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Canucks: Zeev Buium & Tom Willander Talk Working The Tim Hortons Drive-Thru
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- Canucks: Zeev Buium & Tom Willander Talk Working The Tim Hortons Drive-Thru
There are many ways to tell that hockey season is back. The air gets crisper, the leaves change colour, and hockey cards re-appear at Tim Hortons.
One custom that the Vancouver Canucks take part in at the beginning of the season is a short promotional stint working at Tim Hortons.
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Last year, former Canucks defencemen Tyler Myers and Marcus Pettersson suited up to take orders and pour coffee in an Impractical Jokers-style undercover shift. The year before that, Conor Garland and Dakota Joshua worked the drive-thru .
This year, Tom Willander and Zeev Buium put their drive-thru skills to the test in the annual promo. The two defencemen have shown their strong bond through a variety of on and off-ice activities since Buium was acquired via trade back in December of 2025, ranging from their lip-sync performance at the Canucks' Dice & Ice to 'fight club' practices with defenceman Elias Pettersson.
The Hockey News chatted with both Buium and Willander about this particular experience back in September. Their opinion?
"It was one of the hardest things I've ever done," Buium confessed.
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"You can barely use the mic," the 20-year-old said. "And then you've got to put in all the orders and all the s—t's everywhere. It was tough. And then it's just go, go, go. Line never ends."
"It was so hard," said Willander. "I would have never thought that working a drive-thru would be that difficult. Tell you what, it's a lot easier to play hockey, at least for me.
"I was working the order taking and, oh man, you'd hear the items they were saying every one in five times, and the times you actually heard it, you got a list of like 150 items," he added.
One of the big struggles Willander brought up was the timer that counts down from the time the order was taken, to when it's handed over to the customer.
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"[You had to be] under 40 seconds [or] the numbers turned red, and I don't think we had a single one in the green.
"It was definitely easier just talking to the person in the drive-thru and just sending whatever was coming through out there."
While it was definitely a change-up from the two defencemen's usual shenanigans, such as bowling or going for dinners, Buium noted that the experience was still enjoyable.
"Every time Tom and I get together and do something like that, we have a good time. So I enjoyed it."
Dec 27, 2025; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Vancouver Canucks defenseman Zeev Buium (24) watches defenseman Tom Willander (5) stick check San Jose Sharks forward Adam Gaudette (81) in the first period at Rogers Arena. Mandatory Credit: Bob Frid-Imagn Images
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