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How hard do they hit him?

“We switch it up, depending on how we played last game,” Latta said. “It depends. If we played good last game, we just give him a little tap, just to get him going a bit.”

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And if the team played poorly the last game?

“Hit him harder, yeah,” Latta said. “It’s fun.”

“Depending on the day,” Wilson agreed. “If we think he needs it or not.”

How does something like this start, though?

“I mean, we’re at the rink for so much time,” Oshie said. “There’s so many little fun things, little secret handshakes we do before we go out, whatever. It’s kind of a team thing.”

Little secret handshakes?

“Nate Schmidt. … he likes to have his little quirky handshakes with guys and yell a couple things,” Karl Alzner said.

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How many little quirky handshakes does Nate Schmidt have?

[Extended pause as Schmidt looks over every stall in the team dressing room.]

“I’m counting them right now,” Schmidt said. “I think close to 15, 16.”

Nate Schmidt has 15 or 16 different quirky little handshakes?

“Yeah,” Schmidt said. “I don’t really know why. It just happened one day and it kept going. And then I got one with somebody else, and then another one with another person, and another one, another one, another one….”

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“I don’t know how he remembers it all,” Latta said admiringly.

Who was first?

“Carly,” Schmidt said, referring to John Carlson, whose handshake was created last season. “Other than that, all the other ones started this year.”

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“Him and John do a big whoop or something,” Latta said. “I don’t know what it is. It’s pretty funny.”

“Just one up top, one down below, but his enthusiasm makes it seem better than that,” Carlson said. “It’s not like spectacularly outlandish or anything. But I think he kind of started doing it with me, and the way he is, everybody wants to get a piece of something, make him go that extra mile. And then everybody created stuff off of that.”

And when are these used, exactly?

“Just when we go out in the tunnel between periods and before the game,” Schmidt said. “Each one is only a couple seconds long, but they’re all different. Every one’s different. It’s not like a long thing, because you don’t have that much time. In between periods you’re just trying to get your stuff done anyway. So yeah, they’re not long, they’re real short, but there are quite a few, and I can’t miss one. Other guys are pretty superstitious about it.”

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Does asking multiple players about pregame handshakes lessen the gravitas and stature of a supposedly deep-thinking sports columnist?

Yes.

How about a couple examples?

“We just butt heads,” Latta said.

“We just do like a low high-five, I guess you would call it,” Taylor Chorney said. “I mean, everyone’s got handshakes. Schmidty’s got a few, but if you watch before the game, everyone’s kind of got a little routine that they’ve been going through throughout the course of the year. There’s a lot of different ones going on.”

Wait, everybody’s got secret handshakes?

“Me and Osh do one,” Chorney said. “Me and Winnik do one. Burky. Me, Latta, Wilson and Osh have a little thing that we do. There’s all sorts.”

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“Yeah, I’ve got one with Nate,” Oshie confirmed. “Got one with Nicky, Kuzy, Alzy, Orly, Ovi, Jojo….”

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“I think everyone has something they do,” Marcus Johansson said. “I think pretty much everyone does that. I have a couple.”

Is this unusual in pro hockey?

“It’s not unusual to the point where it’s awkward,” Latta said. “We’ve got a lot of handshakes on this team; a lot of guys do different things going out on the ice. A lot of guys have their different taps or headbutts or whatever.”

“It’s maybe a little bit unusual,” Chorney allowed. “I mean, I’ve played on other teams where you’ve got different things that you do. And maybe this team takes it a little further, and I think maybe that’s just the personality of our team.”

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This sounds like it takes some creativity.

“Most of them I’ve come up with, or it’s been a collective between me and the other guy,” Schmidt said. “But I always walk to the front of the line and come back through, so I get everybody.”

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It sounds almost like performance art?

“There was a rotating one with [Matt Niskanen] for the longest time,” Schmidt said. “I would come up with something new until I ran out of ideas. It’s actually kind of funny — I would want to know what his take on it was. Me and [Philipp Grubauer] would do one for Nisky before every game, or to him, something at him, instead of him really responding. I think that’s probably the best one.”

And it seems like it would take some coordination.

“Basically,” Latta said. “Everyone kind of walks in at certain times, and does their thing, and then certain guys come in at certain times. It’s scripted pretty well, actually. We’re pretty good. We’re pretty in chorus.”

Being a professional athlete is different than working in an office, huh?