The most interesting nuggets from John Scott’s retirement article in ‘The Players’ Tribune’

John Scott, hero of the 2016 NHL All-Star Game, retired this summer.

Aside from interviews directly after the All-Star event, we’ve gotten very little insight into the whole saga from the man himself. After his retirement from the NHL, it seemed like we may never get the full side of his story.

Until Tuesday, when Scott published a piece in The Players’ Tribune. In it, he opened up about the wild ride of his All-Star journey, interesting conversations with the NHL commissioner, his role in the game, and why he decided to step away. Oh, and pizza nights with his daughters.

It’s a terrific read that you should enjoy at some point today. But we pulled out five interesting nuggets of information that Scott sprinkled in there.

If we’re all being honest, the only (initial) reason John Scott took over NHL All-Star game voting was because he was really good at punching people. He finished with five career goals, after all. He had a role.

But that doesn’t mean he enjoyed it, as he explains in the Tribune:

The actual 30 seconds of fighting was fine. Your adrenaline takes over and the competition of battling at such a high level is actually enjoyable. The problem is all the anticipation of having to drop the gloves with another very skilled individual who can hurt you. The waiting is what drives you crazy. It’s not very easy on your psyche, especially once you have a family.

One of the best moments of the All-Star Game was when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had to give Scott a $1 million check for earning the All-Star Game MVP Award. If you were wondering what Bettman said to him, Scott has your answer:

I skated up to accept it, and Gary was smiling, and I was smiling, and then he goes, “So, are we still O.K.?”

It was almost like he was worried I was going to Hulk Hogan the check — just tear it straight down the middle and suplex him for the crowd.

I just kept grinning, thinking, Dude, you do realize that I would trade all of this away if I could go back to playing for the Coyotes and living in Arizona with my pregnant wife and kids, right?

The entire weekend felt like a dream, but that was by far the most surreal moment. All I could do was laugh.

This wasn’t the first time Bettman had asked him that. In the beginning of his Player’s Tribune piece, Scott details a conversation he had with Bettman over breakfast that went pretty much the same way. Hilarious.

Remember how odd the timing of that was? Scott was named All-Star captain one day and then traded to Montreal and stashed in the AHL days later. We thought it was a bit too much of a coincidence at the time, and apparently so did Scott.

He doesn’t come right out and say it in the Players’ Tribune piece, but he does call the trade “some pretty suspicious circumstances” and says “I was mysteriously traded from Arizona to Montreal and then immediately demoted to the St. John’s IceCaps in Newfoundland — literally the farthest point east in North America.”

HMMMM.

It’s also worth noting that his return to Newfoundland after the All-Star Game, away from his wife and daughters, was what made him retire.

But when I got back to St. John’s, all of that was gone. My daughters were halfway across the country. My poor wife probably wanted to kill me. One night, I was sitting all alone in a dark hotel room and my wife was too exhausted to put the girls on FaceTime, and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.

That’s when I knew.

Scott offers some pretty interesting details about conversations with coaches throughout his career about his role as an enforcer. Every year, he would meet with his coach and they would “dance around” what they wanted him to do every night. Plausible deniability!

This bothered Scott:

It would’ve been so refreshing to have a coach just be honest and say, “Listen, if anybody messes with our stars, I want you to go out there and beat the piss out of somebody. I don’t wanna have to tap you on the shoulder. I don’t wanna to have to say anything. I just want you to play hockey. Welcome to the team. Let’s have fun.”

Instead, everybody tap-dances around everything. Maybe that’s why enforcers have become almost like a parody. Maybe that’s why I was voted to the All-Star Game.

The NHL dropped some eligibility rules for this year’s fan vote that sound familiar: if players are stashed in the minors by a certain date, they’re ineligible.

John Scott is quite pleased with his legacy.

For all the bullshit and all the moving around, the fact is that I was being paid millions of dollars to play a game. I made unbelievable friends. I became a national news story. I apparently caused so much of a shitstorm simply by being me that I had an official NHL rule named after me.

That’s right, hockey fans. Thanks to me, you will never have another John Scott in the All-Star Game again. I gotta say, I wouldn’t have it any other way.