Some guys go through life as a Robin. They’re a sidekick, and no matter how many bad guys they catch they’re never going to get Cat Woman, and they’ll always be the Boy Wonder. Chris Kunitz has made a hockey career out of doing just that. In Anaheim, he was known as the guy who played with Ryan Getzlaf. In Pittsburgh, he is the guy who plays with Sidney Crosby.
Remember when Crosby was out with that concussion? Kunitz was loaned out to Pittsburgh’s other superstar centre, where he would become Evgeni Malkin’s winger. “I don’t worry about it. I don’t buy into it,” Kunitz says. “I play my game, that’s how I’ve got to where I am. I don’t change it, whether I play with Geno or I play with Sid.” Or that season-and-a-half in Anaheim with Getzlaf and Corey Perry, where they won a Stanley Cup together. “I haven’t had to complain about my linemates too often,” Kunitz chuckles. “They were probably the ones doing the complaining.”
Humility. Some guys would be sick and tired of what Kunitz goes through on a daily basis—of being, in the eyes of Canadians, the guy who only made the Olympic team because he’s Crosby’s personal assistant. And they’d snap on the scribe who dared greet their Olympic selection with questions about their pedigree. But Kunitz comes from strong Saskatchewan roots. He’s the kind of guy who has always under-promised and over-delivered, with seven seasons of 48 points or better. Inside, he’s stoking the fire.
It’s asinine, really, that any member of our Olympic team would require explaining. But if ever there was one, Kunitz is that guy.
Who is Chris Kunitz? Well, he is a Regina kid who ended up playing Jr. A with the Melville Millionaires and then moved on to that hockey factory (kidding) Ferris State. It was there, at a bar named The Scoreboard, in Big Rapids, Mich., that Kunitz and his teammates gathered for the gold medal game from Salt Lake City back in 2002. “It was college. We had our faces painted. We painted one of the guys’ cars,” he says. “We had a little border set up (in the bar) where we had U.S. guys on one side, and us on the other.”
One other player from that Ferris State team went on to the NHL—Rob Collins, who played eight games with the Islanders. The rest of them landed in the uniforms of teams like the Sheffield Steelers, the Toledo Walleye and the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs.
Meanwhile, Kunitz, who’s played 626 NHL contests, is on Team Canada. “It’s going to be wild,” he says, trying to imagine game one in Sochi. “Energized, exciting, playing against some of the best players in the world, night-in, night-out, trying to accomplish one goal: Win the gold.”
Kunitz was never drafted, but signed as a free agent by Anaheim. He’s not six-feet tall, even though that’s what the NHL will tell you, though he might live up to his listing at 195 lb. “He’s one of the hardest guys I’ve ever seen to play against,” says Ken Hitchcock, Canadian assistant coach. “I’ve never coached against a guy who plays through you like this guy does. I keep asking people, ‘Is he 230?’ Because that’s the way he plays. He knocks everybody on their ass.”
Across the Penguins dressing sits James Neal, whose name was on perhaps as many lists prior to Tuesday’s announcement as Kunitz. Neal was also invited to the August orientation camp hosted by Hockey Canada, but then the season began and Neal lost the first month to injury. Kunitz, meanwhile, joined with Crosby to forge the best tandem in the game this season, with Crosby leading NHL scoring through 45 games (24-41-65), and Kunitz fifth (23-25-48). It is Kunitz with the league-best plus-23 rating however. So offence, strong defence and excellent skating ability complete the circuit from Melville to Sochi.
Even the Boy Wonder didn’t cover as much ground as that.
“Remember, he also played on one of the best lines in hockey with Evgeni Malkin and James Neal,” reminds his coach in Pittsburgh (and Team USA coach) Dan Bylsma. “So he’s been on three of the top six or seven lines in hockey over the past seven years. It can’t be overlooked. In our process with Team USA, we didn’t give anyone consideration because they were a good roommate. You pick the player because they’re the best players. Chris Kunitz made that team because Chris Kunitz deserves to be on that team.”
Indeed he does. But in the passenger seat.
Crosby still drives.