Hockey players are notable pranksters whether that be in the locker room or outside the team facilities. Marc-Andre Fleury is one of the most well-known pranksters around the league, but Nate Thompson and the NY Islanders were no slouches when it came to messing with their teammates.
Thompson appeared on the Morning Cuppa Hockey podcast this week and revealed one of the best pranks his teammates pulled on an unexpecting victim.
Islanders set up teammate's fake arrest
Thompson played with the Islanders from 2008-10, living in a house with some of the other young players, Bruno Gervais, Kyle Okposo, Josh Bailey, and Tim Jackman. The youngsters hosted many of the team parties during that time.
The leader on the ice for those teams was Captain Bill Guerin, now the GM for the Minnesota Wild. Guerin had the idea to set up a fake arrest of one of his teammates with the police officer being in on the prank. The victim was former Isles defenseman Chris Campoli.
"So I remember we were at the house and everybody kind of has an idea of what's going on," said Thompson. "A few of us and the cop shows up and Billy's trying to calm the guy down, calm the cop down. The cop looks at Billy and says 'Shut the f*** up' to him, like that. And it was pretty funny cause Billy just goes 'Okay, okay, okay....' And they grabbed Campi , and cuffed him in front of the house in front of everybody."
The officer drove Campoli around the neighborhood for a bit before returning him to the party. Thompson goes on to say Campoli knew what was coming but nobody was buying it.
Those Islanders teams likely weren't having much fun on the ice as it was during the organization's dark times of the 2000s, but at least they were able to have a laugh at their own expense off the ice.