By Manny Almela
CANADIENS Magazine
This article first appeared in the February 2009 edition of CANADIENS magazine (Vol. 23 No. 3)
Moseying in to a photo shoot decked out in his authentic cowboy attire, Carey Price appeared to be shuffling around in his favorite pair of slippers and jogging pants, not heavy leather chaps and boots.
"Sure, seeing someone dressed like this here in Montreal might look odd, but back home everyone wears this stuff," said Price, absently flicking his very own lasso and easily corralling a garbage can from across the Habs' dressing room. "l wore this stuff to practice one day and the guys all looked at me like I was from another planet."
Price's occasional fashion faux-pas rarely go unnoticed in the Habs' dressing room.
"He definitely has his own style, let me put it that way," admitted longtime teammate Ryan O'Byrne, who has seen Price evolve from their days together in Hamilton. "Back then he was coming to practice in hunting vests, checkered shirts, and he sure was loyal to his Canadian Tuxedo - we saw him in jeans and a jean jacket all the time."
That was then, this is now. Price has since picked up his fashion game and succumbed to Montreal-chic.
"l've changed my wardrobe quite a bit since I got here; I didn't have a choice, really," admitted Price. "The boys would have run me ragged if I hadn't. But in case you didn't notice, l'm not concerned about what I look like."
It's a point which may be true, unless it's his hat, chaps and boots at issue. While any old western get-up could have done the job to suggest Price's inner wrangler in a photo shoot, it just wouldn't have been his style.
That's where Price's cousin, Shaun Holte, came in. Due for a pre-Christmas visit to Montreal, Shaun was more than happy to pack up Carey's gear before hopping on a plane across the country from BC.
"He lives on a ranch right near my house, so it was no big deal," said Price. "I just told him the keys were in the mailbox and to grab my stuff for me."
Just like that, Carey's boots, chaps, hat, gloves, jeans, belt (with requisite shiny oversized buckle) and of course, like any real cowboy, lasso, were making their way across Canada stuffed into a duffel bag.
Preparing to step before the lens, Price appeared fresh from the set of Unforgiven or Tombstone. Much of his custom-made apparel, it turns out, has a meaningful story behind it.
"Let me see," began Price, whose mother, Lynda, is the Chief of the Ulkatcho Indian Band. "The gloves were a gift from the Chief of the Williams Lake Indian Band, Willie Alfonse. The eagle feather was given to me this summer from a lady in our band and it's an honored treasure to me."
Price worked his way through his clothes stitch by stitch before arriving at his intricately-detailed chaps, which include a special symbol across each shin.
"It represents my family's history and it's grown to be my family's crest," explained Price of the stylized A and H.
"It stands for my great grandfather, Andy Hotte. It was the mark that was on his branding iron back in the day. It's really important to me, and a huge part of who I am."
Price doesn't just look the part. His western roots run deep - his iPod is stuffed with country music, while his mask is adorned with rodeo cowboys.
"Hockey has always been my first love and I couldn't wait for the lake to freeze every winter, but as a kid I always had a cowboy hat on and my toy six shooters in each hand," recalled Price. "l must've worn that stuff everywhere until I was like eight or nine."
After wearing out his favorite hat and gun holsters, Price made the next logical step for any aspiring cowboy.
"l've had horses around me my entire life," revealed the 21-year-old netminder. "Honey-Q and Mister are the two horses we had when I was growing up. They're about as old as I am, and we still have them.
"Honey-Q is 20 years old and Mister must be 22 by now," said Price fondly.
"l was closer to Honey-Q because she was the first horse I ever rode. They've gotten older so we don't ride them anymore. They're just the house pets, now."
These days, the Price family horse count stands at five, the latest addition being Fuzz, recently bought by Carey himself to complete a quintet that also includes horses named Coco and Aqua.
"It all comes from my mom; she's the horse lover in our family and the one who taught me all about them " Price said. "My dad is probably more inclined to ride a motorcycle or a four-wheeler than a horse. Mom is the one with a true passion that was passed on to my sister Kayla and l. My mom and grandma actually used horses as a means of work. They rounded up the cattle for a living and had horses pulling the wagons. It's amazing when you think about it: they literally had to rely on horsepower to get things done."
It's been said not to let your babies grow up to be cowboys, but it was a little late for Lynda and Jerry Price to follow Willie Nelson's advice. Their son was born to ride. And with Carey's passion for horses came his growing fascination with rodeo.
"I've always been a big rodeo fan and being from out west, you kind of grow up around it," revealed Price. "l don't think I know anyone from back home who hasn't gone to a rodeo before. All of my uncles used to do it and I have a few cousins and a lot of my friends who are now involved in it, too.
"l never wanted to get too into it, though - I don't do any rough stock events, like I don't ride bulls, I don't ride saddle bronco or bareback or anything like that," he continued, as casually as if he were describing his butterfly goaltending style. "Roping has always been a safer event and I really enjoy it. Over the last few years, I've started taking it a little more seriously."
While he's not about to quit his day job, Price is no slouch on the rodeo scene.
"The stuff I do is called 'team roping'," he explained. "Basically, it's where two cowboys work together to rope a steer, not a calf. People always get that confused for some reason. One guy goes in and ropes the horns and he has to turn the steer 90 degrees, then the heeler comes in and gets the two back legs. I'm a heeler."
Joined by good buddies and fellow rodeo lifers Earl Carl, Wade McNolty, Brett Fraser, Roy Call, and Evan Fuller, Price takes part in various rodeo events with his crew in an effort to hone his skills.
"It's actually a lot more difficult than it looks," he admitted. "There's a lot that goes on that people don't realize. If you ever catch it on TV, you think, 'Hey, that's pretty simple,' but it's not. Everything happens really quickly when you're up there on a horse doing it. It's like anything else - it just takes practice."
A student of the game when it comes to goaltending, Price applies the same meticulous attention to detail in his budding rodeo career.
"The rope has a wax coating on it and it coils a certain way," he related. "When you first pick up a rope, it's almost like you're swinging a Slinky. You need to understand how the rope works and how it reacts. With time, you figure out how it bends and how you shape it. You throw it so it makes a kind of gate that the steer will run through. There's a misconception that you just lay it flat. As the rope comes across, it wraps around their legs and you've got to come up underneath it."
Rodeo is only one of the things that lures Price home to Anahim Lake every summer. Being back in the great outdoors is where the rising star finds peace. ln the aftermath of last year's bitter loss to the Flyers in the second round of the playoffs, it proved to be the perfect tonic once more.
Despite having won the No. 1 job in Montreal as a freshman, making the NHL's all-rookie team, and leading all first-year puckstoppers with 24 wins, Price still felt the need to go off the grid at season's end.
Acknowledging the exhaustion he felt following his first taste of NHL playoff action, he turned off his cell phone and did everything but skip it into Corkscrew Creek, the river that flows right behind his family home.
"I don't like to even answer my phone in the summertime," confessed Price. "l also don't like doing interviews during the offseason. The summer is the time for me, always has been. I just went home, turned my phone off and that was that.
"l didn't put on the pads again until August," he continued. "l just didn't see the point. That's all we do is skate all year. You need to take a break in the summer. If not, you might burn yourself out and get tired of hockey. I enjoy having other things going on in my life. I like getting away from the game entirely in the summer. That way, when I come back, I'm refreshed and ready to go."
Fishing, taking Fuzz for a ride, and perfecting his roping technique were all things that did more good for Price than wondering what might have been for the Habs in the 2008 Playoffs.
One look at the photos of the land around the Price home and it becomes clear why Carey's answer to Superman's Fortress of Solitude is an important part of what makes him tick.
"When I walk in the front door at home, I don't need to impress anyone and I don't need to put on a show for anybody," he explained. "It's the perfect place to re-energize myself and get back to basics."
To add further intrigue to Price's happy place, no teammate has yet to check into Carey's summer fantasy camp. To hear Price tell it, that may not be such a bad thing.
"Let's just say I can't picture Ryan O'Byrne on a horse, and leave it at that," said Price, shaking his head. "l can't see any of them doing much out there, but then again they are professional athletes, so they could surprise me. Don't get me wrong, I don't know it all, but I do know a heck of a lot more than they do."
Whether an eventual Habs field trip to Anahim Lake would play like a sequel to the City Slickers films remains to be seen, Price understands that spending time in the bush isn't for everyone.
"We had a dog go missing this summer - a cougar probably got him," he deadpanned with a shrug. "That happens all the time. We had a few rabbits at some point, but they all went missing too.
"You never know what you'll find out there," he added. "Coyotes, black bears, you name it. When I was in the fifth grade, my neighbor actually shot a bear like 150 yards from their house."
From nature in its purest form to the concrete jungle of downtown Montreal, it makes one wonder how Price has been able to adapt to his new surroundings.
"l haven't been able or found the time to do anything like I do back home since I've been here," declared the goalie. "That's what makes my summers so special and important to me. Being here is lot different, for sure. At home, you don't hear ambulances in the middle of the night. You actually don't hear a thing. You might not even hear anything all day long, it's so quiet."
Out of his hat and chaps and back in his designer jeans and T-shirt, Price looks every bit the urban hipster as he pauses for a moment and reaches to check his BlackBerry. His mind, clearly, is focused in Montreal and on the task at hand.
If his time spent back home this summer did the trick, Price's phone won't be turned off until much later in the spring this year. The fish in Corkscrew Creek and his trusty horse Fuzz might need to wait a little while longer to have Carey back home.
For this cowboy, there'll be no riding into the sunset until his lasso is wrapped tightly around a big silver trophy that can't be won at any rodeo.
