"They're playing ping-pong with their shirts off, whacking each other with balls, having welts on them," Warsofsky recalled. "That was kind of my first moment where I'm like, 'Oh my God, these kids are 18 and 19 years old.' But then you talk to them about hockey -- and you talk to Mack and Will. They're very mature kids for where they are at and being in the National Hockey League."
"And so when you see those things like the ping-pong balls, as funny as it is, how do you handle that as a coach? Because on one hand, you want players to be who they are. But on the other, you're also going, 'I'm sorry, what?'"
"That's what makes them so damn endearing to everyone in the Sharks' organization because of what it represents: Belief."
"Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin. Those are all duos that won the Stanley Cup."
The San Jose Sharks' practice facility features a ping-pong table that players, coaches and staff frequently use. Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith have shown youthful antics off the ice while demonstrating maturity when discussing hockey. Coach Ryan Warsofsky noted the contrast between their playful behavior and their hockey understanding. Celebrini is 19 and Smith is 20, and both carry significant promise as cornerstone players. Historic NHL duos that won the Stanley Cup are cited as models. The presence of Celebrini and Smith has generated belief that the organization's rebuild could follow a similar trajectory.
Read at ESPN.com
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