Small Cormier is a huge factor in Trenton’s success
Goaltender is key force on No. 3-ranked team
Joey Cormier, goalie for the Trenton High School hockey team, is one of the shortest goalies in the state. Cormier doesn't let his small size affect his play: He's one of the best goalies in the state.
Mick McCabe
The Trenton hockey team takes the ice and you watch the players skate around before the reserves skate to the bench, leaving the starters on the ice.
Then you wonder why Trenton is starting the little junior varsity goalie, who seems to be almost swallowed up by the net.
But then the game begins.
Suddenly you realize the guy in net plays like anything but a junior varsity player.
The goalie is senior Joey Cormier, the reason Trenton reached the previous two Division 2 state championship games. He is also the reason Trenton is 16-5-1, 14-4 in the Michigan Interscholastic Hockey League, and ranked No. 3 in D-2 this season.
But he does look like a JV player.
“I’m 5-10,” he said, perhaps giving his height with his skates on. “It kind of drives me more.”
Does it ever.
There might not be a more driven hockey player in the state and the benefactor of that is Trenton, the top program in state history.
“He is one of the most competitive athletes that I’ve ever coached or ever been around,” said Trenton coach Chad Clements. “Even in practice, if it’s a small area drill where it’s goalie vs. goalie and they’re getting a ton of shots, he’s competing against the other goalie that he is not going to let up as many goals as him.”
Senior forward Greg Obrycki learned about Cormier’s competitive side years ago when they grew up playing youth hockey together.
“Every single time in practice he doesn’t want anyone to score on him – ever,” Obrycki said. ““After a loss, he’s always a little rough at first. He always thinks it’s his fault, but it’s never his fault. It’s the team’s.”
Cormier came across this goalie thing quite by accident. It was not a position he intended to play. He just wanted ice time.
“I started when I was about 6,” he said. “The team needed a goalie so I just put on the pads. I ended up liking it a lot.”
He began improving gradually and the more he improved the more he began to believe he could turn out to be a decent goalie.
“It really started getting serious in eighth grade,” Cormier said. “I was on the ‘prep team.’ It wasn’t until sophomore year I made the varsity team and things really started going. When we made it to the state finals, I realized it was something I really wanted to do.”
Playing hockey was the one constant desire through his youth when he grew up playing with and against his older brother, Jordan.
Their father, Phil, played junior hockey in Toronto so that is why the two boys began skating when each was a 2-year-old.
But this is not a case of a parent pushing his kids into one sport. Cormier played No. 1 singles in tennis last year at Trenton and he was an outstanding golfer his first two years of high school. He also played baseball at a younger age.
But no other sport compared to hockey. “Dad gave us a choice of sports,” he said, “but I love the sport; always wanted to play.”
In the early years, the rink of choice when the two boys couldn’t get ice time was the basement, where nothing was safe.
“We broke a lot of pictures, a lot of glass,” he said, laughing. “There’s a lot of holes in the wall. Mom ended up punishing us, but it depended on what we broke. Sometimes she’d take away electronics. And sometimes we couldn’t go down (into) the basement.”
By his sophomore year, which ended with Trenton as the D-2 runner-up to Hartland, it was clear that Cormier was the real deal in the net.
“He’s the biggest reason why we made it as far as we did,” Clements said. “He gave us a chance to win in every game and stole a few games in the playoffs where we were outshot by 10, 15 shots and still won by a goal.”
Trenton knocked Livonia Stevenson out of the last two state playoffs and each time Clement believed Stevenson had the better team.
The difference in both those games was Cormier.
“He’s a smaller goaltender who plays big,” said Stevenson coach Dave Mitchell. “He makes himself big in the net and his athleticism makes up for that. There’s certain guys that are bigger and play a little bit smaller and certain guys that are a littler smaller that plays bigger. You see him off the ice and he is smaller, but on the ice he does not look small, does not appear small and definitely does not play small.”
A year ago Cormier made 37 saves in a 4-0 semifinal victory over Marquette. Then he had 40 saves in a 4-0 finals lost to Hartland.
“He’s the only reason it wasn’t an 8-0 game,” said Clements “He’s the one who gave us a chance and kept us in it.”
At times in that championship game – and several times this season – Cormier looked like he was a duck in a shooting gallery that kept getting pinged by shot after shot.
“He has the ability to come up with that timely big save when your team needs to get momentum back or when he’s getting peppered and he’s makes a third, fourth and fifth save in a row,” said Hartland coach Rich Gawda. “You’re able to put your team on your back and give your team a chance to climb out of holes when you have a goaltender like that.”
And he has even found a way to make his size work for him in the net.
“Most goalies stand up high, but I go low,” he said. “I can track it a lot better that way because I’m a smaller goalie and I’m comfortable doing it that way.”
Mitchell coached Cormier last spring as a part of Team Michigan in the CCM High School National Invitational Tournament, which played in Minnesota. Mitchell already knew Cormier was an excellent goalie, but wound up liking him even more as a person.
He learned that coaches who overlook Cormier because of his size are missing the boat on an elite goalie.
“The puck doesn’t know how big you are, the score doesn’t know how big you are, the game doesn’t know how big you are,” Mitchell said. “There’s always people that make size an issue, but Joey’s a perfect example of why size doesn’t matter.”
To Cormier, the only thing that matters is the final score. Last week in the MIHL Showcase, Cormier had 32 saves in a 2-1 loss to Calumet, the No. 1 team in Division 3.
Among those saves were several when he stopped Calumet on six of seven power play opportunities. But that was of little consolation to Cormier.
The competitor in him won’t allow for him to appreciate his performances that don’t end with a win
“I should have stopped all of the shots,” he said. “I always want to win. Winning means everything. I’d rather win than lose and play good. That’s all that matters, winning.”
Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1.