STAMFORD, Conn. — One day last summer, Jake Oettinger made a promise. In town for some offseason training, the Stars goaltender met Rob Thorsen, the founder of the annual Shoulder Check Showcase charity game at Terry Conners Ice Rink, less than five miles away from the gym where Oettinger was getting ready for the 2024-25 NHL season. Oettinger couldn’t attend the game, he regretfully told Thorsen, but he swore to participate the next year.
Sure enough, Oettinger, who spends most of his summer in Minnesota, will return to Stamford and suit up in net for Thursday evening’s event, joining the likes of the Ducks’ Chris Kreider, the Flyers’ Trevor Zegras, the Rangers’ Adam Fox, the Kraken’s Matty Beniers and the Hurricanes’ Shayne Gostisbehere on the ice. In total, the rosters for the third-ever Shoulder Check Showcase will feature 25 active players signed to NHL organizations — plus, among others, Rangers prospect Drew Fortescue and longtime defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, the latter of whom Thorsen joked was “coming out of retirement.”
As Golden Knights forward Pavel Dorofeyev put it, Shoulder Check is a “can’t-say-no” event on the summer calendar. “It’s obvious,” Dorofeyev said, laughing.
Minnesota has Da Beauty League, a series of four-on-four exhibitions popular among professional hockey players. Moscow hosts the Match of the Year, pitting NHL stars against domestic KHL opponents. Now Connecticut is home to the Shoulder Check Showcase, which in three years has blossomed into one of the world’s largest offseason collections of NHL talent. And that is without considering the game’s guest coaches: Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick will co-manage one of this year’s teams alongside Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis, now behind the Canadiens’ bench, while the other will be led by former PWHL player Madison Packer and well-known area strength and conditioning coach Ben Prentiss.
“We wouldn’t be where we are without (all this support),” Thorsen said. “They know the importance of it. It resonates with them, too. They’re proud to be a part of it. It means everything. Without them, we would be on the drawing board still.”
The idea for the game arose in the wake of a personal tragedy. In May 2022, Hayden Thorsen, son of Thorsen and his wife, Sarah Thompson, died by suicide at age 16. Soon after the couple launched the #HT40 Foundation, using Hayden’s initials and hockey number for the name. He was a goalie, known for his warm personality, and trained at Prentiss’ gym, where one of his jerseys now hangs near the entrance alongside those of NHL players.
In addition to the registered nonprofit, the couple started The Shoulder Check, an initiative aimed at raising mental health awareness and encouraging people to reach out to and check in on each other. Prentiss immediately offered his support, as did several professional players at his gym and others in the local hockey community, including Zegras and his father, Gary, who is the foundation’s secretary. A year or so later, in summer 2023, the puck dropped on the inaugural Shoulder Check Showcase at the 2,000-seat Terry Conners, with Zegras and Kreider headlining the lineups.
“The cause itself is something that’s very relevant, prevalent, not just in the times we’re living in but also to the community,” said Kreider, who lived in Connecticut while with the Rangers and plans to stay there in his offseasons after a recent trade to Anaheim. “It’s obviously a terrible, terrible thing that happened, but for them to organize the community and for the community to back them like they have, (it) just goes to show you not only what an important thing it is.”
Kreider saw a tangible growth in the event between year one and year two. He joked it could’ve been from “the Matt Rempe effect” — the 6-foot-9 forward, a favorite among Rangers fans, flew from his native Alberta to skate in the 2024 showcase. This year is set to feature more than 20 NHLers for the first time, though there won’t be any active PWHL players like last year because of summer training schedules. As of Wednesday, the 2,000-seat Terry Conners Ice Rink was sold out.
“Hopefully we get into an even bigger arena, maybe, make it an even bigger event,” Gostisbehere said.
Thorsen has received assists from NHL players throughout the leadup to Thursday’s game. Zegras, who was with Anaheim before a June 23 trade to Philadelphia, joined Kreider in helping pick the two rosters, convincing multiple then-teammates to play. One of them, the Ducks’ Frank Vatrano, is set to appear in his second Shoulder Check game, ahead of which he urged Thorsen to invest in better merchandise. Vatrano even put him in touch with a hat maker.
“You let yourself down when you don’t have great gear!” Thorsen remembers Vatrano saying.
Thorsen took the advice and ordered 500 dark blue hats with a white and teal Shoulder Check logo. He brought some into Prentiss’ gym on Monday, handing one each to Rempe and Zegras, who were there for a training session. The NHL players immediately put them on.
“Our reach with this event is definitely growing year after year, and we have more people who are out just advocating for the message,” Thorsen said. “That seems to be a bit of the arc or the narrative. Even guys just coming farther away for the game, which is great. It means you’re reaching more people.”
Before the game, everyone in attendance — from players on the ice to fans in the stands — is asked to place a hand on a shoulder of someone next to them. Then they make a pledge: “I promise to reach out, check in and make contact,” as Thorsen recited Monday in an interview. Thorsen envisions Shoulder Check growing. He delivered a keynote presentation about the concept at the AHL’s yearly team business meetings this summer, and both the Devils’ and Capitals’ team foundations have made donations to #HT40, which has a stated goal of encouraging young people “to simply be there for their peers, reinforcing social connections and leaving no one out, through our own initiatives and by supporting like-minded organizations working to make a similar impact.”
Someday, Thorsen would like to see NHL teams host dedicated Shoulder Check nights — not only to raise future awareness for his family’s cause, but also so hockey fans everywhere can take time in the moment to tap a nearby shoulder and see how their neighbor is doing.
“Check your shoulder: It goes with hockey and goes with everyday human life and checking on people,” Gostisbehere said. “You never know what one phone call can do.
He views that as a cause worth circling on the calendar.
“What we can do as professional athletes,” he said, “(is) to get that message out.”
(Photo of Chris Kreider celebrating at last year’s game: Matthew Raney Photography / #HT40 Foundation )