‘How cool is this?’
HAMILTON DUO HELP CANADIENS TO SURPRISING START
You can take the boys out of Hamilton, but you can’t take Hamilton out of the boys.
Canadiens defencemen Arber Xhekaj and Johnathan Kovacevic were born in Hamilton and won’t ever forget their roots.
Their parents all came to Hamilton in search of a better life. Xhekaj’s father, also Arber (but known as Jack), left Albania and his mother, Simona, fled the former Czech Republic. Kovacevic’s father, Novica, and mother, Angie, left the former Yugoslavia and they eventually met in Hamilton, just like Xhekaj’s parents did.
Canada’s Steeltown also became a City of Love. Xhekaj’s parents were introduced by mutual friends at Hamilton’s Sheraton Hotel.
Kovacevic’s mother was born in a remote village in Bosnia and grew up without electricity or running water. Her parents immigrated to Canada when she was eight and they didn’t speak English. Her father was able to get a job in a Hamilton steel mill.
“That’s the story for a lot of people from Hamilton,” Kovacevic said. “The steel mills and being steel workers gave them life. I think that’s an honest, hard-working living and you can kind of see that in the city. The character of the city has depth to it. It’s a hard-working city and there’s also a lot of nice areas on the outside, beautiful nature. It’s the waterfall capital of Canada.”
Kovacevic’s father worked as a software engineer in Sarajevo and immigrated to Canada in 1991, weeks before a war broke out.
“Hamilton definitely has character,” Kovacevic said. “It’s known for the steel mills. My uncle still works in a steel yard.”
“Every guy from Hamilton is true to the city,” added Xhekaj, whose father found work in a welding factory.
The work ethic and an unwillingness to give up that Xhekaj and Kovacevic learned from their parents and from their birth city helped put them in the position they are now. They weren’t expected to make the Canadiens this season because Xhekaj wasn’t selected in the NHL draft and Kovacevic was claimed off waivers from the Winnipeg Jets four days before the season started — but they did.
Xhekaj and Kovacevic used to skate together during the summers in Hamilton with other players and were defence partners in a four-on-four summer league one year, but they didn’t really know each other that well. However, a strong friendship has been developing since they became teammates with the Canadiens. They sit near each other in the locker-room and are often seen chatting together long after practices or morning skates have ended, still wearing most of their equipment.
Kovacevic said it was nice to see a familiar face in Xhekaj when he first arrived in Montreal from Winnipeg.
“I knew Arber from back home, so I naturally kind of gravitated toward him,” Kovacevic said. “And then I think we just get along well. We both take hockey serious, but also have fun with it, too.”
The defencemen took different routes to the NHL with Xhekaj playing in the OHL with the Kitchener Rangers and Hamilton Bulldogs, while Kovacevic went to Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.
Xhekaj has a rawness and charisma to his personality, while Kovacevic is more laid-back and soft-spoken.
“He’s trying to chirp you all the time — not the best chirps,” Kovacevic said with a grin about Xhekaj. “He’s not a great chirper, so he has some dumb, funny chirps. He just kind of lightens the mood and it’s easy to laugh along with him. It’s also easy to give it back to him. He’s a good sport about it. So he just makes things fun around the room and on the road, everywhere. We spend so much time together you might as well have fun with each other.
“He’s just unapologetically himself,” Kovacevic added about his teammate and friend. “Everyone’s different, but people appreciate genuine and so his genuine is going to be different from mine. He’s just himself.”
Said Xhekaj about Kovacevic: “He’s a great guy and we seem to bond on a lot of things. Our friendship has definitely built over this year.”
I asked Kovacevic if the two Hamilton boys ever need to pinch each other in the locker-room to realize they have actually become teammates with the Canadiens.
“We were talking about it on the plane (recently),” Kovacevic said. “How cool is this? When you take a step back, how cool is this? It’s something that we’ve been dreaming about and thinking about our whole life. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t dreaming about it and working toward those dreams. But for it to be here, it’s even cooler than I ever imagined.
“It’s such a fun group of guys,” Kovacevic added. “We’re winning games, too. It’s just an awesome life. Sometimes you’ve got to pinch yourself. But just be grateful. It would be a shame not to enjoy it just because of how cool it is.”