If the Vancouver Canucks win tomorrow’s Stanley Cup final, they’ll likely give a big thank-you to Bainbridge mountain climber Ed Viesturs.

Viesturs, who summited Mount Everest seven times, has been giving closed-door motivational talks to the NHL team.

“You’re not supposed to know about that my friend,” Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa told a Globe and Mail reporter. “You’ve got privileged information. That’s something we don’t talk about, that’s our own personal thing.

The Canucks’ opponent, the Boston Bruins, have drawn inspiration from a jacket they pass to each game’s best player.

Viesturs, said Bieksa said, has been the Canucks’ version of a magic jacket.

“He spoke to us at the beginning of the season and spoke to us before the playoffs,” Bieksa said. “So he’s been our guy.”

Bieksa said there are “a lot of parallels” between hockey and high altitude mountain climbing.

“The challenges and teamwork obviously,” he said. “(Viesturs) summits a lot of the peaks but it takes a whole team just to get up there. It’s months and months of climbing and it’s years and years of training, too.

Read the full Globe and Mail story here.