More John Scott

TigerBlog saw that Princeton alum Eric Robinson was the first star in the Columbus Blue Jackets' win over defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay over the weekend.

Robinson, who had a goal and assist in that win. is not that far removed from his days as a Princetonian. 

Robinson was the captain of the 2018 Tigers, the team that won the ECAC championship. Robinson had a 17-goal, 14-assist season that year and he finished his Princeton career with 39 goals and 28 assists. 

His NHL career is just starting to take off. 

John Scott's NHL career has already happened. Hopefully Robinson can stay in the league as long as Scott did, which was a total of eight years. 

If you remember Scott from last week, it was after TB listened to a podcast that featured Scott and the story of how he went from being an NHL enforcer to the MVP of the 2016 All-Star Game. You can read that story HERE, complete with the podcast.

By the way, even with its limited Princeton connection, that blog is the most-read entry of the month, by a fairly large margin. It's also the entry this month that generated the most feedback to TigerBlog, from Princeton fans who loved the podcast and were intrigued by the subject.

At the end of that story, TB mentioned that he found YouTube videos of several of Scott's fights with another Princeton alum, George Parros, during their NHL days. TB suggested he might try to track down Scott to see what his thoughts on Parros were a few years later and what his thoughts in general were about his hockey career.

And so that's what he did.

TB went through the athletic communications at Scott's alma mater, Michigan Tech, and he was able to get an email address. Scott responded quickly to the email, and he and TB had a nice 20-minute Zoom talk the other day.

These days, Scott lives in Traverse City, Michigan, which is about four hours northwest of Detroit. When TB spoke with him, Traverse City had just gotten a foot of snow, something Scott described as "nothing big."

Scott, on the other hand, is something big, checking in at 6-8 and 260 pounds. Add that to the skates, and he was a giant on the ice.

TB had no idea what to expect from Scott when he connected to the Zoom. Yes, he wouldn't have agreed to speak with TB unless he felt comfortable speaking, but all TB really knew about him was that he came across as a good guy on the podcast.

That was something that was confirmed immediately when he first started to speak. He has a huge smile and a deep voice that still has a Canadian accent, from his childhood in Edmonton (where presumably he learned to think a foot of snow is "nothing big").

He laughed a lot, and he's clearly funny. He was happy to talk about any subject. For instance, on Parros:

"When George and I fought, it was a job. Off the ice, we're friends. I've spoken to him many times, and he's a really good guy. Besides, he can actually string sentences together, which is rare for a hockey player. He and I just happened to have the same job, that's all. It was never personal, just a job."

And about that job? 

"I'm not naive to the fact that everyone wants to be a goal scorer. I had to swallow my pride and say that I didn't have the skillset to do that in the NHL. I had to figure out how to get there. I viewed fighting as another tool to get me to my goal of being in the NHL. It's not something I took lightly. I trained. I trained my tail off. I scouted the guys I'd have to fight. I watched a lot of George Parros video. I mean, I did have some sleepless nights about having to fight some very tough guys, but there's no better feeling than planting a guy you don't like on his keester with a solid right hand. It's very primal."

TB asked him about the podcast and about the way he ended up in the All-Star Game, let alone as its MVP. He had no hard feelings to anyone who doubted him or caused him any problems, and he laughed pretty much on a sentence-by-sentence basis. 

These days he lives in Traverse City with his wife and six daughters. Yes. Six daughters. He could make a women's hockey team out of them alone.

But coaching isn't what he's interested in now. 

He's actually a mechanical engineer. He also has a hockey podcast called, somewhat aptly, "Drop The Gloves."

The entire time they spoke, Scott was wearing a sweatshirt that said "Hockey" on it. Not "Michigan Tech Hockey," and not something from one of the seven NHL teams for which he played.

It just said "Hockey."

When TB first saw it, he thought immediately of John Blutarsky, the John Belushi character in "Animal House," the one who at one point is wearing a shirt that just says "College." This was in the very beginning of the conversation, when TB thought that Scott might be a Blutarsky-type, a clownish caricature - albeit the greatest clownish caricature ever created.

What TB came to realize over the course of their conversation is that Scott is hardly a clownish caricature. He's funny and he clearly has a huge personality. And he clearly has a big heart.

But he's also very, very thoughtful and very, very deep. It didn't take 20 minutes to figure that out.

So yes, again, there's very little Princeton connection here. But that's okay for one day this week.

What's there is, though, is John Scott, a genuine, nice, friendly, warm man who is so much more than just a guy who used to fight other big guys in NHL games. 

TB is really glad he had a chance to speak with him.