NHL player Nazem Kadri tells his story so far in a new book Achi-News

Taking a chunk out of his idol Joe Thornton’s beard in a fight, riding the run of becoming a Maple Leaf in Toronto and becoming the first Muslim player to win the Stanley Cup are chronicled in Nazem Kadri’s book Dreamer: My Life On The Edge.

The 34-year-old NHL player from London, Ont., has a story to tell with some revealing twists.

“I wanted it to be inspirational and motivational, but kind of light and funny at the same time,” said Kadri, now in his third season with the Calgary Flames.

“That was certainly a challenge in some parts with adversity and having the self-doubt that creeps into being a professional athlete and being under the microscope.”

Kadri’s happiness is A dreamer scheduled to be released on October 15 stems from a belief in himself on and off the ice, which he says in the book the Maple Leafs tried to erase from him after the club drafted him in 2009.

Conformity, not individuality, was celebrated by the NHL during Kadri’s early years as a Maple Leaf when he says team management viewed his confidence as a character flaw.

“Embracing certain characters and personalities, that’s one thing I think hockey has taken a step forward with,” Kadri said. “Not necessarily because of the league, but more so because of the players who have come in and shown that we are not robots and that we are people.”

A passion for the game and a stick in hand whenever possible while growing up is an often told narrative of an NHL player.

What’s different about Kadri, whose grandfather Nazem left Lebanon for Canada in the 1960s, is that he had no generational ties to hockey except for his father Samir, who fell in love with the Montreal Canadiens as a young immigrant because of colors catchy team shirt.

It didn’t take long for young Nazem Kadri to realize he was the “only Brown guy in the locker room. My teammates were always white boys” or to hear racist comments, from adults, in arenas.

“My confidence was a call,” Kadri said in the book. “I didn’t come from a typical hockey background; no one in my family had played the sport before me.

“And ever since I was a child people had thrown racial insults at me from the stands and on the ice. I was effectively told that I didn’t belong in their game, that it was a game for white kids.”

Light and darkness combine in Kadri’s journey to lift the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022.

After a collision with St Louis Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington in Game 3 of the second round, police asked Kadri out to inform them that he and his family were the targets of death threats and vitriolic racism “worse than anything I had never experienced,” he recalled in the book.

The Avs assigned Kadri a security detail and arranged for a police presence at his home in Denver.

“I guess nobody knows that,” Kadri says now. “I don’t think anyone understands the magnitude of that whole situation.

“It was a traumatic experience for me.”

Kadri turned that trauma into motivation to score her first career playoff hat trick in Game 4 of that series.

He grew up in London with four sisters, a Joe Thornton poster on his wall and an admiration for Paul Kariya.

Thin and small, Kadri’s skill got him to the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League, and then to his hometown Knights as he worked to build the strength needed to make it to the NHL.

His father’s first visit to the Bell Centre, home of his beloved Habs, was to hear his son’s name called seventh overall by the Toronto archivist and to hear the boos that rained down on the Maple Leafs’ selection.

A dreamer is catnip for Leafs Nation as it delves into coach Mike Babcock’s controversial handling of players during Kadri’s decade in Toronto.

Told with wry humor and occasional exultation, Toronto’s playoff collapse and heartbreak at the hands of the Boston Bruins make for a quick read co-written with Dan Robson.

“It’s almost like telling the truth and you go into detail, especially with certain situations that people have just seen from the media perspective and what they’ve seen in the press,” Kadri said. .

“I didn’t want to stir up a storm. I’ve always tried to sort of stay in my lane and keep my point of view to myself, but this is a great opportunity to tell my story respectfully.”

His NHL career is far from over as he plies his trade in Western Canada, but Kadri felt it was time to tell his story thus far.

“I just feel like a hockey player from the Middle East who doesn’t really have any hockey background and has dealt with a lot of adversity and kind of ended up with some victory, it’s a unique story in the hockey culture and it was a lot of fun to put on paper,” Kadri said.

& copy 2024 The Canadian Press