday as a consequence.

Discussing the incident on Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada panel, Bieksa recounted an incident with former Vancouver teammate David Booth where the latter was missing a Canucks meeting for er, an interesting resason.

“One meeting that we had in Buffalo, [Booth] wasn’t there. So we’re calling him, and we were like ‘Boother, we’re having a meeting now, where are you?'” Bieksa told the rest of the panel.

Kevin Bieksa (@kbieksa3) tells a story about his former teammate David Booth (@D_Booth7) on the Hockey Night in Canada panel. 😅 pic.twitter.com/hWcIT9hfdP

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 19, 2023

“He goes, ‘I’m in Ohio, hunting white tail deer’,” Bieksa recounted. “He was in Ohio, he was a state over, and he was in a tree, hunting deer. Just a bizarre guy. Punctuality was not his priority.”

It looked like the game in question was October 17, 2013, the only time both Booth and Bieksa played for the Canucks in Buffalo together.

Booth played 12:41, while Bieksa led the team with 23:48 of ice time that game. The Canucks won 3-0 over the Sabres.

One geographical correction for Bieksa: Ohio isn’t actually a state over from Buffalo: it’s two, while also having to pass through Pennsylvania to make it there.

And it was quite the trip for Booth, too. The closet town in Ohio to Buffalo: Conneaut, (population approximately 12,000), is about a two-hour drive from the KeyBank Center, the current name of Buffalo’s NHL arena, though it would’ve been the First Niagara Center when the story took place.

Bieksa clarified that it was not a practice or morning skate, but rather a meeting called at the hotel where Vancouver was staying before their game.

To his defense it was a team meeting called at the hotel, at night 🤷🏻‍♂️ 🦌 😳 https://t.co/YAFbJmz8RL

— Kevin Bieksa (@kbieksa3) March 19, 2023

Booth had 26 goals and 25 assists in 134 games for the Canucks in his career, spread across three seasons from 2011 to 2014, while Kevin Bieksa had 56 goals and 185 assists in 597 games for the Canucks in his career from 2005-2015.

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