Nick Suzuki’s Olympic dream formed watching idol Crosby score golden goal

MONTREAL — Nick Suzuki doesn’t keep in mind this, however his father will always remember it.

“Nick would’ve been 11 or so when he had a coach that gave the boys on his group a homework task to check themselves to whichever NHLer they felt they most resembled as gamers. Nick checked out me and stated, ‘I feel I need to put Crosby,’ but it surely was nearly intimidating to him to check himself to Crosby,” stated Rob Suzuki.

“I instructed him, ‘Crosby’s not an unreasonable comparability. You play a reasonably good recreation alongside the boards, you don’t do numerous glamorous, fancy issues, however you set up factors — objectives and assists — and are fairly accountable defensively.’ 

“I feel Nick was a bit too embarrassed to jot down down Crosby in the long run, although I actually do assume he modelled numerous his recreation after Crosby’s, and that’s why he’s develop into the kind of participant he’s.”

The kind of participant Nick Suzuki is has put him on the group that Crosby can be captaining on the upcoming Olympic Winter Video games in Milan. He’s one of the vital full gamers on the planet — a number one Selke Trophy candidate who’s additionally at the moment the Twelfth-most productive participant within the NHL and fifth-most productive Canadian participant — and that’s simply a part of the explanation he’ll be respiration the identical rarified air as Crosby over the subsequent two weeks.

The kind of particular person Nick Suzuki is, which is completely encapsulated in his father’s anecdote, is the opposite a part of it. He’s as quiet, cool and humble Canadiana because it will get, the sort to by no means beat his personal chest nor evaluate himself to the best participant on the planet.

As Suzuki’s mom, Amanda, put it: “He doesn’t go on the market and say, ‘Hey, take a look at me, I’m a celebrity, I’m smarter than everyone else,’ and he’s all the time been that method.”

Beneath all that could be a one who’s all the time identified how good he’s and how good he might be.

That’s why, as a substitute of simply fantasizing about someday taking part in for the nationwide group, Suzuki was visualizing it — even again when he was watching the participant he modelled his recreation after score the golden goal on the 2010 Vancouver Video games.

“As a child, you sort of assume you are able to do something, however you additionally must be picturing your self in these conditions,” Suzuki stated in a latest interview with Sportsnet. “And now you need to consider that you could assist the group and play with these legendary gamers who’re going to be your teammates. I can positively image it, and I’m wanting ahead to residing that.”

After we caught up with Suzuki’s mother and father by way of Zoom two weeks in the past, they stated they had been elated to seek out out they’d be witnessing it after receiving an off-the-cuff textual content from their son on the final morning of 2025 that learn, “We’re going to Milan.”

“He would’ve known as, however he wasn’t searching for applause,” stated Rob. “He was simply excited to share the expertise with us.”

It’s the most significant step to this point in an athletic ascent that began 22 years in the past, again when Suzuki was wowing his pals and their mother and father on the soccer area.

“He was taking part in with children two or three years older than him, and he was taking part in with them no drawback,” recalled Amanda.

“We introduced cupcakes to a recreation, and somebody’s mother requested how outdated he was,” added Rob. “We stated, ‘4,’ after which she goes, ‘The remainder of the youngsters are turning seven.’”

“He simply all the time excelled at sports activities,” Amanda stated. “No matter it was, he excelled at it.”

For Suzuki, hockey turned the be-all, end-all beginning in sixth grade, when he transferred from the Waldorf Faculty in London, Ont., to a personal hockey academy close by known as Blyth — a faculty additionally attended by NHLers Travis Konecny, Lawson Crouse, Jared McCann and fellow Staff Canada member Mitch Marner. His mother and father had been capable of afford the schooling hike to ship him there as a result of his brother Ryan determined he wished to switch from Waldorf to a public college so he might be in lessons with children from the neighbourhood.

“Nick ended up there by means of Grade 8 and was gaining a basis for understanding, power, conditioning and abilities,” says Rob. “I wished him to maneuver on to different enjoyable issues after, however after his Grade 8 commencement, he stated he wished to proceed by means of highschool.

“There was solely six children within the class and so they had been all boys, and it was very pigeon-holed and too centered on one factor. I instructed him, ‘Are you certain you need to do that? You’re going to be lacking out on numerous various things.’

“He stated, ‘I’m certain that is what I need to do,’ and I hoped he wouldn’t look again on it questioning why he’d spend all this time chasing this hockey dream if it didn’t find yourself materializing. However he stated he wouldn’t, and his dedication proved it.”

Suzuki had good influences.

Rob and Amanda are salt-of-the-earth sorts. He’s now in his thirtieth 12 months as a practising dentist and she or he’s in her twenty eighth as a chartered skilled accountant who’s edging nearer to retirement from a profession as a senior supervisor accountable for collections for the ministry of finance within the Ontario public sector. They work onerous and lead by instance, as their mother and father did earlier than them.

On Amanda’s facet, Maurice and Helen Bell immigrated to Canada from Scotland in 1964 as a result of Maurice, a chemical engineer, was recruited by a Toronto-based firm. Rob’s mother and father, Artwork (a supplies scheduler for 3M) and Marlene (a nurse), had been second-generation Canadians, with their grandparents touching down from Japan and Germany a long time prior.

Rob stated Nick’s quiet and confident-yet-proud nature was inherited from Amanda’s facet of the household, and Amanda stated his humility and athletic genes got here from Rob. It’s secure to say the work ethic was handed down by everybody above.

Coupled with distinctive expertise, it introduced Suzuki success early in his hockey profession, when he was in bantam with the triple-A London Junior Knights.

He scored 34 objectives and 68 factors in 31 video games and hoped to characterize Staff Ontario within the 2015 Canada Winter Video games in between, however was surprisingly snubbed earlier than one other boy obtained injured and cleared the trail for him.

What occurred on the match might be foreshadowing for Milan, with Suzuki nonetheless uncertain as to what his position could also be with Staff Canada.

“Nick was known as two weeks earlier than the video games and instructed he was lastly on the group, after which Drew Bannister had him on the fourth line,” Amanda remembers. “He was the coach, and he was additionally the assistant coach for Owen Sound on the time. Anyway, Nick began on that fourth line, however he performed so nicely he and his linemates obtained bumped up all through the match. After which he scored what ended up being the successful goal within the gold-medal recreation.”

That summer season, Suzuki was taken 14th total by Owen Sound within the OHL Draft, and so started his regular rise by means of Canadian junior hockey.

The experience to NHL stardom appeared simply as clean, and now he’s an Olympian.

“This was his future,” Amanda says, “and I feel he knew it early on.”

Suzuki labored tirelessly to materialize it.

After being drafted thirteenth total by the Vegas Golden Knights and getting traded to the Montreal Canadiens, he went again to junior and dominated, placing up 42 factors over his closing 24 playoff video games to guide the Guelph Storm to an OHL championship.

Then Suzuki posted 41 factors in his first NHL season and adopted it up with one other 41 within the pandemic-abridged, 56-game 2020-21 season.

In each years, the Canadiens went additional within the post-season than anybody anticipated them to, and Suzuki proved what sort of big-game participant he was to assist them do it. He put up 4 objectives and 7 factors in his first 10 playoff video games earlier than posting seven objectives and 16 factors by means of the Canadiens’ 22-game run that put them inside three wins of capturing the Stanley Cup.

A 12 months later, the Canadiens named Suzuki captain, and all he’s executed since is exhibit the qualities of a participant who belongs on Staff Canada.

Nonetheless, the decision didn’t come for him to characterize the nation on the 4 Nations Face-Off final February, and that left him each disenchanted and motivated.

Suzuki then compiled 29 objectives and 81 factors and rounded out his profile as one of the vital full gamers on the planet within the 65 video games performed between the top of that match and the naming of the Canadian Olympic group.

He was relieved and honoured to get the decision, citing the prospect to chase gold alongside Crosby as a imaginative and prescient on the verge of being realized.

“It’s going to be superb experiencing that,” he stated. “Each man on the group seemed as much as Sid, and for him to nonetheless be taking part in on the degree he’s at and being captain of Canada, it’s an honour to be a teammate of his.”

The considered it’s nonetheless surreal to his mother and father.

“I’d have by no means dreamt of that,” says Amanda. “We’re so pleased with the truth that he made the group and is representing Canada. The considered everyone throughout Canada watching my child on the ice, together with Crosby, McDavid and MacKinnon and the best hockey gamers…”

“It means so much,” says Rob.