Wayne Gretzky is from Ontario. Mark Messier? Alberta. Everybody’s familiar with Gordie Howe. He’s from Saskatchewan. Steve Yzerman hails from British Columbia. Among many from Quebec, there’s Mario Lemieux. While not every famed hockey player calls the United States’ northernmost neighbor home, the vast majority do. Of course, each of the aforementioned men comes from large regions of the country.
Then, there’s Prince Edward Island.
Consisting of a population of roughly 140,000, PEI isn’t exactly a professional hockey hotbed. In fact, according to the Legends of Hockey website, only 28 men from the area have ever appeared in a National Hockey League game, including former Bruins Bob Stewart (1971-72) and Charles Cahill (1925-26). Granted, you’ve probably heard of Al MacAdam, Brad Richards or the Brothers MacMillan, Billy and Bob, but the stars of the group are in short supply. Of the 28, only seven have seen NHL action in the last few years. But of those seven, two could find themselves calling the TD Garden home this fall.
When the Boston Bruins officially begin training camp, recently re-signed defenseman Adam McQuaid and newly inked blue-liner Nathan McIver will represent what natives call "The Island" in a proud and unique way. They’ll be looking to secure a place on an NHL roster. For these two men, however, the story begins much earlier.
McIver, 25, and McQuaid, weeks from turning 24, began playing against one another as pre-teens in minor hockey, growing up only about an hour away from one another, McIver in Summerside and McQuaid in Charlottetown. Whether their rivalry dates back to atom or peewee, neither can say for certain. Since then, however, they’ve grown quite close.
For the better part of the last decade, McIver and McQuaid have been training together back home in PEI, first working out in a larger group and, for the last few years, as just a pair. Every summer has basically been the same – work out, train, skate and push each other to be better. Then, during the season, keep tabs on one another and use calls, texts, e-mails and even the odd head-to-head matchup to keep in touch.
On July 5 of this summer, though, things got far more interesting. McIver, primarily Vancouver property since 2003, left the Canucks to sign a two-year deal with Boston. Just 10 days later, McQuaid was re-upped by the Bruins with a two-year contract of his own.
You might wonder if McQuaid approached Boston or was called upon by the Bruins for a character assessment of McIver. McQuaid didn’t approach the Bruins, and he wasn’t asked to provide any assessment. Independent of McQuaid, who only mentioned McIver as his offseason training buddy during his end-of-the-year meetings, the recruitment, so to speak, happened on its own. Had he been needed, McQuaid might actually have been able to return a favor.
Flashing back to the 2002-03 season, when both men were boys, McIver was in his first season playing major junior hockey with Toronto in the Ontario Hockey League after a year with his hometown Junior A squad in Summerside. McQuaid was playing elsewhere in Cornwall, and McIver’s old team wanted to recruit the young blue liner.
"The coach of the team I played for the year before called me and said, ‘This Adam McQuaid guy is playing midget, and he’s a pretty good player, and I think we want to get him, but he’s kind of hesitant to switch teams during the year, so you ought to give him a call and tell him he should come play for us,'" laughed McIver. "At this time, I didn’t know [McQuaid] at all that well. I just knew him a little bit, so I had to call and try to convince him to go play for that team."
McQuaid hasn’t forgotten that moment.
"It’s kind of funny because, growing up, he was a little bit older than me, and I always kind of looked up to him and wanted to follow in his steps," McQuaid recalled. "I remember when I got the call from him it was pretty cool, but pretty funny when we look back. We were talking about it and both saying how awkward it was for each other because we didn’t know each other at all and he was kind of making the call as a favor."
McQuaid didn’t end up leaving Cornwall, but that informal introduction proved meaningful for the future training partners.
Returning to this summer, for the first time in their young careers, the two men could train together with the same goal in mind, making Boston’s opening day roster. If there was any negative at all, it’s that their goal truly was the same and that the off-ice friends were likely beginning a fight for the same spot of seventh defenseman. Zdeno Chara, Dennis Seidenberg, Andrew Ference, Mark Stuart, Johnny Boychuk and Matt Hunwick represent the odds-on favorites to begin the season as the team’s top six back-liners. In all likelihood, that leaves just one extra spot, and many prognosticators speculate McQuaid will fill that hole after a solid NHL showing in nearly 30 regular-season and playoff games last year. That said, McIver has enjoyed 36 career NHL games of his own, splitting time between Vancouver and Anaheim.
The situation could have presented a lot of tension. However, neither man viewed it that way.
"It was exciting," McQuaid said of McIver signing with Boston. "I had people say to me, ‘Is that a good thing or a bad thing that he signed there?’ My answer was that it was a great thing. For the first time, we both were training for the same fitness testing, so that was an added bonus that we both were training toward that. We were also making plans as far as when camp was starting, when we were gonna head down, stuff like that. We both knew that we had the same kind of road ahead, and we were both working toward the same things to get it."
McIver is excited about the opportunity.
"I think it is a healthy competition," he added. "Especially for us two guys who will be battling for the same spot. For us to have an opportunity to train together all summer and just push each other to get a little better, get a little faster and get a little stronger, just having someone there to push ya, the healthy competition has been great."
Eager to join his new team, McIver quickly used McQuaid in a way like never before – as a sponge for knowledge. Each day, he’d have new questions about how things would differ from the way they were in Vancouver and what he should prepare to expect. McQuaid, to no surprise, was happy to be a fountain of knowledge.
"I gave him a few pointers on some pretty basic things in the system," McQuaid said. "He obviously picked up on them pretty quick, but it was so he had a heads-up coming into camp. I also gave him a heads-up on what I felt people in the organization liked to get out of their players, basically a lot of things that he brings to the table, so it’s not like I was worried about him or anything like that, but I just tried to give him a little insight on the things that I’ve learned over the few years since I’ve been in the organization."
Complicating matters, McQuaid and McIver are not merely two defensemen looking to earn the same spot. Close in both height and weight, the two character-strong individuals play a very similar game as physically sacrificing defensive defensemen, each with significant shutdown experience in the American Hockey League. If Claude Julien is forced to choose a man based on any of those attributes, it’s a coin flip. It’ll come down to which player has the better camp. If experience is the deciding factor, in tenure rather than age, again the job is McQuaid’s to lose.
Ever the soft-spoken and humble guy, McQuaid would never discuss any sort of expectation to make the team. It’s just not the way he’s built. If you talk to McIver, though, you’d think he’s preparing to start a fan club for his good friend.
"I’m not really sure fully what he’s thinking, but he’s never one to talk about himself and he never takes anything for granted," McIver said of McQuaid’s outlook on making the Boston Bruins team. "He’s worked hard this summer, and he’s going there thinking he’s got to make that team. He’s not thinking at all that just because he was there last year that he has a spot on the team. He thinks he has to go there and make that team just like everybody else."
Of course, there’s the dream that somehow both could find a way on Boston’s roster, a more likely scenario should injuries strike down the road. Thinking back through the years, both men could only laugh and smile at the thought of what it would mean for two guys from PEI to graduate to the highest level and potentially play together. McIver achieved the feat once on Jan. 29, 2008, sharing the ice with goalie and Charlottetown native Drew MacIntyre as Vancouver fell to Dallas.
For McQuaid, the opportunity would be a first, and it’s one he would cherish.
"It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to play with someone from home," he said. "It’d be pretty special if the two of us were able to get an NHL game together."
