‘Every emotion imaginable’
When Waterdown’s Mark Visentin announced his retirement from hockey last week, he did it with an eloquent letter outlining why he was done
WHEN MARK VISENTIN
sat down with his goalie coach and team psychologist to prepare to play the bronze-medal game of the world junior championship that day early in 2012, things got emotional. Especially when he was told how good he was and how he hadn’t deserved the crap he’d absorbed for the past 12 months.
Those words of support and understanding crumpled him.
“I was a friggin’ wreck,” Visentin says. “I was a mess. I couldn’t even speak. It was just so nice to have someone on my side.”
Few players have ever taken more undeserved blame or understood how important it was to have someone with their back.
When the 26-year-old from Waterdown announced his retirement from hockey last week, he did it with an eloquent online letter outlining why he was done. His body simply won’t allow him to play anymore. He’s not
He fell awkwardly and blew out his ankle. He tried playing on it, but it was too much. Suddenly he went from preparing to fight for the starter’s job to missing the entire season after surgery.
willing to talk about the specifics, but he’s been unable to recover from a hockey-related injury he suffered roughly a year ago while playing in Hungary. He’s tried everything. Ultimately, he realized it wasn’t working so it was time to move on with the rest of his life.
In the middle of that note was a line that was the essence of his whole story.
“To the game of hockey, you’ve made me feel every emotion imaginable. Every high and low has taught me valuable lessons and I am forever thankful for the unique experiences I’ve had.” The lowest low, you surely know. It was the gold-medal game in 2011. When Russia scored five times in the third period to win the world junior final, Visentin became the fall guy. Just 19, he immediately, unfairly, became the public face of the team’s collapse. Every skater on that roster eventually played in the NHL. None but him got blamed for the loss despite the numerous breakdowns in front of Visentin that led to the goals. He wore it all.
His first game back in the Ontario Hockey League saw every guy on the Sarnia Sting trash-talk him for that result. He’d go out to eat and people would say stuff. Adults who should know better wouldn’t hold back their biting barbs. In every city he visited with the Niagara IceDogs, he’d have to recount the tale.
“Dealing with the media was an absolute nightmare,” he says.
Funny thing, though. Even today he says he doesn’t wish he’d never been part of Team Canada. He kept the sweater and the mask and the stick from that tournament. The effect this all had building his character and toughening his mental state made him a better person and a better goalie.
Just over three years later, the other end of that note’s emotional spectrum came to fruition when he was able to start an NHL game for the Phoenix Coyotes. It was Apr. 14, 2014, against San Jose. In a 3-2 loss, he was outstanding. It was his highest high.
His first save was on future Hall of Famer Joe Thornton. Does he remember the rest?
“You’re damn right,” he laughs, “I remember every detail.”
When you’ve worked all your life for a dream and it comes true, you’d better believe the mental PVR is going to be recording. He kept the puck, sweater, stick, mask and pads from that one, too. This was going to be Game 1 of a long career in the world’s best league.
Except during training camp the following fall, he fell awkwardly and blew out his ankle. He tried playing on it, but it was too much. Suddenly he went from preparing to fight for the starter’s job to missing the entire season after surgery and a brutal rehab. He bounced from Chicago’s farm team to Nashville’s, then to the ECHL and finally to Europe. Then, two months into last season, he suffered the injury that ultimately ended his career.
Today the first-round draft pick and the guy voted the Niagara IceDogs’ all-time best goalie is a month into a business commerce degree at the University of Guelph. He loves it. The routine is great. Grinding through hours of studying is even fun for him.
The hockey part of his story is incomplete without an epilogue, though.
When he was called upon to go in net for the bronze-medal game the year after that horrible night against the Russians, he played like a hero. He stopped a penalty shot. He made what might be the greatest save in world junior history when he no-look gloved a puck behind his back. For 60 wonderful minutes he shut out the Finns and was named player of the game.
That performance isn’t remembered nearly as easily or as often by people as the loss, but it should be. Just as that first game back against Sarnia (a 6-2 victory) is too easily forgotten.
Visentin says those performances were statement games. Moments that mattered to him and proved something to himself and anyone else watching. If you work hard enough and don’t give up — at least until your body forces you to — you’ll come out ahead.
“That’s what defines me when I look back on my career.”
The effect this all had building his character and toughening his mental state made him a better person and a better goalie.