Despite his rather checkered career, Petr was always approachable, never shying away from the most difficult questions. And there were many, especially after his frequent off-ice shenanigans that typically involved a few too many beers (and in my experience with him, a few too many was a concept he never embraced).

The most notorious of those times, fans of a certain age will remember, involved a premature end-of-season party involving several players, the night before what would be their final playoff game of the season in Edmonton.

A routine bed check at the 11 p.m. curfew revealed some players were missing. Colin Campbell, assistant to coach Jacques Demers, and Neal Smith, assistant to general manager Jim Devellano, approached a hotel worker and asked where visiting NHL teams enjoyed gathering for a drink.

The response: Goose Loonies, a popular nightclub in Edmonton.

After a quick cab ride, Campbell and Smith stepped into the club and found nearly half their team. It was well after midnight. This wasn’t a case of being a few minutes late for bed check; this was a group of guys gathering to have one more for the road — quite literally — before their season ended.

They were behind in their seven-game set with the Oilers, one of the greatest teams ever assembled, three games to one. They knew Wayne Gretzky and his teammates had no intention of returning to Detroit for a Game 6. This series was over, and everybody knew it. So some of the players decided to toast another pretty damned good season, reaching the Stanley Cup semifinals for the second straight year, regardless of silly team rules like curfews for grown men.

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