Heritage Classic Blog: Jacob Bryson

Buffalo Sabers defenseman Jacob Brison blogs throughout the 2022 Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic. The Sabers take on the Toronto Maple Leafs at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton, Ont., on Sunday (4 p.m. ET; TNT, SN, TVAS, NHL LIVE).

In his first entry, Bryson, who was born in London, Ontario, talks about the excitement of the weekend, playing outside and sharing the experience with his family.

I’m excited. Especially playing against Toronto and being in Canada. I’m also going to have family there, which is going to be fun. All the guys are excited. It is finally here. We’ve all been waiting for it and it’s been on our calendar for a while.

We played in Toronto last week so I think it should be a good game. They’re obviously going to come out strong after we beat them in the last game, and they beat us at the start of the season. We’ve been playing some good hockey recently. I think they will seek revenge and we will come out strong, but if we stick to our game we should be successful. I think it’s huge that we got a big win on Thursday against Vegas. We have a lot of momentum in this game. We have seen how we can play and how good a team we can be.

There is a lot of excitement in our room for this weekend. You can dress up a bit, like you’ve seen teams do in the past. It’s always fun. It’s a whole other experience, playing outside, and the weather should hopefully be good. This is another thing. I think training will be fun just to get on the ice. It will be cold, but it will be a lot of fun.

I can’t wait to take it all in, to enjoy the experience. We have a family skateboard. It’s always fun. My family is thrilled to come out and play on the ice with lots of other players. I think it will be a cool experience for them and everyone else, having your kids on the ice skating. And just the game itself, it’s an NHL game, it counts in the standings, so it’s not different but at the same time it’s a fun experience for everyone. This is a great opportunity for our team to play well and do well. It’s going to be on TV, obviously, and a lot of fans will be there so hopefully we can have a good game.

I played Frozen Fenway in 2017 when I was at Providence College. It was fun. The ice cream wasn’t that good when we played, but it was a good experience. Being in a baseball diamond was a little different. I feel like it was hard to watch for a lot of fans. I’ve never been to a Canadian Football League stadium before, so I’m not sure what it’s going to be like, but I think it’s going to be a much better venue and experience.

I had a skating rink in my backyard growing up. My dad always did a great job riding it. My cousin, Mitch Vande Sompel, who plays for the Bridgeport Islanders, we would always go against each other, one on one. And then I also have a little brother, so we always spent hours every night there after school. It was fun to have, and it’s going to bring back a lot of skating memories outside.

Comments are closed.