Brayden McNabb got the chance to hoist the Stanley Cup at centre ice in Los Angeles’ Staples Center this past June when the Kings defeated the New York Rangers in five games, but he still doesn’t consider himself a Stanley Cup champion quite yet.

McNabb, 23, lifted the Cup as a member of the Kings black aces, a taxi squad of minor league players brought up to the big club during a long playoff run to serve as extra players during practice and as emergency replacements in case of injury. The 6’4″ and 205 lb defenceman didn’t see any game action during the playoffs or the regular season with Los Angeles.

“It was a good learning experience for me just to see what a team like that goes through to obviously win the Stanley Cup,” said McNabb, who was joined on the Staples Center ice after the Kings win by his father Kim and brother Dean. “I wasn’t part of it on the ice, but to be around and practising with the team and being in all the meetings, it was cool. It was more of fuelling the fire in me to win a Stanley Cup.”

McNabb began the 2014 playoffs with a goal of capturing the Calder Cup as a member of the Manchester Monarchs. After the Norfolk Admirals defeated them in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, he joined the Kings in time for Game 2 of their Western Conference Quarterfinals series against the Anaheim Ducks.

McNabb said he practised with the team through the remainder of the Ducks series and the Conference Finals series against the Chicago Blackhawks. During the Stanley Cup Finals, he and the three remaining black aces took the ice after the Kings had finished practice and went through drills with assistant coaches John Stevens and Davis Payne.

On game days the black aces would come in at warm-ups and work out with the trainer before heading to the dressing room to watch the game on TV. He said the group still got to feel the craziness of NHL playoff action from the room because they could they could hear the highs and lows of the crowd that packed the stands above them.

“It was pretty emotional watching (the game from the room),” he said. “It’s almost more nerve wracking watching than playing, but like I said it was a great experience just to see a team like that go through all the ups and downs and the bad adversity they had to go though. So it was definitely a cool experience.”

A month and a day after the Kings lifted the Stanley Cup for the second time in three years, McNabb signed a two-year one-way contract with the big club giving him a good opportunity to stay in Los Angeles all year.

To read more please see the Aug. 18 print edition of The Davidson Leader.