by Max Domi
10 PUSH YOUR LIMITS
Before the start of the 2017–18 season, my third in the NHL, the Coyotes decided to make a few changes. The NHL is a business, and every year teams across the league make tough decisions. One of the toughest was the team’s decision to part ways with Shane Doan.
When Shane was released from the Coyotes, I called him to thank him for everything he had done for me my first two years in the league. Doan always knew what he had to do as a leader, and he made everyone around him feel comfortable. He was down-to-earth and humble, and he led by example. He was always willing to let others talk, but when he spoke, everyone listened. I looked up to Shane for so many reasons that went beyond the rink, from how much he valued his family to what he gave back to his community. I considered myself lucky to play alongside a legend like Shane, and words alone weren’t enough to thank him.
I tried not to let the changes get to me. Going into that third season, my mind-set was totally different. I had a level of comfort and confidence that I hadn’t had in any season before. My focus wasn’t so much on how I would prove myself. I had a new challenge, one I was completely dedicated to: helping the Coyotes make the playoffs. The difficulties of the past season were behind me now. I was back on track and looking to put everything on the line.
By the time I got back to Arizona, I was gearing up and ready to hit the ground running. But there was one thing in my way: traffic. Not a mental jam, but literal car traffic. The 101 loop from North Scottsdale to Glendale was often locked with bumper-to-bumper traffic.
I always drove to games, and by the time I got there, my stress levels would be through the roof. I was monitoring my blood sugar levels really closely after what had happened in the summer, and I was still experimenting with different solutions for diabetes management, hoping something would stick. My doctors and I discovered that the stress of driving to the rink through that traffic was causing my blood sugar levels to spike. When I got to the rink, my blood sugar would be high from the stress and adrenaline, so I would give myself short-acting insulin to bring it down. At that point, my blood sugar levels weren’t stable, and the last time I wanted to be out of whack and chasing my blood sugar like that was when I was trying to get ready for a game.
So before the start of my third season, I came up with the idea of hiring a car service to drive to me to home games. It would be another investment, but I hoped it would help me, and I was fortunate to be in a position where I could make that choice. I took the plan to the Coyotes trainers, and they agreed.
It worked. Not having to drive eliminated all of that stress, and I was able to arrive at the rink feeling more relaxed and with my blood sugar far more stable.
My diabetes support group now went far beyond just the Coyotes training staff. I also had my family, Orion, and my teammates for my day-to-day support. And I was fortunate to have the help of some of the best specialists in the world.
I still consulted with Anne on a regular basis, too. I spoke to her every two weeks at the very least. Usually it was more like once a week. I’d call her if I had any questions about my diabetes or if I read about any new technology that was on the market.
I had finally accepted the fact that I didn’t have as much control over my blood sugar levels as I thought I did. I realized that, if I didn’t figure it out, I wouldn’t have a long career in the NHL. I was trying to do everything and anything to get this right. Anne and I reviewed new, different types of insulin, continuous glucose monitors, and my diets to determine what worked best, and we sent videos and articles back and forth about new breakthroughs in diabetes research. We’d make a small change, give it time to see how my body reacted, and then adapt from there.
It was amazing to me that, even though I’d lived with diabetes much of my life, I was still learning more every day. Today, there are more ways than ever for people with type 1 diabetes to manage their disease and enjoy long, fulfilled lives in which they survive and thrive. I know my own body better than anyone, and I recognize that the challenges I face are different from what other people might experience—some people with diabetes might never even have the sorts of hypoglycemic episodes that I’ve had. So I’m constantly reading up on the disease and studying it to figure out what works best for me. There is so much I can still learn about insulin and why my body reacts to it the way it does. How do different injection methods affect the way my body absorbs the insulin? How did I sleep the night before and did that affect my blood sugar? What improved tools—new forms of glucagon, nasal spray, low-dose injections with smaller needles—will roll out as technology improves? In my opinion, Anne is one of the best diabetes specialists in the world, and even an expert like her is still learning.
Routine and discipline were always going to be part of the equation for my diabetes management. But my routines were changing that year. Just before the start of the season, the Coyotes hired a whole new training staff. It was hard seeing the old staff go—they had been such an instrumental part of my journey in the NHL so far. When the new staff arrived, one of the first things we did was sit down so that I could tell them all about my diabetes, how I managed it, and what I would need from them.
“From what I hear, you test your blood a lot,” one trainer said.
“I do,” I said with a laugh. “Although I don’t test at the ten-minute mark anymore because I’m more dialed in. I’ll still need you to have my supplies on the bench, and I’ll look to you when I need them.”
When I was finished, the trainers glanced at each other, and then the head trainer, Dave Zenobi, nodded. “I’m impressed. You seem to know what you’re doing. Keep doing your thing, and know that whatever you need us to do, we’re always here for you.”
I was thankful that they trusted me to manage my own diabetes. I knew I could trust them to help me if anything ever went wrong, and I appreciated the fact that it was a two-way street. It was finally starting to feel as though I was controlling my disease instead of the other way around. I felt a newfound sense of independence.
The next thing that Anne and I decided to focus on was my nutrition plan. Food is all-important for people with type 1 diabetes. Everything we eat needs to be for a reason, and it has to be calculated. My constant snacking wasn’t working so well with our hockey schedule.
“You need to give your body time to break down all of those simple and complex carbohydrates from meals,” Anne told me.
I had to completely rethink my diet. Instead of my snacking throughout the day, Anne suggested I eat three or four meals, and nothing more. So I hired a personal chef named Ian to come help me out during the season. Ian had studied under my last chef, Johnny, and his wife, Whitney, whom I had worked with during my first two years in Arizona. My diabetes team was growing ever larger, and having a personal chef help me with my nutrition was just another part of my personal diabetes toolkit. It was an investment in my body—one I was lucky enough to be able to make—and I knew it would eliminate a lot of variables and guesswork when it came to my blood sugar levels. Not all of them, of course—the variables for a person with type 1 diabetes are endless—but enough so that when I showed up to the rink, all I would have to think about was hockey.
Ian was a young guy and a professional chef, but he quickly realized that cooking for a person with type 1 diabetes was a lot harder than it first seemed. After a couple of weeks, I found Ian in the kitchen and asked how things were going.
“Honestly, man,” he said as he cut up a chicken breast, “I think I’m going to have to re-teach myself how to cook.”
And he did. Ian became a diabetes specialist in his own right. He read books about the disease and diet to see how they related, and he talked regularly with Anne and her team. Working with Anne changed everything when it came to my nutrition. Ian and I monitored my blood sugar levels throughout the day and the meals I ate. We recorded how well I slept, how many hours of sleep I got, how much I weighed, how many grams of carbohydrates I ate at a meal, how much insulin I’d inje
cted before the meal, and anything else that could be used to monitor my diabetes. Then we sent every bit of data to Anne and her dietician so that they could refine the plan.
One day, after dinner, we decided to shoot some pool. That sounds simple enough. We were in the middle of the game, joking around and having a good time, when Ian gave me a funny look.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
I was lining up for a shot, but I couldn’t focus on the ball. I looked up at Ian with a glassy-eyed stare. I knew I was going low.
“I think I should test my blood,” I said slowly.
“Definitely,” he said. “Why don’t you sit down.”
I pricked my finger and then looked at the number on my glucose meter—1.4, which is insanely low. All of a sudden I had blurred vision and could barely see straight. Ian grabbed me a bunch of apple juice. I finished it quickly, and started to rebound. Before long, I was feeling much more like myself.
For me, the incident wasn’t all that unique. I’d known something was wrong and managed to quickly fix it. But it was an eye-opener for Ian, who’d never seen me go that low, that fast before.
I’m the sort of guy who always wants to keep fighting. That’s a great personality trait to have if you play in the NHL. If we’re down 5–1, I’m not giving up—every shift, I’m going to try and score to get us back into the game. But when I get low and that same voice inside my head tells me, You can get through this, it can be dangerous. When I was younger, I was more willing to listen to that voice and try to shrug things off. But more and more, I was learning that sometimes you have to know your limits.
Luckily, I had a coach who also understood that. Rick Tocchet had been hired as our new head coach at the start of the season. I saw a lot of my dad in Rick. He genuinely cared about everyone, and he connected with you immediately. He was an old-school guy—as long as you showed up to the rink, worked your hardest every single day, and bought into what the team was trying to do, Rick would have your back no matter what. He wanted to win just as bad as, if not more than, every guy in our locker room.
Toward the end of the year, we were in Minnesota for a game. Before our morning skate, Tocchet pulled me into the visitor’s equipment room.
I expected him to chew me out. Rick doesn’t play head games—he says what he means, and he’ll call you out when he needs to. I respected that about him. I had been fighting a cold, which always drives my blood sugar system into chaos. When my body is fighting an illness, my blood sugar levels run high and my body is resistant to the insulin, so depending on how sick I am, I have to increase my insulin dosages by anywhere from 10 to 25 percent.
“Everything good?” Rick asked.
I froze. It wasn’t the question I was expecting.
“Yeah, I’m all good,” I said.
“No, you’re not,” he replied. “What’s up?”
“I didn’t play well last game,” I said. “That’s on me.”
Tocchet paused. “Max, I didn’t call you here to talk about your play last game. What I want to know is whether there’s anything I can do differently to help you.”
I was blown away. “You, the trainers, and the team already do so much for me,” I said. “I’m thankful for everything you guys do.”
“I don’t want you to ever feel that you are asking for too much from us,” he said. “Whatever you’re dealing with, I want to help. But you need to communicate with me and the rest of the staff.”
I instantly felt a huge weight lift off my shoulders; I could breathe again. It was one of the first one-on-one conversations I’d had with Tocchet, and I could see that he was a good person, and he genuinely cared about his players.
“I will, I promise,” I said. “All I want is to help this team win.”
“If the game’s not going your way, you have to simplify and not do too much.”
Tocchet wasn’t just talking about playing with diabetes—he was talking about the difficulties that come with the daily grind and the ups and downs of the NHL, things that every player in the league battles.
“I’ll level with you, Max,” Tocchet said. “I’ll be straight up with you, and I’ll tell you if you make a mistake. But it’s all just to make you a better player.”
I left feeling so much better than I did when I went in. Tocchet was one of the most respected guys in the league, both as a player and as a coach, and at that moment, a light bulb went off. It was the first time I felt I could talk openly and be heard like that without being judged. Tocchet had given me a safe place to talk, and he’d given me my confidence back—I trusted he wanted to see me succeed. I’d been lucky to have incredible coaches throughout my career, but I’d never been able to connect with a coach like that. It was a breakthrough, and I knew I would carry that lesson with me going forward.
* * *
My attitude was tested more than once throughout the rest of that season. We were struggling to win games, and I couldn’t seem to put the puck in the net. Each game that passed without a point for me or the team, I lost a little more confidence. And when you lose confidence, everything else in your game goes to shit.
I had never experienced a drought like that. Like anyone else, I had ups and downs during a season. But I’d never had one that was this bad or that went on for this long. Hockey wasn’t fun anymore, and it felt as though there wasn’t anything I could do to stop the slide. The more I thought about the problem, the more I stressed about it. And that stress threw my blood sugar out of whack, which meant I went through unpredictable mood swings. Everything was off.
Ironically, the only time that I was able to calm myself down and be productive was when I stopped thinking about hockey. When I stepped back, took a breath, and relaxed away from the rink, it changed everything. It was eye-opening—I realized that playing in the NHL had started as my passion and my job, but I was letting it consume my life.
I had thought that life in the NHL was all there was, and I’d forgotten about the other things that had a big impact on my life—family, friends, Orion, having fun. Hockey didn’t exist apart from those things. They were all a part of my life and I couldn’t have one without the other.
I talked to a few people about what was happening to me, including a sports psychologist. Doing that allowed me to better understand what was going on in my life and chart a way through all the chaos. I made more time for myself and sought out more quiet moments at home with Orion. I tried to reflect on what was going on inside me and what was making me feel that way.
I also relied on the help of the team around me. Once again, Rick Tocchet’s guidance and support made the difference—I don’t know what I would have done without him.
One day, we were in Minnesota preparing for a game that night. I was getting ready for our morning skate when Rick called me into the equipment room for a meeting.
“I want you to do one thing tonight,” Rick began. “Go have fun. Just play and don’t worry about anything else.”
“I feel bad,” I admitted. “I still haven’t shown you what I can do.”
I had so much respect for Rick. He had coached some of the best players in the world, and he had won it all as both a player and a coach. I didn’t want to be a burden on the team. But Rick and I talked for a while, and he made it clear that he was cheering me on and wanted nothing but the best. He knew what I was capable of on the ice.
I didn’t realize how long we were talking until I finally headed back to the dressing room and found that everyone was already on the ice.
Rick’s words were like the ultimate motivational speech. Finally, I felt that I was in a better space. I told myself that I wasn’t going to dwell on the past or what had happened earlier in the year. I had to make those last few months of the season count.
It seemed to work. Our team won eleven games down the stretch—not enough to make the playoffs, but it felt good to finally be clicking. Personally, I felt good on and off the ice, too, which was a relief. All of the trials and errors of the p
ast few years—both the ones on the ice and the ones related to my diabetes management—were finally paying off. For the first time in my life, I felt as though I finally had everything under control.
I hoped we could pick up the same momentum at the start of the next season. During my end-of-season exit interviews, Rick Tocchet once again told me something that comforted me and made me feel better.
“You can’t have a career in the NHL and not go through a season like you just did,” he said. “The ups and downs that you went through are part of life in the NHL. It is what it is. And I am proud of the way that you overcame that adversity.”
As far as I was concerned, I was a Coyote, and I planned to be back the next year so I could give the team everything I had. I believed in myself and in what our team could do.
In June 2018, shortly after the season ended, I went to New York City to spend some time with my dad. We were visiting with an old family friend when my phone rang.
“Hello?” I said.
“Max, it’s John.” It was John Chayka, the Coyotes’ GM. He was calling to let me know that I had been traded to the Montreal Canadiens.
I was in a daze, but I managed to pull myself together. “Thank you for everything, John,” I said. “I’ve loved being a Coyote. I wish you and the rest of the organization nothing but the best.”