NHL Launches Cooking Show, Nick Bonino is First Host

Just in case you were sitting around the house, staring out at the sunshine cascading through your windows and wondering, “What is my favorite hockey player is eating,” you will soon have your answer. The NHL will debut a cooking show this week, and former Pittsburgh Penguins center Nick Bonino will be the first host.

The NHL is adding “Skates and Plates,” to its Canadian and U.S. TV offerings, this week. The show will feature celebrity chefs remotely teaching NHL players how to prepare a restaurant-caliber dish. Chef Ludo Lefebvre will teach Nashville Predators forward Nick Bonino how to make steak Diane and Pommes Frites.

Bonino, who won two Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins before signing with Nashville via free agency, is also an amateur chef. Then again, after 12 weeks at home, aren’t we all? In previews, Bonino appeared to be wearing an embroidered chef’s jacket.

The steak Diane and frites is one of the dishes served at Lefebvre’s Los Angeles restaurant, Petit Trois.

We rarely eat at restaurants with “petit” in the title, but the dish sounds good, anyway. The show will air Wednesday at 4 p.m. on NBCsn and Thursday night at 9:30 p.m. on the NHL Network.

Watch a preview here.

The recipe for each dish will be available at NHL.com and on the NHL Twitter channel. Fans are encouraged to share pictures of their attempts on social media. If you’re so inclined or brave, use the hashtag #hockeyathome.

For residents of Allegheny County and most of western PA, who have done enough cooking since early March, we’d also like to pass along recommendations of restaurants which have befriended this writer over the years, including the brand new Coughlin’s Law on Mt. Washington. They have really good food and lots of outdoor seating. And Lula in Sewickley, too. It’s a cozy spot with unique dishes and owned by good people.

Those are unpaid endorsements.

Brian Dumoulin of the Pittsburgh Penguins is also an amateur chef who professed his love of cooking during the pandemic and credited the late Anthony Bourdain with hooking him in the culinary world.