What Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews is doing during NHL pause

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Aside from a video message for a 7-year-old fan on NBC's the "Today" show and news of his $100,000 donation to a COVID-19 response fund, we haven't heard from Jonathan Toews since before the NHL paused on March 12 due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19.

The Blackhawks captain was a guest on Friday's episode of former Hawk John Scott's "Dropping the Gloves" podcast. 

Toews freely spoke on a variety of topics, including how the NHL pause unfolded, and how he's passing the time.

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"Obviously with the pandemic, out of this whole situation, day-to-day it's kind of crazy," the three-time Stanley Cup champion with the Blackhawks told his former teammate. "At times, I kind of pinch myself a little bit. It's only been a week and a bit that we've been kind of on lockdown, and the game just stopped. 

"I think our last game was on a Wednesday at home. I can't remember who we played (6-2 win against the San Jose Sharks), but the next morning, woke up to a text and an email from the great Tony Ommen (Blackhawks vice president of team services), as you know, telling us not to come to the rink. And it was just kind of a blindside because we thought the next step would be games without fans, and we just kind of go from there, and it just kind of got super serious real quick.

"So honestly, I've just been laying around, recovering, doing some reading, making some phone calls, catching up with friends. I haven't had the chance to go home to Canada yet. I'm not sure if it's even too late for that, but I'm just kid of enjoying being at home. 

"I moved into a new condo here in Lincoln Park since Christmas, and I think when you're as busy as we are during the year with the schedule that we have, we were gone pretty much all of January and February, I'm just kind of settling in and doing fun little things that have been on the back burner for quite a while. So that's about it."

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Scott also asked Toews about communicating with teammates during the unique situation.

"A lot of it has just been going over some of the stuff that's going on with [the NHLPA], getting updates, obviously chatting with the boys in the team chat, and I think a lot of the guys have taken off and gone home, even the European guys, too," Toews said. "So it's one of those situations, we don't know what's going to happen, and I guess guys will just hang out at home. And if we get the call, everyone will come rushing back after that."

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