MONTREAL — Nick Suzuki doesn’t bear 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 workforce a homework task to match themselves to whichever NHLer they felt they most resembled as gamers. Nick checked out me and stated, ‘I believe I wish to put Crosby,’ nevertheless it was virtually intimidating to him to match himself to Crosby,” stated Rob Suzuki.
“I advised him, ‘Crosby’s not an unreasonable comparability. You play a fairly good recreation alongside the boards, you don’t do a variety of glamorous, fancy issues, however you set up factors — targets and assists — and are fairly accountable defensively.’
“I believe Nick was a bit too embarrassed to put in writing down Crosby in the long run, although I actually do suppose he modelled a variety of his recreation after Crosby’s, and that’s why he’s turn out to be the kind of participant he’s.”
The kind of participant Nick Suzuki is has put him on the workforce that Crosby might be captaining on the upcoming Olympic Winter Video games in Milan. He’s probably the most full gamers on this 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 respiratory the identical rarified air as Crosby over the following two weeks.
The kind of individual 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 this planet.
As Suzuki’s mom, Amanda, put it: “He doesn’t go on the market and say, ‘Hey, have a look at me, I’m a celebrity, I’m smarter than everyone else,’ and he’s at all times been that manner.”
Beneath all that may be a one who’s at all times recognized how good he’s and how good he might be.
That’s why, as an alternative of simply fantasizing about sooner or later taking part in for the nationwide workforce, Suzuki was visualizing it — even again when he was watching the participant he modelled his recreation after rating the golden objective on the 2010 Vancouver Video games.
“As a child, you type of suppose you are able to do something, however you additionally must be picturing your self in these conditions,” Suzuki stated in a current interview with Sportsnet. “And now you need to consider which you can assist the workforce and play with these legendary gamers who’re going to be your teammates. I can positively image it, and I’m wanting ahead to dwelling that.”
Once we caught up with Suzuki’s mother and father through Zoom two weeks in the past, they stated they have been elated to seek out out they’d be witnessing it after receiving an informal 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 mates and their mother and father on the soccer area.
“He was taking part in with youngsters 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 previous he was,” added Rob. “We stated, ‘4,’ after which she goes, ‘The remainder of the youngsters are turning seven.’”
“He simply at all times excelled at sports activities,” Amanda stated. “No matter it was, he excelled at it.”
For Suzuki, hockey grew to become the be-all, end-all beginning in sixth grade, when he transferred from the Waldorf College in London, Ont., to a non-public hockey academy close by known as Blyth — a college additionally attended by NHLers Travis Konecny, Lawson Crouse, Jared McCann and fellow Crew Canada member Mitch Marner. His mother and father have been capable of afford the schooling hike to ship him there as a result of his brother Ryan determined he needed to switch from Waldorf to a public faculty so he might be in lessons with youngsters from the neighbourhood.
“Nick ended up there by way of Grade 8 and was gaining a basis for figuring out, power, conditioning and expertise,” says Rob. “I needed him to maneuver on to different enjoyable issues after, however after his Grade 8 commencement, he stated he needed to proceed by way of highschool.
“There was solely six youngsters within the class and so they have been all boys, and it was very pigeon-holed and too centered on one factor. I advised him, ‘Are you positive you wish to do that? You’re going to be lacking out on a variety of various things.’
“He stated, ‘I’m positive that is what I wish 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 yr as a practising dentist and he or she’s in her twenty eighth as a chartered skilled accountant who’s edging nearer to retirement from a profession as a senior supervisor answerable for collections for the ministry of finance within the Ontario public sector. They work arduous 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), have been second-generation Canadians, with their grandparents touching down from Japan and Germany many years 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 protected 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 targets and 68 factors in 31 video games and hoped to symbolize Crew Ontario within the 2015 Canada Winter Video games in between, however was surprisingly snubbed earlier than one other boy received injured and cleared the trail for him.
What occurred on the match might be foreshadowing for Milan, with Suzuki nonetheless not sure as to what his function could also be with Crew Canada.
“Nick was known as two weeks earlier than the video games and advised he was lastly on the workforce, 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 received bumped up all through the match. After which he scored what ended up being the profitable objective within the gold-medal recreation.”
That summer season, Suzuki was taken 14th general by Owen Sound within the OHL Draft, and so started his regular rise by way of Canadian junior hockey.
The journey to NHL stardom appeared simply as clean, and now he’s an Olympian.
“This was his future,” Amanda says, “and I believe he knew it early on.”
Suzuki labored tirelessly to materialize it.
After being drafted thirteenth general 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 targets and 7 factors in his first 10 playoff video games earlier than posting seven targets and 16 factors by way of the Canadiens’ 22-game run that put them inside three wins of capturing the Stanley Cup.
A yr later, the Canadiens named Suzuki captain, and all he’s performed since is exhibit the qualities of a participant who belongs on Crew Canada.
Nonetheless, the decision didn’t come for him to symbolize the nation on the 4 Nations Face-Off final February, and that left him each disillusioned and motivated.
Suzuki then compiled 29 targets and 81 factors and rounded out his profile as probably the most full gamers on this planet within the 65 video games performed between the top of that match and the naming of the Canadian Olympic workforce.
He was relieved and honoured to get the decision, citing the possibility 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 workforce regarded 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 workforce 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.
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