St. Louis Blues: Video Game Culture Might Be Team’s Saving Grace

Like all NHL teams in the playoffs, the St. Louis Blues are hoping to keep everyone in the bubble and safe. Their penchant for video games will help.

As we near the time for the St. Louis Blues to move to Edmonton for what we hope will be a month or two, they are hoping to get all their positive tests out of the way now and go into the bubble with a clean bill of health. The Blues and all the NHL teams participating in this tournament will have to hope their players are focused on hockey alone.

Hockey players are a little different than other sports in that they do tend to keep their focus on the game. That is not to say they don’t like to have a good time – far from it.

The Blues epic party that lasted for days after winning the Stanley Cup was a testament to their ability to have a good time and also the iron will of their livers. Even so, today’s players are not quite the same as yesteryear’s.

In the old days – think of that as whatever era you want – the bubble would almost certainly fail. Guys like Brett Hull, Chris Chelios and many more would almost certainly have broken quarantine.

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That is not to say they were foolish or careless people, but during their playing days, they would have likely felt that invincibility of youth. Couple that with their legendary drinking habits and you have a recipe for disaster as far as keeping a sealed atmosphere in a scenario such as the 2020 playoffs will be held under.

The 2019-20 Blues have a little something on their side that is going to help them stay put when not at the rink. They have a well documented video game culture.

The Blues have a wide variety of ages, so it is not as though they are made up of a bunch of kids that don’t go out. You have guys at 30 or over and you have guys that are a varied amount of 20’s.

Yet, the Blues are in a good situation no matter what. The guys that are in their 30’s basically all have families. Fathers can party too, but they are not going to actively seek out a situation that might endanger their family.

The guys that don’t have wives or kids, and even some that do, are big into video games. While the old-school players lament that kind of thing, it is actually perfect for this situation.

It is kind of funny the huge pushback the game of Fortnite received in professional sports because teams felt players were spending too much time playing. The tables have turned as teams are likely going to actively promote players bring their video game systems.

The only drawback will be trying to all connect to traditionally unreliable hotel Wi-Fi. Nevertheless, it’s going to be very helpful to keep guys in their rooms and under wraps.

The Blues are pretty good at video games too. At the height of the quarantine in North America, the Blues won or placed in some video game tournaments held by the NHL and celebrity groups.

Robert Thomas, Vince Dunn and Jordan Kyrou were the winners of one tournament. Dunn and Kyrou did well in another.

Those guys, despite their youth, can be leaders in this new landscape. Show the older guys some of the ropes and get them into it a little.

First-person shooters aren’t for everyone, so maybe they’ll need to bring a variety of games. Maybe play some NHL 20 too.

Whatever keeps these guys in their hotels and allows the playoffs to go through smoothly is all thumbs up.