Canucks coach Manny Malhotra outskates team during bag skate

The Vancouver Canucks have a storied history of retired players outdoing active athletes in physical challenges. In the past, it’s usually been Henrik and Daniel Sedin, now co-presidents, beating prospects up Vancouver’s famed “Grouse Grind” trail up Grouse Mountain. 

On Thursday, though, new head coach Manny Malhotra kept up with his new team in bag skates as they opened 2026 Training Camp in Penticton, B.C., before looking ahead to preseason games starting next week. 

According to reports, players were shocked when Malhotra and the Canucks coaching staff lined up with them for the bag skates. During his playing days, Malhotra’s impressive fitness stood out, and by the time the group finished skating, it looked like that remained the case. 

“That’d be a first, where you’re getting toasted in a bag skate by your head coach,” said veteran defenseman Luke Schenn, who rejoined the Canucks in free agency this summer and is 10 years Malhotra’s junior. “I heard he had done that in Abbotsford; he came as advertised.”

While it took Schenn, currently at his 19th NHL training camp, by surprise, it wasn’t as shocking for 20-year-old Zeev Buium, who admitted that Malhotra, general manager Ryan Johnson and assistant coach Jason Krog, among the rest of the staff, are “probably in better shape than half of us.”

“That’s a credit to them, but that also pushes us. They’re setting the tone for what it needs to be, and it sends a message to the whole group: ‘We’re in this with you guys.’”

Luckily for Buium, fresh off signing a new deal which will keep him in Vancouver for the next nine years, his understanding was the exact reason why Malhotra and the staff put themselves into the grind. 

“It’s that mindset of: ‘Don’t ask others what you’re not willing to do yourself,’” Malhotra said. “Our mentality as a coaching staff is that we’re all in this together. It’s not you guys and us — you guys do the work, and we’ll tell you what to do — it’s we are part of doing the work and building something.”

With training camp lasting only four days, the demands will remain intense as Malhotra instills his ideals in the team, having coached many of the younger players during his time with the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks. 

Once training camp wraps up in Penticton, the Canucks will start their four-game preseason on the road against the Seattle Kraken on Sept. 19, with all eyes on setting the right tone for a rebuilding season that begins Sept. 29 on home ice against the Edmonton Oilers.