No Days Off

by Max Domi

  “Max, did you hear me?” Gail asked.

  When I didn’t answer, Gail asked Scott to go upstairs and check on me. A few seconds later, he called down.

  “Gail, you need to come up here,” Scott yelled.

  Gail went running upstairs and joined Scott. They could see right away what had happened: I had gone low. I was sweating like crazy—it looked like someone had thrown a bucket of water on me—and I was almost completely unresponsive. They tried to get me to drink some juice, but I refused and held my teeth together. Scott grabbed their emergency glucagon—an ugly needle long enough to pierce through clothing—which they kept on hand for exactly this sort of situation.

  Gail started mixing the dose, while Scott tried to hold me still so that he could deliver the needle.

  “Stop it!” I yelled as I rolled around. I kept trying to pull the blankets up to cover myself. I wasn’t acting rationally, and I didn’t know what I was doing, so I couldn’t recognize that Scott and Gail were trying to save me. I was so out of it that I wouldn’t even remember what happened until Gail and Scott told me about it after.

  They finally rolled me onto my stomach so that they could inject the glucagon into my butt cheek. I was still thrashing around, but they eventually managed to jab in the needle.

  “That hurts!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

  I immediately rolled away from Scott and Gail. They desperately tried to keep me on my stomach—they were afraid the needle would bend or break off inside me if I rolled too far. Gail climbed onto the far side of the bed and tried to push me back toward Scott so that he could take out the needle. But I wouldn’t stop putting up a fight.

  Finally, out of desperation, Gail slapped me in the face to calm me down. It didn’t work. I laughed manically, like I was the Joker from Batman, but I still wouldn’t roll back over.

  “Smarten up, Max,” Gail said as she slapped me again. That second one quieted me down enough for Scott to finish the injection and get the needle out.

  Within a few minutes of the injection, I started to come around. I looked up at Gail and Scott beside me. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Gail was huffing and puffing, because even after the slap, she and Scott still had to use all their strength to hold me down and make sure the needle came out safely.

  I felt awful when they told me what had happened. I didn’t want to be a burden on them, and clearly it had been an ordeal. I thanked them, had a shower, and got dressed, while Gail and Scott phoned my family to fill them in on what had happened—any time anything diabetes-related happened, Gail and Scott let my parents know. My mom was usually pretty relaxed, but my dad could often get more worked up, and I knew he’d be extra worried after this recent episode.

  Gail called the team and told them that I was going to be late for the bus, and when I’d recovered enough to head out, Scott drove me over. I still felt awful—it would be days before I felt back to normal—but I was determined to head out with the team on our road trip.

  Steve Sullivan, who is now the Coyotes’ assistant general manager, was a development coach for us at the time, and he kept tabs on me after I got sent back to London. Steve helped me deal with the stress of being cut from the Coyotes training camp and kept me focused on working on my game and becoming more NHL-ready.

  More than anything else, though, what Steve helped me understand was that every type of adversity has to be handled differently. You have to deal with each challenge—whether it’s being cut from a team, being diagnosed with diabetes, or your parents divorcing—one at a time. And every challenge makes you stronger and teaches you how to deal with the next one. Becoming an NHL player isn’t all roses—it can suck at some points. Setbacks are going to happen. It’s how you choose to meet all those different challenges that matters.

  Thankfully, I was about to be given a chance to rise to one of the greatest challenges for a young hockey player—the World Juniors. I was invited to the summer tryouts for that year’s team. I was confident again heading into the tryouts, given how I’d been playing the past few months. But underneath that confidence was a bundle of nerves. The memory of being cut the year before still stuck with me. What if the coaches didn’t see a spot for me on the team again? What if I suddenly went low and couldn’t perform during the tryouts?

  Face the challenges one at a time, I reminded myself. Show them you belong here.

  Finally, on a snowy Saturday in December 2014, the day of the announcement arrived. I was hanging in the basement of our family home in Toronto, half of my attention on social media and the other half on TSN on the TV in front of me. Suddenly my phone rang—it was an official from Hockey Canada. I’d been selected for the final World Junior camp, right before the tournament.

  We spoke for less than a minute, and I barely heard anything they said after “Congratulations.” Compared to the pain of having been cut the year before, this phone call felt like winning the lottery. I’d dreamed about playing for Team Canada for so long, and now that dream was that much closer to coming true.

  When I’d finished calling everyone and anyone I knew to share the news, I turned back to the TV to watch a World Junior special with James Duthie and Bob McKenzie. The ticker at the bottom of the screen was listing the names of the other players who had been invited to that final camp. As I saw the roster scroll by, I grinned. This is going to be a really good team, I thought. All my nerves transformed into pure excitement. I just wanted the tournament to start so we could try to win the gold medal.

  I felt even better when I walked into the dressing room a few weeks later, and the first person I saw was Anthony Duclair. I had first met Anthony at the Ivan Hlinka Tournament for Under-Eighteens a few years before, and we’d gotten along right away. Out on the ice at the World Junior tryouts, we worked together in a couple of drills, and all I could think was, Wow, this guy can play! We complemented each other’s game and style of play, and when the coaches partnered us with Sam Reinhart—or Rhino, as we called him—for scrimmages, we found great chemistry. Sam is a huge centerman whose hockey IQ is through the roof. He could play on both sides of the rink and in every situation, and he created a lot of space for the rest of the line. Duclair is blazing fast and a pure goal scorer—you get him the puck in the right area and he’ll score.

  All three of us made it through the team’s final cuts. The tournament was split between Montreal and Toronto that year, and the stakes were high. Canada hadn’t won a medal in either of the past two tournaments, and more important, they hadn’t won a gold in five years. There was a lot of pressure for us to bring home some hardware—our mind was set on the gold, but some people felt that anything would do.

  We tried not to let that pressure get to us. Along with being a great line mate, Duclair was a lot of fun to hang out with off the ice. We talked about how we would avoid getting wound up before games, and we decided that our thing at the World Juniors that year would be going to the spa together. The first time we went was when Team Canada was training in Niagara Falls. The hotel we were staying at had a high-end spa, and Anthony and I visited it at least twice while we were there. We would get a massage, a manicure, and a pedicure. Afterward, Anthony would cruise around the hotel in a robe—he had no shame, and the guys thought it was hilarious, which kept things relaxed.

  Our team that year was a powerhouse. We won our four round robin games, and we only gave up four goals the entire time. Then we crushed Denmark and Slovakia by a combined score of 13–1 in the quarter- and semifinals. We were flying high.

  The energy was infectious on the ice. Early on in the tournament I scored a goal, and in the celebration afterward, for whatever reason, I stuck my tongue out and started laughing. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or anything—I almost didn’t know I was doing it the first time. But the boys on the team thought it was hilarious, and the next thing I knew, it was my trademark celebration.

  The celebratory atmosphere spilled off the ice and into the stands. During games I almo
st never look into the crowd—I want to remain focused on what’s happening in front of me and stay present with my teammates. But during one round robin game, after we scored, I could sense a person staring at me. Before high-fiving my teammates, I looked to my right into the stands. There, I made eye contact with my uncle Ori, who was standing and cheering me on. It was an incredible moment—I felt so proud and lucky that my family was right there with me.

  After our wins in the quarter- and semifinals, we were set for a showdown with Russia in the gold medal game. You couldn’t ask for anything more than that as a player. My mom, dad, and sisters were all at the game at the ACC.

  On January 5, 2015, while the rest of the nation was gathering around their TVs or making their way to the arena for that night’s championship game, I was doing what I always did before a game—pricking my finger and testing my blood to make sure my blood sugar level was exactly where it needed to be. I’d been constantly testing all day long to make sure my levels were in the proper range, and I wasn’t about to slip up, not with so much at stake. I knew my emotions could easily make it a challenge to stay in the right range that day, but I had to keep myself as stable as I could. This was the biggest game of my life.

  Looking back on not just the game but that entire day, I wish I would have been able to enjoy it more and take it all in. I was so focused on the game, keeping my blood sugar level normal, and getting dialed in that I wasn’t really enjoying everything happening around me. My family were texting me, sending me photos of them decked out in Team Canada gear and describing the party that fans were having outside the arena. I was pumped, and I felt my heart rate spike every time a new message came in, but I told myself to treat it like any other game day.

  As I entered the rink for the pregame warm-up, I reflected on what had happened over the past year. Twelve months earlier I had been absolutely gutted after hearing the news that I’d been cut from Team Canada. Now here I was, about to step onto the ice at Air Canada Centre, my dad’s old rink, playing for Team Canada in the gold medal game for the World Juniors.

  Unlike anyone else on Team Canada, I knew every inch of the ACC. When I was a kid, I would sometimes jump into the hot tub in the Leafs dressing room while my dad was on the ice for practice. Fast forward to that night, and I was back in the hot tub again before our warm-up, this time as a player so I could try to calm my nerves. I looked around at the photos of previous Leafs rosters hanging on the wall, and a wave of déjà vu hit me as I realized that the room looked exactly the same as when I was a kid.

  After I got out of the hot tub, I tested my blood again. My levels were a little high, all because I was super-excited for the game to start—when your adrenaline is ramped up, your blood sugar can rise with it. I wasn’t too concerned, though. In a game like that, I would rather start a little higher so that I have a buffer, knowing that my blood sugar level is going to come down. When I tested my blood again just before the game started, my numbers were at the perfect level for me to start flying the moment the puck dropped.

  It wasn’t only me; the whole dressing room was just so pumped as we got ready to play that night. During our pregame meal, I pulled Anthony Duclair aside.

  “We have to do something to get this crowd into it right away, man,” I said.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “We need to get the Russians going. At the opening face-off, I’m going to turn and give the Russian beside me a whack. As soon as I do that, he’s going to do the same to me. Then you do the same to your winger.”

  Anthony smiled. “I like it. Let’s do it.”

  A few minutes before we headed out for our warm-ups, Coach Benoit Groulx came in to give us his pregame speech. He kept it simple. He looked at us and said, “You’ve been working towards this night for a long, long time. Don’t think too much and have fun out there. You know what you need to do. So go do what you’ve been working for your whole life.”

  It was the perfect thing to say in that moment, and every one of us in that room was pushing hard for the guy next to him. Usually on teams like these, at least the ones that I’ve been a part of, you don’t come together as a team quite as much as you would in the regular season because you only have a short time together. But Team Canada that year, we came together quickly and became really close. Each of us trusted that the next guy was going to do his job, and we knew we had the support of the entire country behind us.

  When it was game time against the Russians and we walked onto the ice, the arena was absolutely packed with cheering fans. When I left the dressing room the chants were a distant rumble, but with each step toward the ice they became louder. When my skates hit the ice, the roar of the fans washed out everything else.

  Holy shit, is this really happening? I thought as I skated a few laps. The whole arena was painted red and white, from the video screens to the jersey that every fan seemed to be wearing. I had always wanted to play in front of a crowd like that, in a game with international stakes, and here I was. It was like a dream come true.

  Rhino, Anthony, and I had started every game in the tournament, so I knew we would be out there to start the gold medal game. Sure enough, we were tipped to start the game. As we lined up at center ice, I looked over at Anthony—it was time to poke the Russian bear.

  The Russians did exactly what we wanted them to do and poked us back. As we waited for the opening face-off, I speared the Russian, and he cross-checked me in the head. Anthony did the same thing and got a similar reaction, and the referees raced over to break up all four of us. The linesman had to keep standing between me and the Russian winger to stop us from going at it. It was perfect—the ACC crowd went nuts.

  The puck dropped, and we sent it deep into their zone. Anthony picked up the puck and won a battle along the half wall on the left wing, then passed it down low to me near the goal line. I sidestepped a defenseman as Sam went to the net and Anthony cut to the hash marks. I fed Anthony a pass under the Russian defenseman’s stick, and with one motion he smoothly caught the puck a little behind him and ripped it far side for a beauty goal. The ACC went absolutely bananas. It was twenty-three seconds into the first period, and we had a 1–0 lead.

  Anthony skated toward our bench to celebrate, and I raced over from behind the net to join him. Anthony had this massive smile, and as our line all piled around him we were so fired up, all we could do was scream. The thrill of that first shift had everyone jacked up.

  After that shift, it seemed like everything seemed to be happening for us. We went up 2–0 a couple of minutes later on a beautiful tip by Nick Paul that had the fans on their feet. But the Russians scored later in the period, cutting our lead in half at the end of the first frame.

  During the intermission, though, the guys in the dressing room weren’t worried at all. We still felt the game was ours to win, and we were determined to make that happen.

  Five minutes into the second period, Josh Morrissey sprang Connor McDavid on a breakaway with an incredible pass. There’s fast, and then there’s Connor McDavid fast. Connor blew by the Russians and made no mistakes. We were back up by two.

  Then, just before the halfway mark of the game, I had a chance of my own. I cruised down the left wing with the puck as Sam pretended to cut to the net. Using him as a decoy, I pulled the puck toward my body and fired a wrist shot that flew into the net under the Russian goalie’s arm. I pounded both fists on the boards and hugged my teammates as they crowded around me.

  It seemed like nothing could stop us. Not long after I scored, Sam and I went on a rush to the Russians’ end. I took a harmless shot toward the net, and Sam got a stick on it, tapping the puck just enough to mess with the goalie and squeeze through his five-hole for a goal.

  At that point, we felt we were in complete control of the game and that we had it in the bag. But the Russians weren’t giving up. They scored three times, bringing our lead to a narrow 5–4.

  I can only imagine how nervous everyone who was watching the game
from the outside felt. But inside the team, we weren’t worried. Coach Benoit Groulx was a funny guy. He had a French accent and he could never say “tic-tac-toe” properly. It always came out like “tic-tac-tao.” It became a running joke throughout the tournament.

  When the Russians were starting to make it close, Groulx called a time-out. As we gathered around the bench, he looked around at the team, all of us expecting him to give us some big speech. Instead, he just said, “Tic-tac-tao.” We laughed, and the stress was immediately gone.

  The same atmosphere held in the dressing room during the second intermission. We were still in the lead, and we had just twenty minutes left to play. All we had to do was play our game, and we’d win the thing.

  The third period was tense. There was a ton of back-and-forth and multiple chances for both us and the Russians. But neither of us could crack the other’s goalie that period. Finally, with 3.9 seconds left, there was a final face-off in our end. I was on the bench, but I knew we were in good hands because Rhino was taking the draw on his strong side.

  I’ve seen him win this type of face-off tons of times, he is not going to lose it, I thought as I sat on top of the boards of our bench, waiting to jump onto the ice for the celebration.

  Sure enough, Sam won the draw, we held the puck for the last few seconds, and as the final buzzer sounded, the arena exploded.

  The whole team flew toward our goalie, Zach Fucale. I don’t know who got to him first, but it was a mob scene. We were jumping up and down and screaming nonstop. At the end of it, we would barely be able to speak.

  When we finally settled down, we lined up on the blue line for the awards ceremony. A gold medal was hung around each of our necks, and our captain, Curtis Lazar, hoisted the trophy above his head at center ice as the fans roared. We were smiling ear to ear as the whole arena sang the national anthem. All of us were such bad singers, but to stand arm-in-arm with your teammates and sing “O Canada” in your own country after winning a gold medal is an emotional moment.