Eric Robinson ’18 Caps Hockey Journey With Stanley Cup Title

Fresh off winning the NHL’s Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes this month, Eric Robinson ’18 has gotten to see how the trophy seems to have its own gravitational pull.

In the days after the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights in six games, Robinson and his teammates took the Stanley Cup to more than a few bars and restaurants around Raleigh, North Carolina.

Robinson was amused to watch rooms rapidly fill up despite no prior warning that one of the  world’s most famous trophies would be glistening in the corner of the bar.

“Word spreads quickly, I guess,” Robinson told PAW. “It seems that the party follows wherever the Cup is.” 

Basking in the afterglow of the championship run, during which he played in a career-high 19 playoff games and contributed three goals and five assists, Robinson said, “I feel on top of the world.”

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Eric Robinson ’18, at right in a white shirt, celebrates with his teammates and the Stanley Cup at restaurant in Raleigh, North Carolina, one of many stops for the famed trophy.

Courtesy of Eric Robinson ’18

A professional hockey career — let alone reaching the sport’s mountaintop — seemed out of reach during Robinson’s first two years at Princeton. He scored nine goals in 58 games, and the team won just nine out of 61 games. “I didn’t have much aspiration to play in the NHL,” Robinson said.

By his senior year, both Robinson and the team improved dramatically. As co-captain, he scored 17 goals and helped lead the Tigers to the Eastern College Athletic Conference tournament title. As that trajectory unfolded, “the dream [of getting to the NHL] started to feel more real,” Robinson said. 

Although he wasn’t selected in the NHL draft, Robinson signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets and made his debut near the end of the 2017-18 season. More than eight years later, he has appeared in 455 NHL games, scoring 66 goals with 75 assists.

The Stanley Cup victory was not only the high point of his career, but the culmination of weeks and months of pain and struggle with his teammates. 

“It’s all about the time spent with teammates,” he said. “We spend so much time together and work so hard to achieve this, it makes it that much more gratifying to do it together.”

The other two people most special to share the championship with were Robinson’s wife, Allison, and their 1-year-old daughter. While their toddler “definitely doesn’t understand” what her dad does (or how well he does it), Robinson said he’ll always cherish that she was present when the Hurricanes clinched the Cup.

Robinson’s native New Jersey is not regarded as a powerhouse when it comes to amateur hockey, but he says he is “extremely proud” to hail from the Garden State. Each Hurricanes player gets to have the Stanley Cup for one day over the summer, and Robinson says he’ll definitely be bringing it with him on a visit to New Jersey.

He is just the third Tiger to ever win the Stanley Cup as a player, and the first in 14 years since Kevin Westgarth ’07’s Los Angeles Kings won it in 2012. (Four other Princetonians have won the Stanley Cup in coaching or executive roles.) 

Robinson is well aware — and knows his teammates are, too — that he attended a college more likely to produce CEOs and members of Congress than professional athletes in North America’s “Big Four” sports.

As for the reaction among his Hurricanes teammates to his Ivy League pedigree? 

“If I say something dumb … people are giving me a hard time that I ‘should’ be smart,” Robinson joked.

His advice to current Princeton athletes who have ambitions to turn pro is to mostly focus on relishing the present. 

“I’d say to enjoy their time as a college athlete as much as possible,” said Robinson. “It’s really a special time and if they put all of their focus into being the best version of themselves on the ice, or on the field, the professional part will take care of itself later on down the road.” 

Robinson jokes that now that he’s “on the wrong side of 30” he should at some point give thought to life after hockey.

But that day hasn’t arrived just yet. For as long as he remains on the ice, he knows exactly what his next goal is: “Win again.”