Ben Bishop begins every morning by working out.
He typically hops on his Peloton bike and then does some dynamic stretching or explosion drills with exercise bands he has at the house. Then it’s time to watch his toddler son, Benjamin, and there are typically two walks around the neighborhood during the day. By the early afternoon — sometimes around nap time for Benjamin — he and his wife, Andrea, are planning what they’ll make for dinner.
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“It’s like Groundhog Day, right?” Bishop said with a laugh. “Back on a normal schedule, which is nice. But a little weird.”
This is quarantine life for the Bishop family. The garage is spotless, the deck has been power washed and old medicine cabinets have been cleaned out. They found an expired Aleve bottle from 2016; “I guess you could say it’s never been so fresh in the house.”
Bishop said he’s actually lost some weight during quarantine. He’s been eating on a healthy schedule and is getting more structured sleep. There aren’t any late-night meals after games or pre-game feasts without any games to play.
Ben leaves the house from time to time to go to the grocery store by himself since Andrea is pregnant with their second son (due June 14). But aside from those occasional ventures, the couple is on full-time toddler duty.
“Some people are binge-watching, right? Us — uh. yeah right, buddy,” Bishop said. “We get two hours in the afternoon, and all you want do is sit down. Dinner time and then he goes down, and you just want to go, ‘Oof’ and lay down.”
Bishop has thought about getting some yard work done and potentially gardening. But each time he’s taken a trip to the grocery store, he drives past a Lowe’s. He’s found it’s not the best place to observe social distancing.
“The parking lot is completely full,” Bishop said, adding that his wife and son haven’t left the house in two weeks. “I was gonna go in there right now, but I’m not gonna do it because it looks so crowded. Even when you go to the grocery store, you come home and you feel guilty. You are extra cautious when you are in there, and you bring the Clorox wipes, but wondering and feeling guilty on the way home. You don’t want to touch anything.”
Like most of the rest of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bishop is adjusting to a new normal. The last time the Stars were together as a group was at practice on March 12, one day prior to the NHL suspending the 2019-20 season. Since then, communication has been limited to the occasional phone call or group chat.
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“Everybody is quarantined themselves, so there really isn’t anything going on to talk about,” Bishop said. “You try and mix in some of the lighthearted chat we have during the season into text.”
Soon after the suspension of the season, Stars players were given permission to self-isolate wherever they wish. Some Europeans returned to their native country — Miro Heiskanen is in Finland, and Denis Gurianov is in Russia — while others went to summer homes. Joe Pavelski, for instance, is on a lake in Wisconsin.
Bishop is among a group that decided to stay in Dallas. Considering his wife’s pregnancy, it didn’t make much sense to go elsewhere. Even during a traditional offseason, Bishop has begun to treat Dallas like a true home, spending more and more time in Texas and less in his hometown of St. Louis. It’s exactly what he hoped would happen when he signed a six-year contract with the Stars that runs through 2023.
“It definitely feels like home already. It kind of did right away,” Bishop said. “We bought the house here and got to know people outside of hockey and developed more relationships around town. Whenever you are able to do that and separate the hockey life and the non-hockey life — you are able to have two different lives, if that makes sense — it feels like home.”
Bishop said there was a high bar set for what “home” would feel like after spending five years with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He became a full-time starter in the city and also met Andrea, whose family still lives in the Tampa Bay area. During the 2016-17 season, Tampa’s front office decided that Andrei Vasilevskiy would be their goalie of the future, trading Bishop at the deadline to the Los Angeles Kings. After a spring cameo in California, the Stars acquired Bishop’s rights in May 2017 and then signed the goalie shortly thereafter. It was the culmination of long-held interest on Dallas’ end: Stars general manager Jim Nill had tried to trade for Bishop at the NHL draft in 2016 but couldn’t hammer out a final deal with then-Lightning general manager Steve Yzerman.
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“Going into free agency is different for a goalie; it’s not like 31 teams need a goalie. A forward that goes to free agency, you can have everyone look at you, so that summer the market wasn’t that big,” Bishop said. “There were only a handful of teams that were in the goalie free-agent market, and speaking with LA, they kind of asked what my thoughts were — where I was leaning going into free agency. And I wanted to come to Dallas because they had shown some interest the year before when my name was getting swirled about being traded (in 2016). So when LA asked, I told them, ‘If you can trade me to Dallas, make it happen.’”
Bishop said the chance to win with the Stars was a prime factor, but the city and the family element were driving forces for his desire to get traded and sign in May instead of having to wait for July 1 to fully test the market. He’d heard good things from other players about Dallas and had some prior experience in the area. He played one season in the NAHL with the Texas Tornado and spent his senior year of high school at Frisco High School before going of playing college hockey at The University of Maine.
“Two buddies that were in my wedding lived in Dallas still,” Bishop said. “So we had relationships outside of hockey even before we ever moved to the city. It made the move and the idea that much easier; those are some of your best friends, too. So it was pretty easy to sign on the dotted line with the Stars.”
That off-ice comfort level has contributed to on-ice success for Bishop, who was a Vezina Trophy finalist during the 2018-19 season and could be a finalist for the 2019-20 season if the awards are ever presented.
In simpler times, before a global pandemic gripped the planet, Bishop had been enjoying a season when he starting to introduce Benjamin to the sport. The first time Benjamin skated was on the ice in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Eve before the Winter Classic. Before everything shut down — including local rinks — father and son had skated together a handful of times. It certainly doesn’t hurt being a pro goalie and having a Bauer rep track down a pair of toddler-sized skates.
Have to love the encouragement tonight! Good thing he doesn’t know who won or lost tonight 😁😂 #1fan pic.twitter.com/7QmjPyay69
— Ben Bishop (@Benbishop30) February 28, 2020
“He understands a little bit more and understands what hockey is, and it’s fun to watch him,” Bishop said. “Whenever there is a hockey game on TV, he just says, ‘Da-da,’ even though I’m sitting next to him. So it’s fun that he’s starting to understand it and what it is that I do. Obviously, you get to the stages of your life where you are are getting older, and you appreciate being able to share it with your son. In a perfect world, I could play for another 10 years, and they can watch me play and grow up around the game with me.”
For now, like the rest of the world, Bishop wonders whether there will be any more games this season for anyone to watch. Bishop is quick to point out he has no idea when or if the season will resume. He has no expertise in global disease, but he wants to be optimistic that hockey will resume and that the Stanley Cup will be won at some point this summer.
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For now, though, the goaltender said it’s easy to not worry about it too much with full-time dad duty. Tbe lull has given him even greater respect for the work Andrea does throughout the season; one of their biggest thoughts right now is figuring out a name for their second son. Benjamin’s full name is Benjamin Manning Bishop IV, and there have been family photos taken with four generations of Ben Bishops in the same photo.
“The second one here, it’s a lot harder to actually think of a name. The first one was a given since I always wanted to carry on the name lineage,” Bishop said. “It’s been a lot more of a challenge this second time to think of a name. But we’ll figure it out.”
He’s got plenty of time to think about it.
Photo by Tim Heitman/NHLI via Getty Images
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