Nick Ritchie was working against a clock he didn’t know existed.<\/p>\n
The Ducks sent Ritchie to the Bruins on Feb. 24.\u00a0A large part of trades is the logistics of sending a player from one location to one usually very different. Ritchie’s was extreme, going from one coast to another.<\/p>\n
No one knew this then, but the transaction came just weeks before the world would go into a pandemic due to COVID-19 and the NHL would put its season on pause.<\/p>\n
“Luckily I had a lot of that figured out and scheduled to be shipped and moved before this all started,” Ritchie said in a Zoom video conference Wednesday afternoon. “It finished just as it started. I was lucky enough I didn’t have too much stuff. I just rented a condo down there so it wasn’t too hard so far as I didn’t have a whole lot of stuff. Just to ship my car over and things like that so it wasn’t too bad.”<\/p>\n
See? Just in the nick of time.<\/p>\n
That’s only been one instance of why there’s a high chance Ritchie’s calendar year of 2020 may be even more of a whirlwind than yours and that’s saying something.<\/p>\n
Less than five months in, Ritchie’s year has been all over the map, starting in Anaheim, getting dealt to Boston and now staying at his parent’s place in Ontario with brother Brett due to the COVID-19 stoppage. Instead of hockey these days, Ritchie is helping out on the family farm and handling the horses.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, it has been strange,” Ritchie said. “I started in Anaheim, was there for awhile, season was rolling along fine, everything was good. Get traded, wasn’t expecting it, didn’t know that was happening. There was a new thing that got me really excited — got me to go to the first place team. We’re kind of just starting to get going and get close to the playoffs. There’s only a month of the season left and this hit and that’s been it.<\/p>\n
“Now I’m back at home and I never would’ve thought I would’ve been out in Anaheim at Christmas time and then back at home during this time and not playing any hockey. It has been really weird but I guess that’s life and hopefully we can get back playing soon.”<\/p>\n
Because of the stoppage, Ritchie’s time in Boston lasted less than three weeks and only seven games, which wasn’t much time to establish any real chemistry with Bruins teammates.<\/p>\n
He still was in the dressing room long enough to meet everyone, talk to everyone and get a briefing on the systems.<\/p>\n
“Obviously it’s been tough where we haven’t seen the team or obviously practice or anything,” Ritchie said. “I was there for such a little time that I didn’t get to know everybody like everyone else knew everybody with me being one of the few new guys. That kind of sucked that the pause happened.”<\/p>\n
At Zdeno Chara’s virtual town hall with season ticket holders Tuesday, he explained the team’s held a Zoom call every week for the past three weeks to catch up.<\/p>\n