{"id":200515,"date":"2025-10-04T00:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T00:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/200515\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T00:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T00:19:09","slug":"out-of-his-hometowns-spotlight-and-expectations-mitch-marner-embraces-a-new-start-in-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/200515\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of his hometown\u2019s spotlight \u2014 and expectations \u2014 Mitch Marner embraces a new start in Las Vegas"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014 In the months before Mitch Marner left home, he returned to a rink he played in as a kid.<\/p>\n

Each morning, at the Vaughan Sports Village, Marner joined the same skills coach he\u2019s been guided by since he was a 4-year-old. Rob Desveaux \u2014 Coach Rob, as Marner has always called him \u2014 returned from a broken leg and retirement in Florida to skate alongside his one-time prodigy, who was too short to see over the boards when his father, Paul, first brought him to his 3 Zones Hockey School.<\/p>\n

The hockey camp no longer exists, and Desveaux has suggested his most accomplished student find a younger coach, but Marner keeps calling. Other than his father, Marner says Coach Rob understands his game better than anyone.<\/p>\n

Over similar sessions through the past few summers, Marner seemed burdened as he ran through Desveaux\u2019s familiar drills. Small mistakes frustrated him. He threw his stick. The elation he once felt in those summer sessions, spinning on his edges down the ice or cradling a hard pass on his backhand, was harder to find.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year, I worked with him and I pushed him, pushed him and pushed him,\u201d Desveaux said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd he didn\u2019t seem to enjoy it as much.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a time when Marner was viewed as a player who would never leave Toronto, but this offseason he became the biggest name to change NHL teams. The move surprised no one. What began a decade ago as the story of a homegrown star morphed into years of bitter playoff disappointments and mounting fan resentment<\/a>. In a hockey city that has failed to win for six decades, that weight fell particularly hard on Marner.<\/p>\n

\"Mitch<\/p>\n

\n Playoff losses and fan disappointment weighed on Mitch Marner, the hometown star who couldn\u2019t lead the Maple Leafs to a Cup. Claus Andersen \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

Since he was young, Marner carried insurmountable expectations about what he could and should be. The noise was constant. Often our greatest critics are the ones who feel they raised us. The kid who grew up in his hometown\u2019s glaring spotlight was now a 28-year-old father, looking to define his own way.<\/p>\n

In the end, Marner\u2019s eight-year, $96 million contract with the Vegas Golden Knights, was more than a money grab. He needed to leave.<\/p>\n

Marner\u2019s comments have always faced scrutiny. When he stumbled over an analogy intended to show appreciation by saying players were \u201clooked upon as gods\u201d in the city, he was lambasted for sounding arrogant. When he recently revealed that his address was posted online and he received a death threat after the Leafs were eliminated from the playoffs, he was criticized for appearing to make a big deal of it. Marner\u2019s fiercely protective circle hasn\u2019t always helped. His father once made headlines for making public comments about how his son was treated by the team, and a personal security guard threatened to restrict access to a popular Leafs podcaster who was critical of Marner\u2019s play.<\/p>\n

When Marner\u2019s name comes up amongst Leafs fans, there are countless experts on what the winger lacked \u2014 armchair insiders who heard from a friend, who knows a guy\u2019s cousin, who can confirm that Marner was \u201cunpopular\u201d in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was always this narrative of who he was already,\u201d said Dan Noble, the strength coach Marner has worked with since he was 12 years old.<\/p>\n

But this summer people within Marner\u2019s small, close circle saw the 28-year-old three-time All-Star reclaim something that had faded in the noise that followed him in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just excited to create his own path,\u201d Noble said.<\/p>\n

Skating on that ice north of Toronto \u2014 wearing the colors of the Vegas Golden Knights \u2014 a lightness returned to Marner\u2019s sessions. Before one early-morning practice, Desveaux heard singing down the hallway. He hadn\u2019t heard Marner\u2019s ebullient pitch in a while.<\/p>\n

Part of it might have been the anticipation of a new beginning in Vegas, Desveaux felt. But in his old student, the coach also saw the wonder of a widened life and the profound return to childhood that comes with being a dad.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was back to what he used to be,\u201d Desveaux said.<\/p>\n

In late September in Las Vegas, Marner\u2019s shimmering gold No. 93 jersey appeared frequently along the winding path of a time-blind casino \u2014 past a Lady Gaga-themed store and a theatre hosting M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce \u2014 next to flashing slot machines and high-limit tables.<\/p>\n

The Golden Knights\u2019 shiny new star was the latest fashion among the fans streaming through Park MGM, into the heavy heat of the strip toward T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

There is a stark contrast between where Marner is now and where he comes from. In the desert, the Golden Knights are just another act in a stretch of big-ticket draws. But the franchise has enjoyed a remarkable hot streak since its inception.<\/p>\n

\"Smoke<\/p>\n

\n Over eight seasons, the Golden Knights have had plenty of playoff success to go along with their ability to put on a show for their fans. Ethan Miller \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

In eight sellout seasons of NHL existence, Vegas has lifted the Stanley Cup, reached the final twice, the conference final four times, and missed the playoffs only once. Here, hockey is show business without the heaviness of history.<\/p>\n

Outside Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, bronzed statues of past legends sit on a ghostly team bench \u2014 a row of greats that spans a century. But the team itself hasn\u2019t won a championship in nearly six decades. Four of the Leafs greats oxidizing for posterity never lifted the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

Inside the concourse of T-Mobile Arena, a mural of Mark Stone, Jack Eichel and William Karlsson hoist the Stanley Cup they won two years ago. All three players began their careers elsewhere before finding success in Vegas. Birthed in an expansion draft, coming from away is a foundational part of the \u201cGolden Misfits\u201d unity. It\u2019s a story that reflects the city itself. Between 1990 and 2017-18, the Golden Knights\u2019 inaugural season, Las Vegas nearly tripled in size to more than 2.2 million people.<\/p>\n

More than 17,000 fans showed up for the Golden Knights\u2019 first preseason home game of 2025. (That\u2019s 2,000 more than attended the Leafs preseason game in Toronto against the Ottawa Senators the same night.)<\/p>\n

Golden Knights fans are used to the addition of star power. Eichel, the Sabres injured and disgruntled center, was traded to Las Vegas in 2021. Coveted two-way defenseman Noah Hanifin was traded to Las Vegas in 2024, after informing the Calgary Flames he didn\u2019t intend to re-sign. Between Eichel, Hanafin and Marner, Vegas now has three of the top five picks from the 2015 draft on its roster.<\/p>\n

But even before that first Vegas preseason game, Marner got top billing, his face adorning banners and his merchandise cluttering gift shop entrances. In a heart-jolting pregame hype show, Marner\u2019s introduction was first, accompanied by golden flames dancing across the ice and a glowing-eyed drumline hammering its snare-stacatto.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, a moment like that would have been hard to imagine. Not just because the Golden Knights didn\u2019t yet exist, but also because Marner\u2019s future seemed indivisible from the city that raised him.<\/p>\n

I first met Marner on his 19th birthday as he learned that his family home was engulfed by fire.<\/p>\n

I stood outside the London Knights locker room with his mother, Bonnie, while she showed him a video of the blaze after he played the first game of the 2016 OHL Championship.<\/p>\n

In the moment, Mitch, quietly shaken as he viewed the flames, worried about the safety of the family pets, a chocolate Lab named Winston and a cat, Burbank. The white ragdoll put up a fight as the firefighters rescued him, Bonnie said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypical cat,\u201d Mitch smiled nervously, still processing video of the fire rising from the roof of his house.<\/p>\n

I told Mitch and Bonnie that I\u2019d be writing a story.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be news, obviously,\u201d I said. \u201cI just want you to know that I\u2019m going to have to say that this happened to your house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d Marner nodded.<\/p>\n

But I wasn\u2019t sure if he really understood. Even though Knights fans lined up after London games for his autograph, Marner still seemed closer to teenager than man then \u2014\u00a0undersized, refreshingly unpolished and not fully aware of just how closely every move he made and every word he uttered would be consumed.<\/p>\n

Within an hour, before that story was posted, footage of Marner\u2019s burning house led newscasts in Toronto.<\/p>\n

By that point in his young life, Marner had received more media attention than most kids his age. At 4 years old, he was named an \u201cathlete of the week\u201d by Toronto\u2019s City TV newscast. At 11, he was featured in a short CBC documentary focusing on hockey families, his father Paul\u2019s intensity captured as he videotaped the action from the stands.<\/p>\n

The piece effectively revealed the aggressive, competitive and demanding hockey culture within Toronto\u2019s top adolescent hockey ranks. Paul was far from an exception.<\/p>\n

As a young star in the Greater Toronto Hockey League, Marner was immersed in the professionalized minor hockey machine. In junior high, he attended a private school tailored to high-performance athletics. In an interview with the Toronto Star, Paul estimated that between league fees, equipment, private lessons and other expenses, the family spent between $600,000 and $700,000 on hockey.<\/p>\n

The game became his life.<\/p>\n

When he was 15, Marner\u2019s size \u2014 he was 5-7, 130 pounds \u2014 became a concern. He fell to 19th overall in the Ontario Hockey League draft. But in his second season playing for the powerhouse London Knights, Marner put up 126 points in 63 games.<\/p>\n

He wore number 93 with the Knights, reflecting both the year of his older brother\u2019s birth and a tribute to Toronto Maple Leafs 1990s star Doug Gilmour, his father\u2019s favorite player. In his youth, Gilmour was also undersized and overlooked \u2014 but found success as a two-way player with a remarkable talent for assists.<\/p>\n

When the Leafs drafted Marner fourth overall in the 2015 NHL Draft, it was the highest a locally born and raised player was selected by the team. At the draft in Sunrise, Fla., Marner\u2019s family and friends cheered when Dylan Strome was selected third overall by the Arizona Coyotes, knowing it meant that Marner would go fourth to the Maple Leafs.<\/p>\n

As a hockey player growing up near Toronto, there are few daydreams as potent as becoming a key figure on a Maple Leafs championship team. It is a glory so elusive the recollections play only in black-and-white.<\/p>\n

Marner\u2019s arrival \u2014\u00a0along with Auston Matthews, drafted first overall a year later \u2014 heralded an era of newfound hope. A decade later, they represented the best goal scorer and best playmaker in the team\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

But the Maple Leafs\u2019 playoff failures became a different kind of bitter trivia.<\/p>\n

When asked if he could reach back to that kid about to embark on a hometown dream, Marner offered a recalibration.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust remember to always look for the light at the end of the tunnel,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd remember that everything has a purpose and you\u2019ll find it eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marner stood in a hallway inside the Golden Knights practice facility in the suburban outskirts of Vegas, wearing team-issued workout gear after a morning skate.<\/p>\n

He seemed comfortable and relaxed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just super excited,\u201d he said, grinning. \u201cFor all aspects of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marner\u2019s son Miles was born in May, and fatherhood has allowed him to look at his life and his career through a new lens.<\/p>\n

For Canada Day weekend, at the end of June, Marner invited Joe Thornton and his family to his cottage in Muskoka to meet Miles. Thornton became a mentor and close friend when the veteran played briefly at the tail end of his career with the Leafs. A couple days earlier, Thornton learned that he\u2019d been elected to the Hall of Fame, adding another layer to the celebratory family gathering.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was holding Miles, playing with him and feeding him,\u201d Marner said. \u201cAnd his son and daughter were holding him and feeding him, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with his other mentor, Patrick Marleau, Marner always admired Thornton\u2019s parenting, buzzing around with his kids by the breaking dawn.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose guys are phenomenal dads, just how calm and how much fun they have with their kids,\u201d Marner said. \u201cThat\u2019s the kind of dad you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thornton also knew something about the value of fresh beginnings. The 6-4 center, known as Jumbo, began his career in Boston as the first overall pick, but was famously traded to the San Jose Sharks mid-season in 2006 \u2014 where he then won the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL\u2019s top scorer and Hart Trophy as the league MVP.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to give you a new perspective, a new mindset,\u201d Thornton told Marner about leaving Toronto. \u201cAnd that\u2019s always good. It\u2019s never a bad thing, just to start fresh sometimes and turn a page.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

\n Joe Thornton, who found huge success after leaving the team that drafted him, encouraged Mitch Marner to \u201cturn a page.\u201d Minas Panagiotakis \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

That Monday, Marner signed with the Golden Knights.<\/p>\n

He spoke with Stone, the Golden Knights captain, and Eichel, their scoring leader, shortly afterward and received some advice about where to settle his new world. Marner and his wife, Steph, house hunted for five days before landing in Summerlin, a suburb of Vegas close to the Golden Knights practice facility.<\/p>\n

After returning to Muskoka for a bit more solitude, Marner, Steph and Miles flew southwest to their new life in the Mojave Desert in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels a lot lighter, in a way,\u201d Marner said, of this new beginning. \u201cThere were some dark times in the last couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several years ago, Marner tapped into an interest in Greek mythology. His full right forearm carries a tattoo of Zeus \u2014\u00a0and he later named the family\u2019s chocolate Labrador after the Pantheon ruler whose true destiny wasn\u2019t fulfilled until he left home.<\/p>\n

At their new home near the foothills of the Spring Mountains, the 80-pound momma\u2019s boy pup \u2014 from whom the couple have matching Z tattoos, inked on a whim in Spain \u2014 has taken to curling up on Marner\u2019s side of the bed now that baby Miles, amid a 4-month sleep regression, has claimed the other half.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like it,\u201d Marner said. But it\u2019s another unexpected joy of life as a dad.<\/p>\n

In Summerlin, they take family walks together, the four of them \u2014\u00a0in a place where Marner sees so much possibility for his family, outside in the constant, quiet summer. The new parents talk a lot about what they want for their son, and they agree that they won\u2019t force him to play hockey.<\/p>\n

Marner never played baseball as a kid, he said. Maybe Miles will \u2014\u00a0who knows? The boy will find his own passions. There is so much time ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that whatever experiences or whatever he wants to do in life, I hope we can support him and help him out to try to fulfill it,\u201d Marner said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to let him do what he wants.\u201d<\/p>\n

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