Olympics now a reality for Calgary defenceman
Mat Robinson remembers the rumblings.
He remembers the remark. Four years later, he remembers the reaction from his better half, Melanie.
“There was rumours back then (during the 2014 Sochi Games) that this could possibly happen, that NHLers wouldn’t be going to the next Olympics,” Robinson recalled. “And I remember I said to my wife, ‘ Well, maybe if I can get on a good Russian club and have a good few years, this could possibly happen for me.’
“I think she laughed at me. Like, ‘ Yeah, dream on, Mat.’ But everybody has to set goals and hope for the best situation possible.”
That winter, Robinson patrolled the blueline for Riga Dynamo in Latvia’s capital city, his first of five (and counting) campaigns in the Russia-based Kontinental Hockey League.
The Calgary-raised rearguard is back in Riga this week for exactly what he was what-iffing about in 2014 — training camp with Team Canada’s squad for the Py- eongchang Olympics.
Robinson is one of just two guys on the roster without any NHL experience. In fact, the 31-year-old logged only a handful of American Hockey League appearances before starting his overseas adventure — first in Norway, then Sweden, Latvia and now Russia. He currently skates for C SKA Moscow of the KHL.
His next stop? A two-week thrillof-a-lifetime in South Korea.
The Canadians will open their tune-up slate Sunday against Latvia at Arena Riga, which was once Robinson’s home rink. Their prep work will also include exhibitions against Belarus and Sweden before a Feb. 15 faceoff with the Swiss in Pool A action in Pyeongchang.
“For guys in my situation, this was kind of a fairy-tale. So for it to actually come true, I still don’t believe it,” Robinson said. “That first game, that first puck-drop, you know everybody will have the nerve sand the excitement of being at the Olympics. I think that will be the moment, for me, that I’m like: ‘This is it. This is the time in my career where this is probably as good as it’s going to get for me, so better take advantage.’”
Robinson’s teammates in Pyeongchang will include Calgary’s Brandon Kozun— a former scoring sensation for the Western Hockey League’s Hitmen and briefly a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs — and fellow forward Mason Raymond, who hails from nearby Cochrane and spent two of his 10 NHL seasons with the Flames.
The 27-year-old Kozun, now toiling for Yaroslavl Lokomotiv of the KHL, was trying to catch up on some winks after a late-night return from a road-trip when Hockey Canada’s brass called shortly after sunrise on Jan. 11 to tell him he’d earned an invite to the Olympics.
“I didn’t know if I was dreaming or not,” Kozun said. “When I got that call, I couldn’t fall back asleep for the next two or three hours. I was just so excited.”
Robinson had a similar experience: “There was definitely no going back to sleep after that.”
Now, it’s their buddies, minorhockey teammates and complete strangers who will be sacrificing shut-eye.
Pyeongchang is 16 hours ahead of Calgary. Two of Canada’s preliminary-round matchups start at 5:10 a.m. MT, the other not requiring an early alarm with puck-drop just past 8 p.m. Nonetheless, folks back home will be watching.
That became clear when Kozun’ s cellphone wouldn’t stop buzzing after the Olympic roster was revealed.
“I was very, very surprised by how many people reached out to me, and very humbled ,” said Kozun, who wore the maple leaf at the 2010 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships, the same winter that he won the WHL’s scoring crown with the Hitmen. “People were genuinely just really, really excited for me. I think, with the NHL not going to the Olympics this year, there was a little bit of doubt in everyone’s mind about how much people would care or how big of a deal people thought this was.
“But it kind of solidified for me, when I got all the messages and I heard people say how big of an honour it is and how excited they are for me and all those things … That really made me feel like this is something special.”
Something special, indeed. Something that seemed so far-fetched when Robinson mentioned it to his wife, Melanie, four years back.
“All you can do is hope that you play well and show well and can maybe get an opportunity if everything falls in the right spots,” Robinson said. “Which, luckily for me, it did.”