#mar 2015

2011:

Edler's responsibilities now that he's back extend beyond his actual play. Last season, when the defenseman asked to have a bigger role on the team, he was given the task of letting the players know when it was time to go on the ice prior to games.

"He's got that still and he takes a lot of pride in it," fellow defenseman Kevin Bieksa said, grinning. "He's like ‘let's go… let's go boys' in his little voice. I think for right now, that's enough responsibility. He's like a first-round draft pick, you don't want to rush him along too quickly or it could hurt him, right? He gets this and he feels comfortable with it right now. Maybe next year we can mix in a secret handshake or something like that."

2015:

Several years ago, Bieksa revealed that players had given Edler the chore of watching the clock before the game and announcing in the dressing room when it was time to go on the ice. And Edler would do this by saying something snappy like: “OK, guys, it’s time to go on the ice.”

“Well, not in so many words,” Bieksa says. “He doesn’t need other jobs because he’s so good at that one.”

2020:

Longtime Canucks defender Alexander Edler, for example, is responsible for watching the little red clock as it ticks down to 16:00 for the start of warmups. Shortly before it does, he’s responsible for calling out that it’s “time to go” to his teammates. As such, he’s the first skater onto the ice for the warmup skate after the starting goaltender.

Edler does this every game day when he’s healthy and in the lineup (if he’s out, the responsibility is assumed by Jake Virtanen), and it’s an institutional relic dating back to Bieksa, who is now retired.

“Bieksa used to do it and he said, why don’t you do it,” Edler explained. “So I said, ‘OK’.”

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