Goaltender playing great for Canadian juniors
Unheralded goalie has team on path for world junior gold
Before Christmas, nobody knew his name. Two days into the New Year and Devon Levi has become a household name.
For 28 straight days, Levi was in quarantine in a Red Deer hotel room. Even his teammates didn't know what he looked like. He was a mystery man to them.
Now, he's two wins away from being embraced by an entire nation, two wins away from being part of hockey history and the toast of his teammates.
Levi goes into Monday's Canada-russia semifinal and the medal round of the IIHF Edmonton 2021 world junior with a 0.64 goals-against average, .967 save percentage and two shutouts.
It was seven weeks ago that Levi returned my call on his cellphone the day before he completed his 14-day quarantine at Team Canada's training camp in Red Deer as one of three border-crossing NCAA players. There was excitement in his voice.
The next morning he was supposed to emerge and finally get his chance to try to win one of the three goalie positions with the team. But that was the day two Canadian players tested positive for COVID-19. The entire training camp was shut down. Now all 46 players were forced to quarantine for 14 days.
On Sunday, Levi returned a call from your correspondent from the bubble on his cellphone, excitement in his voice again, to talk about what his experience has been like to get to Monday's semifinal as Canada's national junior team netminder.
He flashed back to his training camp quarantine nightmares.
“That morning in Red Deer, I was so excited to finally be able to get out and meet the rest of the guys. And I was supposed to play in a Red vs. White game that night. I hadn't played a game since March 1,” he said, referring to a Central Canada Hockey League game when he backstopped Carleton Place to a 3-1 win over Brockville. The league's playoffs were cancelled and so was the start of his freshman season in the NCAA.
“Just when I was getting ready to get out of my room and meet all of the guys for the first time, they phoned my room and told me I'd have to be there 14 more days and this time we'd be totally restricted to our rooms,” said the Northeastern University goaltender who was quarantined with Dylan Holloway, the University of Wisconsin player the Edmonton Oilers picked No. 14 overall in the draft and Colorado first-round pick Alex Newhook of Boston College.
You'd think after being stuck in his room for 28 days that Levi might have decided he made a mistake in heading across the border to get a jump on the quarantine, beating the other NCAA guys by four and five days.
But Levi insists he didn't think that. Not once.
“I knew it was something I had to do,” said the native of Dollard-des- Ormeaux, Que., who basically earned the invitation off his play at the World Junior A Challenge two years ago in Dawson Creek, B.C., where he had an outstanding game against Russia and won the tournament goaltending award.
“Since I was a little kid, playing for Canada in the world junior was my dream. I knew it would mean everything. My family and I have watched every world junior ever since I could remember. Almost every family in Canada watches it. To be able to play for my country would be a dream come true.
“It had been as frustrating as you could imagine, but not once did I think I wish I hadn't come. Hockey Canada told me they were bringing five goalies to camp and we'd all have the same opportunity and whoever took the ball and ran with it would be the starter. I knew they hadn't watched me much. I was pretty confident that if I had a chance, that would be me.”
When the second 14-day quarantine was done, they gave him the start in a Red vs. White game and he was outstanding, facing more than 30 shots — many of them requiring great saves against Canada's collection of forwards, all of whom are first round draft choices.
They selected Levi as one of the three goaltenders to take to Edmonton and then gave him the net to play against Russia in the only pre-tournament game. He was outstanding again. He has co-starred with Dylan Cozens of Whitehorse, Yukon, in getting Canada to this game and came up huge, along with Cozens, in winning the cursed crossover quarter-final game against the Czech Republic, a game in which the team was outshot. Levi was calm, cool, collected and confident in the Canadian net.
“He made us play with confidence because we know he's behind us when we need him,” said Canadian coach Andre Tourigny.
So what is it like to go from being a no-name mystery man to a household name??
“I'm living a dream. I talk to my family every day and they're also living the dream,” he said.
“It's like I keep saying. I'm just taking every moment and savouring it. I know I'm going to be able to look back on this the rest of my life. I'm just trying to enjoy it as much as I can.”