Hischier took meteoric rise to No. 1
DEVILS’ PICK — WHOSE DAD WAS A SOCCER PRO — DIDN’T COMMIT TO HOCKEY UNTIL HE WAS 12
Nico Hischier’s father played soccer, his mother was a swimmer and his older sister played volleyball. Growing up in the Swiss Alps, Hischier skied and snowboarded in the winter, then played soccer, swam and launched himself off diving boards in the summer.
So hockey was not a foregone conclusion for Hischier, the 18- year- old centre selected No. 1 overall by the New Jersey Devils in the NHL entry draft, especially growing up in a country that is not as widely known for producing hockey players as, say, Canada, the United States or Russia. But he is a hockey player now.
“I think I said this to Nico: Whether he was Swiss or Canadian or Russian or German, we drafted him as a hockey player first,” said Ray Shero, the Devils’ general manager.
Hischier, the first player from Switzerland selected first in the draft, has already taken an unconventional route to the top level of hockey. He overcame a setback, of sorts, when he was three years old and enrolled in his first hockey school in Switzerland.
“They told me I wouldn’t get a stick until I could skate,” he said, smiling, during an interview Monday at Prudential Center.
Hischier preferred hockey almost immediately because it was a fast game with a heavy emphasis on teamwork, but he didn’t decide to plunge into the sport full time until he was 12, significantly later than when many of the Canadians, Americans and Russians start playing.
Sometimes, as Devils coach John Hynes pointed out, a prospect like Hischier, coming from a country like Switzerland, can fly under the radar. Hischier has played only one season for a North American team: the Halifax Mooseheads of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
“What you’re looking at is a guy who has a big upside and isn’t even close to reaching the ceiling,” Hynes said.
Playing in a smaller country with a lower hockey profile had its benefits. When Hischier was 15, he moved to Bern from Visp, in southern Switzerland, to play hockey, but he was still only an hour train ride from home.
“At the beginning, it was pretty difficult, but I lived with my aunt and my brother,” he said of playing in Bern, “and my teammates became my best friends.”
Those benefits also included high- level experience. Before he turned 17, Hischier played 15 games for SC Bern in the top level of Swiss professional hockey. He has played in three world junior championships for the Swiss under-18 team and two junior world championships for the under- 20 Swiss national team.
“You get greater opportunities to play on the national team because the player pool in Switzerland isn’t as big as in Canada, the U.S. or Russia,” Hynes said. “When you are a talented player there, you may get more opportunities to play in multiple, high-end events internationally — and play a major role.
“They were very good in the world juniors, but he put that team on his shoulders and played fantastic. That’s the player we know we’re getting.”
It is not as if Switzerland has never produced an NHL player. When asked which NHL player he most looked forward to facing, Hischier named Roman Josi, a Swiss defenceman who plays for the Nashville Predators. Other Swiss pros include Mark Streit, a veteran defenceman for Pittsburgh, and Nino Niederreiter, a Minnesota forward who was picked fifth overall by the New York Islanders in 2010.
As recently as last fall, scouting services rated Hischier — a 6-foot-1, 179- pound centre who has a lefthanded shot and is a superb skater — as a late first- round pick in the draft. He had four goals and three assists in the world junior championships, and the Swiss nearly upset the U.S. in the quarter-finals.
But Hischier’s transition to North American hockey — not to mention a different language and lifestyle — went extraordinarily well. He had 38 goals and 48 assists for the Mooseheads. As he proved he could adapt, his draft stock rose drastically.
“It wasn’t like he took off right out of the gate,” Shero said. “I think he’s a very mature kid, a very humble kid — you can see it from his family. He’s very well grounded.”
Nico’s father, Rino, who played soccer professionally for the team in Naters, Switzerland, said: “We never pushed our kids into doing something.”
Nico took up hockey mainly because his brother, Luca, four years older, was already playing.
“He played hockey, so I wanted to play hockey,” Nico Hischier said. “He played soccer, so I wanted to play soccer.”
Asked what he liked so much about hockey, he replied: “The intensity. The speed of the game. It’s a lot of speed and a lot of action. You have to be in the game all the time.”
The stage gets bigger now. Hischier said he had never been to the New York area before the weekend, and his first experience involved being rushed from one appearance to another: from a Red Bulls MLS game to a New York Yankees game to a meeting with Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark.
He was also taken to Hobby’s Delicatessen and Restaurant in Newark for lunch, which included the premiere of the New Nico No. 1 sandwich: grilled chicken, authentic Swiss cheese and red Jersey tomatoes, with lettuce, onions, honey mustard and mayo on a roll.
THEY TOLD ME I WOULDN’T GET A STICK UNTIL I COULD SKATE.