Mitch Marner carried his bag toward the London Knights bus, convinced that his hockey career was over. It was the first year of his eligibility for the NHL draft, and somehow his talent had vanished when he needed it most. He’d only managed to score a single goal and four assists in the first 10 games of the season, and after losing that night in October 2014 to the Erie Otters, Marner was pointless in four straight games. Meanwhile, two players he’d grown up being compared to had lit the Knights up in a 6–2 win for the Otters. Connor McDavid—the consensus No. 1 pick, and most touted prospect in a decade—scored a goal and added two assists. Dylan Strome, McDavid’s linemate, had a goal and an assist, which gave him an astounding 30 points in the same amount of time it had taken Marner to score just five.
Marner met his father, Paul, before he reached the team bus for the four-and-a-half hour trip back to London, Ont.
“Dad, I suck,” he said. “I’m so embarrassed for you and Mom. I’m no good.”
The words nearly broke Paul Marner. He knew his son had misplaced the joy he’d had every time he stepped on the ice since he was a toddler growing up just north of Toronto. And he knew there was only one place where Mitch Marner could rediscover what he’d lost. Paul followed the Knights bus through the night and met the team back in London. When Mitch walked off the bus, Paul told his son that, together, they were heading home.
Doubt has chased Marner throughout his life in hockey. As he fast-tracked through every level in the game, he ran up against outside concerns that he was too small and too weak to make it. It was almost laughable for a kid with his natural scoring ability. He’d never let it bother him. But suddenly, in the most important year of his young life, the doubt had finally caught up. And while hindsight tells us that things worked out for Marner—he was taken fourth overall by his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2015 NHL draft—he will soon face even more pressure, carrying a fair share of the franchise’s great expectations on his lean shoulders. Whether he arrives with the Leafs next season or is sent back to London for another year in junior, the question is starting to bubble among fans and critics alike: Is Marner ready? It was something, for a time, he wasn’t sure of himself.
The London Knights are the closest the thing to a professional team in the junior hockey market. Wearing the coveted green and gold sweater comes with the expectation of winning. In London, Mitch Marner was a star. In his first season with the team as a 16-year-old, he regularly received fan mail and admirers showed up in cabs at his billet house. At the movies, or at the shopping mall, Marner was often stopped to sign autographs or pose for a picture. But even surrounded by the growing fame, he sought the simplicity of family life. Living with Mark and Leah Bartlett, his billet family, he preferred curling up on the couch to watch a movie, or organizing board game nights, than taking advantage of his social status in the city.
Marner went home with his dad that night in the fall of 2014 and stayed there for several days, missing practices and meetings, allowing his mind to escape the maelstrom that the sport had become for him. Paul and Bonnie Marner didn’t speak to their son about hockey through the several days they spent together, except to remind him that there was life and love beyond the game. He sat on the family’s big comfy couch in the living room, next to the family’s thick chocolate Lab, Winston, and their white ragdoll cat, Burbank, watched movies and played video games. He hung out with his older brother, Chris, who is one of his closest friends. Marner wears the number 93 because it’s the year his brother was born—and because Doug Gilmour was one of his dad’s favourite players. Anyone close to Marner says that family is the most important part of his life. He keeps the initials of his mother, father and brother, written above his locker in the Knights dressing room.
But while the time at home helped centre him, Marner still needed to rediscover the magic that had allowed him to tally 46 assists and 59 points as a 16-year-old rookie with the Knights, and fuelled the expectation that he’d go high in the NHL draft. So he returned to the coach he’s worked with since he first learned how to skate.
When Marner was four years old his father took him to Rob Desveaux, who runs 3 Zones hockey school in Ajax, Ont., and at the time was working with a young Tyler Seguin. Desveaux usually only begins to work with kids when they are six, but Paul Marner knew his son had a unique ability. Initially, Desveaux refused to work with him. “Every dad thinks his kid is a superstar,” he says. But Paul Marner was persistent. Finally Desveaux agreed to assess young Mitch’s talent at the rink. When Paul showed up, Desveaux asked him where his son was. Paul reached behind the bench and pulled Mitch up. “He was that small,” Desveaux says. “I didn’t even know he was there.”
Thirteen years later, Marner carved into the same ice at the spartan Ajax Community Centre as he had as a four-year-old. It was the only on-ice session Marner took during his brief sabbatical from the Knights. Desveaux had become part of Marner’s close-knit circle; a part of the family. Mitch had even lived with his coach’s family for a brief time when the Marners needed a regional address to allow their son to play in the GTHL for Vaughan.
“I want you to get back to the roots we started with,” Desveaux told Mitch as he took the ice at the Ajax Community Centre. They skated around the ring together a few times.
“What’s going on?” he asked Marner.
“I don’t know, coach Rob,” Marner said. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
They skated around for an hour, running through old drills they used to have fun with, working one-on-one to battle each other off the puck, knocking each other on their asses. After the first hour, Desveaux had a long list of bad habits Marner had picked up through his first season in London. He was shooting off the wrong foot… his stride and crossovers were off… his hands were too low… his stick was off the ice… They went on the ice for another couple of hours, working on fundamentals with a couple of Desveaux’s instructors.
Watching the from behind the glass, Paul and Bonnie Marner saw their son drift back into the joy he’d shown playing minor hockey. They saw the smile he wore when he’d pretend to be Sidney Crosby playing mini-sticks in the corner of Garnet B. Rickard Arena in Bowmanville, Ont., where he’d go to watch his older brother play. The pressure was gone. He was home, having fun, playing the game he loved.
There’s no problem here, Mitch,” Desveaux told Marner after they got off the ice. “You just have to get back to normal.”
When Marner returned to the Knights his play hadn’t just returned to normal. He scored 29 points in his next 10 games, with 13 goals and 16 assists. He had four hat tricks and two five-point games in the month of November alone. He went on to finish second on OHL scoring with 126 points in 62 games. Dylan Strome led the league with 129 points in 68 games, while Connor McDavid had 120 points in 47 games.
The Marner family flew to Miami for the 2015 NHL draft, with the hope that the Toronto Maple Leafs would select Mitch. The Leafs interim GM, Mark Hunter, had selected Marner for the Knights with the last pick of the first round in 2013 OHL draft. Privately, the family worried that Arizona would take Marner with the third pick, after Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel were selected first and second. But when Dylan Strome’s name was called third overall there was a loud cheer from a section in the stands where family and friends of the Marners were seated. They knew then, even before his name was called, that Mitch Marner was coming home.
A season later, the expectation has grown exponentially for Marner. London Knights highlights showcasing his playmaking ability became required viewing for Leafs fans eager for something to cheer about. With 116 points in 57 games, he was named the OHL’s most outstanding player.
But while there doesn’t appear to be anything left for Marner’s development in junior hockey, there are concerns about whether he is physically ready to play in the NHL. Much has been said about Marner’s apparently slight frame, but strength is not really an issue. At about six feet tall and 165 lb., Marner back-squats multiple reps at 375 lb. He’s worked with the same performance coach, Dan Noble, since he was in the eighth grade at Vaughn Hill Academy. (Noble is similarly embedded in the family’s close circle—during an exhibition game at the World Juniors when Marner wasn’t dressed, he spotted Noble sitting alone in the stands and quickly texted his dad asking him to go and sit with him.) Noble likens Marner’s body type to that of a defensive back in football—tall, lean and fast. While Marner needs to put on muscle mass, Noble says, its needs to be done intelligently without loading up for the sake of appearances.
On May 5, Marner’s 19th birthday, he scored a goal and an assist, helping the London Knights win the first game of the league final over the Niagara Ice Dogs. He was on a potentially record-setting scoring pace, with 39 points in 15 playoff games. After the game, Bonnie and Paul Marner went down the hallway and waited outside the Knights locker room. They told their son that just a few hours earlier a fire had engulfed the family home back in Thornhill. They had been informed while en route to London for the game. Video of the massive blaze was already posted online and in the local news.
Marner’s first question was about the pets. Burbank and Winston had been rescued. But the damage to the home wasn’t fully known. An entire vault of memories could have been gone. The Marners taped every one of their son’s games when he was growing up, often pouring through the footage afterwards looking for ways to improve. There were photographs, and medals, Team Canada sweaters. There were mementoes of home, possibly gone forever. Marner hugged his parents tight, shocked by the news. He managed to crack a baffled smile, watching the footage on his mother’s phone. It was devastating. But everything—everyone—that mattered was safe.
A short time later, dressed in a blue suit, shirt and bowtie, he walked out into the lobby at the Budweiser Gardens, where a row of fans waited for him. He signed an autograph for each of them, and smiled politely for a few photos. Then he walked over to where his family, the Bartletts and a few other friends were waiting for him. He gave out several hugs, as he is prone to do, and gave another to his mother.
The Knights would go on to sweep Niagara and win the OHL championship, with Marner winning the award for Most Valuable Payer in the playoffs, scoring 44 points in 18 games.
The Memorial Cup lay just ahead. And beyond that, a chance to prove that—without a doubt—Mitch Marner’s ready for whatever comes next.
