Like many young boys and girls, Taylor Hoeg probably grew up dreaming of skating in an NHL arena.
The dream is reality for the 24-year-old Southampton, N.S. native, who is in her second season with the Edmonton Oilers’ Orange & Blue Ice Crew, a co-ed interactive group that represents the team at games, events, and appearances throughout the community.
Along with Dallas Stars’ head coach Rick Bowness, Hoeg is the other Nova Scotian working at ice level during the Stanley Cup finals that are the culmination of what has been a very unique year for the NHL.
“It has been different, not anything that anyone could have expected when the season started last fall. Working inside the bubble in Edmonton is a completely different atmosphere than what we’re used to,” said Hoeg, who moved to Alberta with her family nearly a decade ago.
While they were more like cheerleaders before, handing out promotional materials and showing fans to their seats, Hoeg said members of the crew have become like regular workers, trading their outfits for tracksuits, gloves, and masks.
Old uniforms and new uniforms:
“We’re doing things like sanitizing the nets every period and lifting out the water bottle holders for the goalies,” she said. “It’s really different.”
Working the Stanley Cup playoffs in Edmonton has not been like any other playoff.
During the exhibition set, prior to the preliminary round of the playoffs, there was no fan noise pumped into the arena. Thankfully that changed for the playoffs.
“It was so eerie before without the fan noise,” she said. “It was too quiet. Here you had players worth millions of dollars on the ice and there’s not a fan in the building and there’s no fan noise. It was weird.”
She compares working inside the bubble to working a minor hockey tournament.
“Players were all running around in their flipflops and they were playing basketball in the courtyard or they were playing on the golf simulator. There were lots of players around doing different things,” she said. “The players would come to each other’s games to watch. It was a lot like minor hockey in that you would go out and scout the other team you’re going to play.”
It's much quieter now with only two teams remaining, the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Dallas Stars.
Going into the year, she said, things were progressing as normal. By early March, the Oilers were pushing for a playoff spot in the NHL’s Western Conference, and the atmosphere at Rogers Place was getting more exciting.
And then COVID happened.
“Everything was normal early on. We had some preseason games and then the home-opener in October. There were a number of other events we worked at such as Oiler for a Day. Then in mid-March all of a sudden it just stopped,” she said. “We never could have imagined it would go on like it did. When they started talking about bubbles and resuming play I didn’t get my hopes up because I never believed it would be here.”
Once the NHL settled on Edmonton and Toronto as its host cities, the ice crew were asked if they would be interested in going inside the bubble for three months to work.
Hoeg said she was willing as long as it didn’t interfere with her studies, but the way things worked out, there wasn’t enough room inside for all the staff. So a plan was put in place to let some come and go as long as they followed a strict set of rules and were tested frequently for COVID-19.
“They ended up making rules that some of the staff could live outside the bubble as long as every shift they would get COVID tested. When we don’t work for three of four days we have to get swabbed 24 hours before,” she said.
Hoeg, who has a psychology degree from the University of Alberta and is studying toward a degree in psychiatric nursing at MacEwan University, joined the Orange & Blue Ice Crew in the summer of 2018.
The eight members of the on-ice crew have about 90 seconds to complete their tasks, including taking the snow off the ice in front of the player benches and cleaning the crease before returning to the area where the ice resurfacer is located so play can resume.
As a former hockey player and an NHL fan, it’s a dream job since she can stand in the Zamboni tunnel and watch the games between breaks in the action.
Although she will soon finish school and enter the work world, Hoeg is hoping for at least one more season with the Orange & Blue, calling it the coolest job she has ever had.
“I get to watch hockey and get paid for it,” she said. “I have the greatest job.”
She said the players are amazing to work with. There are times when she has to wait by a bench for players to clear, but she said most of them are pretty quick to move aside so she can finish her job.
Rarely do they interact with the players, but sometimes a player will say something or share a joke. Earlier this year she had a chance encounter on the ice with Alex Ovechkhin of the Washington Capitals.
“The last time the Capitals were in Edmonton there was a time when Alex Ovechkin put his hand on my shoulder and said he was sorry for being in the way when I asked him if he could move,” she said. “Sometimes you forget where you are until you look up and there’s a player towering above you.”
Hoeg worked Game 2 of the finals and is working the fourth, fifth, and seventh games.
