Always chill in the desert
Going back home to Arizona a special visit for Matthews
GLENDALE, ARIZONA— The exotic creature, in its natural habitat, preening his feathers. As if.
Auston Matthews, though he well could, doesn’t preen.
He is, however, exotica — an NHL marquee player, risen from these desert surrounds. Out of the duncoloured sand, the red adobe brick and the spiky cacti.
Come home, gathered into the breast of family and a proprietary cadre of local reporters who get to say we knew him first. This hockey stud who might have singlehandedly saved the Coyotes franchise from its current dubious existence. But of course he’s too busy not-quite-singlehandedly rescuing the Maple Leafs from half a century of yearning for better things.
When the team convened from the Christmas break on Wednesday, reassembling for practice at the Gila River Arena, it marked only the second time Matthews has passed this way as a Leaf. A phalanx of journos poked and prodded, held the 20-year-old up to the light, attempting to elicit a state-of-the-Arizo- na-hockey-nation address from a guy who really isn’t naturally given to speechifying or waxing eloquent about the game that turned his head as a wee boy, certainly not chatty about himself.
“Just spend time with family, enjoy the weather,” he said, explaining what he’d been up to the past three days over in Scottsdale, where he was raised as a somewhat freaky hockey savant. “It’s nice just to be around the family. Get away from hockey for a couple of days, don’t have to think about it, just kind of recharge the batteries.”
Of course, sidelined with a brainpan rattle — “normal concussion symptoms, I guess,” as he’d put it last week — for six games afforded Matthews a pre-Noel respite he’d much rather have done without. A subject that came and which Matthews firmly set aside. “I don’t think it’s really something we need to talk about every day. I feel good. I’m back to normal. It’s in the past.”
It was already in the rear-view mirror when Matthews returned to the lineup against the Rangers, prior to the league going dark for the mandated holiday break. Neither he nor the club will comment on why Matthews wasn’t immediately subjected to concussion protocols after colliding with teammate Morgan Rielly during a Dec. 9 game against Pittsburgh.
Instead, he came back out for his next shift instead of taking a liedown in the “quiet room,” though he was clearly discombobulated by the accidental contact, raising his hands to his head. Admitting, long after, that he’d felt unwell that night.
Such a precious commodity, you’d think more care would have been taken by the “spotters” who are present at all NHL rinks. Indeed, for any player who’s taken a blow to the head. But that didn’t happen and the Leafs have obviously decided not to make an issue out of it. Coach Mike Babcock, from his grudging comments, rather pretended like nothing head-untoward had happened. Concussion? What concussion?
Liar liar pants on fire. In the past, as Matthews says. Not talking about it no more. So talk about this instead, his homecoming, soaking up the mild temperatures — “no snow or rain here” — playing some golf with his dad and sister, gorging on mom’s cooking.
A ton of relatives will be in the stands for Thursday’s game, from grandparents (on mom Ela’s side) to an assortment of Matthewses, enough to fill up an entire private suite. Because it’s so rare to enjoy an Auston sighting hereabouts.
Yeah, it’s mighty special for him, too.
He claims not to get recognized much, this native son — albeit technically born in California, but reared from infancy as an Arizonian. “Just if I step inside a hockey rink.” So we’ll take a trip down memory lane, at the insistence of those local reporters, because Matthews is their story to tell and re-tell. How he attended his first Coyotes game at about age two, sitting on his Uncle Billy’s lap. A season-ticket holder, was Uncle Billy, which planted the seed for his nephew, dreaming on the game, dreaming on the NHL.
“My dad and my uncle, we went to a lot of games. I couldn’t tell you which one was my first.”
But, as oft-told, he was in thrall to Shane Doan. That’s the jersey he coveted and obtained.
“He was definitely the player I looked up to growing up. Over the last couple of years, just being able to get to know him, skate with him in the summer. An unbelievable person, unbelievable hockey player.
“He did so much for hockey in Arizona. Such a good role model for kids like me growing up.”
Of course, if the Jets hadn’t bolted the Great White North, Matthews would likely never have fallen hard for hockey, might have followed in his father’s college baseball footsteps.
Un-serendipity factoid: If Matthews had been born just a few weeks earlier, he would have been draft eligible in 2015, probably taken third behind Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel. That was Arizona’s pick. They selected Dylan Strome. But for a pregnancy that went a smidge longer than expected, Matthews would likely be a Desert Dog right now instead of a No. 1 draft snatch by Toronto.
The world unfolds in mysterious ways.
For Matthews, last year’s rookie supremo, an NHL career is unfolding with glitter and razzmatazz. He’s still too young to get much perspective on it and exceedingly protected in the media maelstrom that is Toronto.
“I’ve got some pretty good people around me, around the team, management, staff. They lift some weight off our shoulders, especially young guys coming in to a market this big and so passionate about hockey. Sometimes you need to take a step back and realize we’re kids, we’re at the very beginning of our NHL careers and we just want to have fun. Everything going on around you, it’s kind of white noise. You don’t want to listen to it too much.”
He is temperamentally disposed to blocking out that white noise. “It’s hard. You go through ups and downs the whole season.” And this season, after not missing a single game last year, contending with two injuries which rendered him a frustrated bystander.
“It’s not easy,” he admitted of the whole loud, frantic pace of the game, of establishing his place in it. “Especially your first couple of years. I think you find that things are a little easy in the beginning or they’re not as hard (as you expected). And then the league adjusts and you have to adjust back. So it’s kind of a constant battle. That’s why it’s the NHL. It definitely motivates you to come to work every day and work hard so you can get better.”
Some day, he’ll look back on these salad days and probably smile at the boy he was.
But right now, well, it gives him a kick, walking into his somewhat hometown rink, boisterously greeted by fans who consider him one of them, who want to be him. “When you see a lot of Leaf jerseys with your name on the back, it’s definitely pretty special.”
In the desert, it’s cool — being Auston.