London hockey star Nazem Kadri reflects on racism, triumph in autobiography

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CALGARY — Pulling out a chunk of his idol Joe Thornton’s beard in a fight, riding the roller-coaster of being a Toronto Maple Leaf and becoming the first Muslim player to win a Stanley Cup are chronicled in Nazem Kadri’s book “Dreamer: My Life On The Edge”.

The 34-year-old NHL player who grew up in London and played junior hockey with his hometown Knights has a story to tell with a few revelatory twists.

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“I wanted it to be inspirational and motivating, but kind of lighthearted and humorous at the same time,” said Kadri, who is now in his third season with the Calgary Flames. “That certainly was a challenge in certain parts with adversity and having the self-doubt that creeps into being a professional athlete and with being under the microscope.”

Kadri’s frankness in “Dreamers,” scheduled for release on Oct. 15, stems from a belief in himself on and off the ice, which he says in the book the Maple Leafs tried to stamp out of 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 his confidence was viewed as a character flaw by team management.

“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 that have come in and shown that we’re not robots and that we’re people.”

A passion for the game and a stick in his hand whenever possible while growing up is an oft-told narrative about an NHL player.

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What’s different for Kadri, whose grandfather Nazem left Lebanon for Canada in the 1960s, is he had no generational connections to hockey other than his father Samir, who fell in love with the Montreal Canadiens as a young immigrant because of the team’s snazzy jersey colours.

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

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

“And ever since I was a kid people had hurled racist insults at me from the stands and on the ice. In effect, I was told that I didn’t belong in their game, that it was a game for white kids.”

Light and dark combine in Kadri’s journey to lifting 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 sought Kadri out to inform him that he and his family were targets of death threats and vitriolic racism “worse than anything I’d ever experienced,” he recalled in the book.

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

“Probably 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 his 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.

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

His father’s first foray into the Bell Centre, home of his beloved Habs, was to hear his son’s name called seventh overall by archrival Toronto and hear the boos that rained down upon the Maple Leafs’ choice.

“Dreamer” is catnip for Leafs Nation as it goes inside coach Mike Babcock’s controversial handling of players during Kadri’s decade in Toronto.

Recounted with rueful humour and the occasional expletive, Toronto’s playoff collapses and heartbreak at the hands of the Boston Bruins make for a fast-paced read co-written with Dan Robson.

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

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

His NHL career is far from over as he plies his trade in Western Canada, but Kadri felt the time was right to tell his story so far. Back home, every November the North London Nationals minor hockey program plays host to a tournament named in his honour – the Nazem Kadri North London Classic.

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

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