Hockey passion bred in the bone for worldly Pred
Wilson eyes first ring for ‘family business’ . . . and bigger issues
Colin Wilson doesn’t know how long the veering path was, but it felt long. He was a kid in Winnipeg, and his father Carey had used a homemade Zamboni — “you hook up the hose, hot water, to piping, there’s just a cloth behind it,” said Colin — to plow a path through the snow in the backyard rink so that his son could skate in something other than a straight line. “Kind of like Stevie Weeks there,” says Colin Wilson, now a Nashville Predator.
He’s referencing the hockey film Mystery, Alaska because there’s a lot of hockey in Colin Wilson’s life. His father had 427 points in 552 career games with three teams, though only once escaped the first round of the playoffs; his grandfather Jerry played three games for Montreal before his knees went to hell, and became a notable sports-focused doctor who also paved the way for several European stars to come to North America. There were uncles in junior and college hockey, too. Hockey is a Wilson thing.
“It is the family business,” agreed Wilson, before Game 5 of the Stanley Cup final. The Predators forward had missed every game since Game 7 against Anaheim with an undisclosed injury, and he finally got in the lineup in Game 5, just in time for Pittsburgh to ride a Sidney Crosby tidal wave to a 6-0 win. He had missed the first round, too, with a different injury. Like a lot of kids, he’s only been waiting his whole life for this.
“It means everything,” said Wilson, 27. “I mean, I want to play for the Stanley Cup. It’s why you play. It’s what you dream of as a kid. It’s an exciting time. It’s been the hardest thing to watch. I don’t know how coaches do it.”
Wilson only played 11:29 in Game 5, but was somehow on the ice for 12 shot attempts for and one against, even though a chunk of his time was spent with Nashville’s third defensive pair. It was a footnote, at best.
Wilson, in all likelihood, will be a small piece of an attempt to avoid elimination Sunday. But hockey is full of pieces.
Wilson is a little different than his dad, or from most players.
While he was out earlier in the series he was seen reading a book before a game: Asked what it was, he said — only a little sheepishly — that it was On Tyranny by Yale historian Timothy Snyder, a short and heavy book on the political dangers that can beset any age.
“I got into the book during the day, and I figured between the periods I’d be able to knock it out,” said Wilson. “It was a short book. I do read a lot, try to learn some things. But that was not a regular occurrence. I didn’t want it to look like I didn’t care about the game. Everyone was on their phone during intermission, and I figured I’d learn something.”
After U.S. President Donald Trump announced America would pull out of the Paris accord on climate, Wilson quietly posted a message on Instagram about climate change that briefly explained the science behind it — “before the industrial revolution CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were at 280 parts per million, in 2017 we sit at 410 ppm” — which led his old Winnipeg friend Jonathan Toews to do the same. They talk a lot.
“Me and Jon, we don’t necessarily talk politics,” said Wilson. “More about clean energy and things like that. We do speak issues, as well. There’s a lot more that we speak about that’s a little different — diet, things like that.
“We share a pretty specific philosophy, certainly on environmental issues. But at the same time, there’s a lot more. We take trips together, and we talk about the mental side of the game; we talk about the mental side of life. So he’s been — we’ve certainly bounced a lot of ideas off him over the years.”
Last year, Toews talked to a pod- cast about how he had to balance caring about hockey and not caring too much — Wilson has had to do that, too. He said, “As an athlete, I think you get to this level because you have a bit of a tick. You have a bit of an OCD thing. You have to be the best, you have to get to the next level, you have to win. So when you get to this level, all of a sudden you have to realize that when you play 82 games a year, you have to get some sense of clarity or else you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”
He has found some clarity, it seems. His dad didn’t push Wilson so much as his family steeped him in the game, and Wilson still remembers social media barbs that credited nepotism when he was drafted in the first round by Nashville in 2008. As he puts it, “I mean, I certainly wanted to hit some milestones that my dad has, and surpass them. I’m more competitive with him than getting pushed.”
He hasn’t matched his father’s numbers, but a Stanley Cup would be a first for a family that goes back generations in the game. Wilson might live in a bigger world, but wants very much to accomplish something in this one.
It has been a long and veering road in this family, and Wilson has been waiting for this chance his whole life. And some other people’s lives, too.