Former NHL forward Booth finding game in Scotland, Australia

Under normal circumstances, a 9-0 loss is the sort of game that makes a 41-year-old hockey pro quietly reassess his life choices.

On Dec. 26, 2025, David Booth had just played in his first game for the Fife Flyers in Belfast, in front of nearly 9,000 fans, and walked off the ice pondering what he had gotten himself into. It looked brutal on the scoresheet. It felt familiar in a strange way.

“It felt like an NHL game, honestly,” Booth told NHL.com International. “One of the best arenas outside of the NHL. It was really cool playing there. But yeah, I think I was minus-5 in that game. I was like, ‘Oh, this is not going well to start the season.’ But it was just one of those games where we would go down on a 2-on-1, hit the post, they would come right back and score. I remember both in the second and third periods, we had grade-A chances and a guy's stick would break right back door for a wide open net.”

Two nights later, Booth responded with his first goal in the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) when the Flyers beat the same Belfast Giants team 4-3 in a shootout. In his third game, he had a hat trick and an assist in a 6-3 win at Dundee Stars. The season had reset itself almost immediately.

He has nine points (six goals, three assists) in six games for Fife.

That whiplash, from humbling loss to instant redemption, captures why Booth is still here. Why, seven years after he thought hockey was done, he is still pulling on gear in Scotland, still jumping on buses, still chasing the next game.

In his 530 regular-season NHL games over 10 seasons with the Florida Panthers, Vancouver Canucks, Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings, Booth had 236 points (124 goals, 112 assists). That chapter closed in 2018.

Or so he thought.

“I really believe I am extremely blessed to still be playing,” Booth said. “I know a lot of ex-NHLers might be confused as to why I’d still be doing this, but we have come to love this experience after thinking hockey was done in 2018.”

The confusion is understandable. Booth is not clinging to the game financially. He is not chasing one last contract or one last spotlight. If anything, he has engineered the opposite. His post-NHL career has become a deliberate exercise in freedom, curiosity and selective competition, built around short seasons, unexpected leagues and places most NHL veterans never consider. Australia, where he spent the summer of 2025 playing for Melbourne Ice in the AIHL, sits at the peak of that reinvention. Scotland is its latest stop.

“I think the hockey season in general is such a grind that to play full seasons, the whole year, is very, very tough,” Booth said. “A guy like Corey Perry who is going to the Stanley Cup Final every year, that is just a lot of hockey and I don't think I would still be playing if I was doing that. But I think I enjoy it even more now than when I played in the NHL. The NHL, it's such a job, such a grind, you know, every shift, every practice, everything matters.”

* * *

Booth arrived in Fife with almost no context. He admitted it freely.

“Nothing,” he said, when asked what he knew about the Flyers or the United Kingdom league before signing. “The only thing I knew about Fife, I was like, that name sounds familiar. About 10 years ago, I went on a golf trip to St. Andrews, Carnoustie, Turnberry. I’m a big golfer. So when (I realized) it was Scotland and that St. Andrews was 30 minutes away, it piqued my interest.”

The lack of pressure matters now more than it ever did in the NHL.

“The pressure is just way less now,” he said. “It’s a lot more enjoyable just to come to the rink.”

That philosophy explains why Booth rarely plays full seasons anymore. He arrives in December or January, contributes down the stretch, then leaves. Less grind. More joy.

* * *

If Scotland is simply the latest stop, Australia might have been the least predictable one of all.

Booth’s connection to Australian hockey began almost accidentally. In the summer of 2015, after his season with the Maple Leafs, he was invited to play in the Australian Ice Hockey Classic, a charity event organized by Kerry Goulet.

“They put on such a great event and treated us so well,” Booth said. “(NHL defenseman) Brent Burns was over there that time. A couple of teammates of mine were over there.”

It felt like a novelty at first. Weekend games. Beach days. Summer hockey without consequence. But the relationship stuck. Years later, Goulet called again, this time with a more serious pitch. He was coaching Melbourne Ice and asked Booth to come for a three-month season.

“I didn’t know anything about a league in Australia,” Booth said. “I had no idea it even existed.”

The decision became a family one. Booth and his wife, Ashley, had three young children. Australia sounded like an adventure.

“I asked my daughter and my son, ‘Would you guys want to go to Australia?’” Booth said. “They go, ‘Wow, that’d be cool.’”

What followed was unlike anything Booth had experienced in hockey.

Two practices a week, mostly at night, sometimes starting as late as 9:15 PM. Some rinks without glass. Public skating dominating ice availability.

“You couldn’t go into the rink until an hour and a half before the game,” Booth said. “They’d have public skating all day. You’d have like 200 people on the ice every day.”

The business model fascinated him. Ice time was precious. Public skating paid the bills. Hockey adapted around it.

“All the guys have jobs, too,” Booth said. “They go to a 9-to-5 (job), so they can't really cut work for practice.”

On the ice, 40-year-old Booth dominated. Sixty-four points in 14 games. Yes, you read that right: 64 points (34 goals, 30 assists) in fourteen regular-season games. The numbers look cartoonish. He insists they did not come easily.

“I was genuinely nervous,” he said. “I was like, I'm sure there's a lot of pressure on me coming over there. And I don't care what league you play -- it's hard to put up points. There were some good teams. It's not like you just go down (the ice) and shoot and score.”

He played enormous minutes, skating on three lines. Constant involvement. But the environment suited him. And so did the lifestyle.

Melbourne’s medical support surprised him most.

“We had one of the best physios I’ve ever had in my entire career,” Booth said, praising Luke Fuller of ‘A Sports Clinic.’ “These guys were brilliant. NHL teams would be thrilled to have them. Fuller is based out of Australia, but he worked with guys like (tennis stars) Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, went to Wimbledon to help them every year. I was just blown away that a guy like him was helping out our team.”

The season ended with a championship. The coach cried. To Booth, it all mattered deeply.

“Next to Jacques Martin in Florida, my Australian coach, Kerry Goulet, was the best coach I ever had,” Booth said.

This is the through line of Booth’s post-NHL life. Norway. Germany. Hungary. Australia. Scotland. He arrives for short windows, gives teams a jolt, then leaves before the grind turns sour.

“I think I’ve learned I can provide a boost,” Booth said. “Just as it starts to feel like you live on the bus, the season’s over. (These shorter stints) is what helps me to be able to still play and enjoy it.”

* * *

For all the travel and novelty, Booth is clear about what matters most now.

“It’s not really the money,” he said. “Does my family want to do it? We’ve enjoyed these trips so much. We grow as a family.”

His oldest daughter Ellarose is 5, son Blaise is 3, and daughter Honeybelle is nine months. Homeschooling is the plan, at least for now. Flexibility remains the point.

Booth also measures success differently. Championships in Germany, Hungary and Australia still matter. So do contributions in the locker room. But when asked what he is most proud of since leaving the NHL, his answer shifted.

“I was thinking in particular about what my greatest accomplishment was since I’ve been overseas,” Booth said. “And I think the thing I am most proud of or cherish the most is when I asked my teams in Storhamar (Norway) and in Regensburg and in Budapest if they would like to join a little chapel or bible study that I would run after practice one day, and all three times the entire team stayed to listen.

“That is pretty incredible considering all the different world views these teammates have. But they respected the ask and showed up. I will always remember those moments. More than any game I played.”

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