The loud crack of the thick ice expanding and forming below makes a sound akin to that of train cars joining together. At night, the sound strikes an eerie, ominous tone that would send those with weaker nerves running - sliding - for the shoreline.

In a small ice-fishing shack on Slave Lake, in the dead of the Canadian winter, in temperatures ranging from -11 to -31 Celsius that week - and with nothing to block the biting wind - Eric Gryba and his wife, Cate, were enjoying the bye week in a way that was uniquely them. The sound of cracking ice was mildly unnerving, but nothing to abandon their vacation for.

They loved it.

The shack was small, with two single bunk beds and a small, wood-burning stove as the lone sources of comfort and warmth. A generator powered the lights they could play cards by, and a small radio allowed for some noise other than the howling, unabated wind and cracking below. The small community of fellow ice-fishing shacks dotted the lake nearby, and provided some intermittent company and conversation.

While some… most… players would look to get away to some warm destination, preferably near decisively unfrozen water, the Grybas are a much different breed.

"(Eric) is kind of one of a kind," said Oilers goaltender Cam Talbot. "He walks to the beat of his own drum there. Not too many guys want to go ice fishing when you could go to Mexico or the Dominican or someplace like that and sit on a beach.

"I definitely wouldn't want to go with him."