Jaccob Slavin Interview (8-6-20)

Alright, let's go out to the Toronto Bubble. The Carolina Hurricanes are through the qualifying round after sweeping the New York Rangers, completing that sweep a couple nights ago. Jacob Slavin, now with us.

Standout defenseman for the Canes the last few years. Give me a sense, Jacob, since you're kind of locked down where you are in Toronto. How have you guys been spending the off time since completing the sweep? Is it true you told your now wife that you're going to marry her the first time that you texted with her? Did part of you think you might be going too big too soon? Canes defenseman Jacob Slavin with us from Toronto. You were on the road when your daughter was born last April. I read in the story that you were on a bus and Tom Dundon offered you his private plane. What do you remember about that night?

Yeah, so it was the day after game one last year against Washington and we were actually just getting ready to get onto the bus to go to practice that day. That would have been that Friday in Washington and I got a call from my wife saying, Jacob, she's being born. Get back to, you need to get back here, you need to get to the hospital, whatever. And so I talked to Roddy, I talked to, and then Tom happened to be there still and I was just like, hey, my daughter's being born. Is it okay if I go back and be there? And obviously Roddy's a big family guy, so he was more than happy to say, do what you got to do. And then Tom was saying, you know what, we're about to take off to head back to Dallas.

We can just drop you off on the way. And so that's, thankfully he was there and I was able to get back to where my daughter was born pretty quickly. Whenever I hear somebody become a father for the first time, I often hear about how their worldview changes. And I'm so, I'm grateful that you shared the story to The Athletic because for those who don't know, you and Kylie adopted and your daughter, Emerson is a black girl. And I'm interested just with everything that's happened this summer and really since last April, how your worldview has changed being a white man with a black daughter, but more importantly, just being a dad altogether, Jacob. Yeah, well, the dad part, I don't want to say that's the easy part in all this, but it's been extremely, I mean, just fun. I think that's the best word to describe it as fun. And my wife obviously makes it easy. She's a super mom, so she's been awesome and raising our daughter.

And Emerson herself is just, she has so much personality and she makes it fun. But then to the second part of that is, I mean, yeah, our worldview definitely changed. I mean, once you're living it, we knew racism still existed, but we just didn't understand how deeply rooted it was. But once you're living in that and you experience it firsthand, like you said, your worldview changes, your eyes are open to it way deeper than they were before. And you just realize that you have to be part of the change. And obviously we want a better future for our daughter when she grows up. And so, yeah, we're in it and we're living it and we're just trying to continue to learn. We don't know everything.

And so we just want to continue to learn and educate ourselves and just take it a day at a time. Let's talk hockey. How's Dougie Hamilton looking right now?

Because we're reading there's a chance, hey, when you guys get back, there's a chance he could be joining you. Yeah. I mean, I beat him in a game of Catan yesterday.

That was fun. But from the hockey standpoint, I know he's doing well. I mean, he's getting he's getting better every day. And this week's break is going to be awesome for him to continue to recover. And hopefully, hopefully he's back on the ice with us sometime the next year he starts.

So that's just what we can hope for. How does the dynamic of what this team is capable of doing changing? How does it change with Dougie on the ice? I mean, you just look at Dougie's game, you look at the season he had before his injury happened, and obviously he contributes a heck ton on the offensive side of the puck. But I think his and I's defensive game this year was really solid. And so you throw that into his offensive power and it's I mean, that's a complete game. And so he's effective all over the ice at that point.

And it just helps our team tremendously from all aspects. I want to close with this. Jacob Slavin with the Sierra Carolina Hurricanes defense man joining us from the bubble in Toronto. How has what you thought the bubble would look like going in met the actually reality of what it's been? A little different honestly. Going into it I thought we were just going to be in like a four block area and it was all blocked off and that was just our area.

Whatever business in there had to be shut down. But no, it's kind of like our hotel, the other hotel, the rink, the practice rink all scattered around, but that's what makes up the bubble. So it's a little interesting, but no, it's been fine. NHL has done a really good job of making sure we have stuff to stay entertained and food and transportation and everything that we need to get from bubble to bubble or mini bubble to mini bubble.

So no, it's been really solid and fun and yeah, just trying to stay sane. I've got to ask, who's the best at Catan on the Hurricanes? We've only, there's been probably maybe six or seven guys that have actually been brave enough to try to settle there. I've won a couple games, James Ramer has won a couple games and then Martin Nux, not too bad. So he's won a game or two. So we got a couple different winners, but we got a couple first timers who are learning the game and they've been pretty close as well.

So I'm sure there'll be a lot more Catan to be played. Jacob, stay safe up in Toronto. We look forward to watching you on the ice sometime soon and congratulations on the sweep of the Rangers. Yeah, thank you very much. Thanks for having me.