“The dream absolutely would be to be on the ice as an assistant coach,” he said with no lack of conviction, “and one day, I am also not going to cross off [the chance of] being a head coach in the NHL.”
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Being short is something beyond Myers’s power to change. To aim high is measured only by his imagination.
Bruins video coordinator Mat Myers has dwarfism and aspires to become a NHL assistant coach, which would be a first in the league.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
“My days in college, the Bruins of that era, that was my biggest sports fandom moment,” recalled Myers, whose first days learning video were as a University of New Hampshire communications major, long before he joined the Bruins staff in the summer of 2019. “Zdeno Chara was the captain. I grew up watching him and [Patrice] Bergeron, [Tuukka] Rask, [Brad] Marchand . . . they were all still here, with Chara at the helm.”
Awestruck? Of course, even though by that time Myers already had logged some six years of full-time video duty, first with the NHL’s Nashville Predators and then the Buffalo Sabres. Being home put the job in a different perspective, and meant more to Myers.
It proved to be Chara, a man accustomed to dealing with stereotypes about height, good and bad, who eased his first-day-on-the-job anxieties.
“Won’t forget it,” said Myers, recalling that the 6-foot-9-inch Chara walked over to him at the club’s Brighton workout facility. “He looks at me and says, ‘You and I are going to wrestle one day . . . let’s do it.’ It was perfect. He defied the odds, too, from the opposite end of the spectrum, being so tall.”
Now a long-established and respected presence in the dressing room, the affable Myers leads the Bruins’ video efforts with top aide Sean Andrake, another UNH grad. It’s a technically complex, demanding role: mainly, provide an unending stream of video material that helps coaches and players gain an edge on the ice.
“He is such a good man,” said coach Marco Sturm, asked to assess Myers’s work. “He is one of those guys you can call at three in the morning and he’ll be there for you. You need those guys in the room, because guys feel he has their back.”
Bruins video coordinator Mat Myers leaves the locker room before they played the Canucks on December 20.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Sturm believes the club’s captain video has the skill set to move to on-ice instruction.
“He knows his stuff,” said Sturm, in his first year as an NHL bench boss. “That’s his plus. He’s been around a long time and knows the game. So he can actually teach and tell stories, especially to young kids.”
Myers saw hockey literally grow past him in middle school. The kids he played with since preschool days became taller, stronger, each of them moving on to what he refers to as the “average-sized” world. One that no longer held a fit for him in the rink.
“I was maybe a little bit naive, too,” noted Myers, chuckling over the memory, and laughing at himself — humor one of his core strengths. “I thought I was so quick and so slippery out there that I figured I wouldn’t get clobbered, but . . .”
Faceoffs, recalled Myers, underscored the reality.
“All the centers became way stronger than me,” he recalled. “We’d have the faceoff and my stick would go flying into the corner. Made me think then, ‘OK, yeah . . . I should probably move over to wing or something.’ ”
A lifetime of adapting to things in the average-size world — including, in recent years, raising two children who also have dwarfism — also has shaped Myers’s belief never to limit his career dreams. There is, he firmly believes, always a way around obstacles.
To that point, Myers already has worked through what he feels would be two significant, practical impediments if someone of his height worked on the ice as an NHL coach.
His equipment would require extra padding, particularly protection from flying pucks that make someone his height extra vulnerable to getting hit on the head.
“It would just have to be a little different,” mused Myers, matter of factly, “like everything I do.”
He also figures his view from the bench area, where he would be challenged to see game action, would improve if he stood atop the bench. He often stood on the bench, he said, during the two seasons he helped coach his high school team, Trinity, in Manchester, N.H.
“As long as the players knew, ‘This is my spot. I am standing here,’ ” said Myers, imagining how NHLers would respond to his feet shuffling around their backsides. “I guess we’d have to figure that out.”
Mat Myers has been the Bruins video coordinator for seven seasons and hopes to become the first person with dwarfism to become a NHL assistant coach.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
In recent interviews with Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, and Sean Kuraly, it was clear that Myers has shared little, if anything, about his coaching dream. All three praised his video work, commitment, and intelligence and drive to help the team and the players with their individual skills.
McAvoy, as if breaking the puck from deep in his own end, picked up the pace when listing Myers’s duties and job efficiency.
“Every night, sitting there and breaking down the plays,” he said, as if at the video controls. “You know, zone entries, breakout . . . clip it!, clip it!, clip it! . . . it’s his job to watch every single play. We at least get to go to the bench for a breather, but Maty’s on it every second.”
A sincere Kuraly, hearing for the first time about Myers’s dream to be on the ice, kept repeating, “Wow. Wow. Wow.,” as if in awe.
“I didn’t know that. Good for him,” added the veteran center. “Why not? Things are always changing and someone’s gonna do it eventually. I am glad he has those ambitions and I can’t see any reason it wouldn’t work out.”
Calling him both “one of a kind” and “one of the boys,” Swayman said he had no doubt Myers could transition to the on-ice role.
“I think hockey is the perfect culture to embrace different kinds of structures and systems,” said Swayman. “So he can go in any room and make himself fit in.”
Over the years, said Myers, he has done some public speaking, chiefly aimed at helping others follow their dreams and ambitions no matter what might hold them back. He likes to loosen up the crowd “to break he ice” before getting into his story.
“OK, clap once if you can hear me,” he typically says, “so I can test if I am talking loud enough.”
Then, a pause.
“OK, now, clap twice if you can see me.”
The smattering of giggles, some uneasy, get the show underway. The little person — what Myers says is the preferred term for those with dwarfism — has the audience engaged.
“I am very self-aware of my situation, and don’t many times get to use it to my advantage,” he said. “If I can show I am comfortable and let people know you don’t have to be hush-hush around me about any of my handicap stuff, then it is game on.”
Myers, the little person with the big dream, has identified his goal. The game slipped through his hands once, and that’s not a replay he intends to give space on his screen.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.