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Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!

While standing outside the Canadiens’ locker room with Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukauskas for a second-intermission interview last Thursday night in Calgary, there were suddenly some startling noises coming from the hallway behind us.

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Then Andrew Shaw appeared.

The Canadiens forward did some stretching, practised some phantom faceoffs, lunged out with his stick a few times and did some other bizarre things before his teammates came out to join him.

It turns out Shaw is always the first guy out of the locker room and goes through this choreographed routine before the start of each period.

“It’s something I’ve always done to just try to loosen up a bit,” Shaw explained.

“I guess I started it about eight years ago back in juniors,” he added. “I just smash my stick on my shin pads seven times. Go down and get in the faceoff position, do two on the backhand, one on the forehand. Spin the stick to loosen up the wrists. Get a good stick going … just trying to loosen up everything.”