Just Happy to be Somewhere

I've transcribed these quotes depending on what I found interesting and what pertains to criticism of Warso I've seen and I also personally have. I tried to keep it as close to how he actually said it as possible, so there's a lot of filler and maybe slightly confusing sentences. I did not transcribe the questions asked by the podcast hosts but just kind of summarized them.

Again I urge you to watch the interview in full!

What he wants walking into the building to feel like, what it feels like for the players to come to work:

[A friend's dad told me] "the day you don't enjoy going to the rink is the day you gotta find something else to do" (...) and I always told myself that if I was ever coaching (...) I wanted them to enjoy coming to the rink every day (...). At the end of the day it's a game that we all love, the game is a lot bigger than all of us. (...) That's one thing that kinda hit home for me so I always try to have a feel for that, in the long days of January and February when we're kind of grinding it out and we might be struggling a little bit, you gotta go back and you gotta find some joy and make these guys enjoy coming to the rink because if they're not enjoying coming to the rink their attention span is not gonna be very high (...) I think it's very important for a coach, especially the head coach, to have that feel.

What does he think we would see if we were to watch him coach for a week:

I think you'd see a lot of passion in what I do (...) and in what I want our team to do (...). You'll see a guy that cares deeply about his players (...) at the end of the day they're human beings and this generation more than any generation wants to feel the love and that's a good thing and I think if you fight that, you're going down a slippery slope as a coach. So, and sometimes it's tough love, sometimes it's hard conversations and I think I'm extremely honest and you know, fair with what my assessment is [of] them as a player (...) and I try to be extremely honest with them (...) it's pretty clear, it's pretty direct and to the point and sometimes they might not like what they hear (...) they leave that office and it's pretty clear whether they agree with it or not (...) I try to be extremely fair, direct and honest.

Being the youngest coach in a rebuild + how to measure progress:

I'm ultra competitive (...) my biggest challenge (...) is when you don't get the result and when you don't win it eats you up (...). So I really try to stick to the process of creating moreso (...) a culture, a foundation of how you want the organisation to have success long term (...) and knowing the results (...) eventually will come. (...) We think we've created a pretty good culture with these last two years (...). Now there's a standard and we're going to continue to hold guys to the standard and we're going to continue to move the standard up as we get better but sticking to the process has been my biggest challenge (...) partly because I'm ultra competitive and I'm extremely passionate and I want us to win and I want players to feel that joy (...). I think it will continue to be my challenge as I grow forward (...).

About how a rebuild might take a while:

I think that's what's great about our management team here in San Jose is that there's a priority of patience in how we want to do this thing (...) we want to be in contention year after year after year for the next ten years.

How do you not lose the locker room when you're trying to have patience?

For me it's more about the relationship with the player and even moreso with the relationship with the human being because he is a human before he's a player (...) of course there's going to be some disagreements (...) at the end of the day I have to do what's best for the team and there's a lot of things we see that sometimes a player doesn't always see, we see how they interact with their teammates in the cafeteria, we see how they interact on the plane, how they interact on the bus, how are they in the gym, how do they interact with our (...) staff, (...) and at the end of the day the tape don't lie (...). You know, a young player coming out there for the first time and we're trying to protect the lead and he makes a mistake and he's 21 years old and this is the first time he's played in this situation, (...) he deserves another chance, I think he has to, you can't just say he messed up the first time, that's it, never again. How you create belief in the player, how do you create improvement, how do you [make him be accountable], yep I screwed up, I'll do it better, I know I can. So I think as a coach you have to have that feel (...) let's try to work with him, help him, develop him.

On coaching Mack (who interviewer thinks could be the greatest of all time!) - how do you earn trust quickly with a guy on that level?

I think it takes a lot of time (...) what I've realized with our 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 year olds is that it takes time and that's fine and that's part of who they are, they're not just going to say "I trust Warso, he's good, he's a great coach", it's going to take me building that relationship over time, hockey conversations, non-hockey conversations, life conversations, (...) For me it just takes a lot of time and effort and conversations, sometimes formal, sometimes informal, to help build that relationship (...) they're not just going to stamp you with a stamp of approval on the first day

What should coaches avoid to keep trust going in the right direction?

I see a lot of coaches (...) change who they are (...) - be who you are! (...) I don't want Macklin Celebrini to change who he is, he's passionate, he's fiery, he wants to win (...). Will Smith is different than Macklin Celebrin, I want Will Smith to be Will Smith, I don't want Will to be Mack (...). I see that mistake very frequently (...) I've just been myself, this is who I am, it's very organic, (...) I'm real, I'm honest, I'm passionate (...) I do make mistakes and I'll own up to it (...) be accountable to your mistakes, and I think players care, you know, when they know that you're part of it with them, and they know we're all in this together, you get a lot more out of them.

How do you take someone like Mack and give him mentors?

I think the organization did a really good job, obviously living with Joe Thornton, who is a leader (...) and what he's done for the Sharks, and to live with him and to experience that I think was super beneficial for Mack. (...) There's vocal leaders, there's non-vocal leaders, for me it's: who leads the group in the right way? (...) How do you prepare for the game, are you in the gym getting ready, are you respectful to the people around you, do you practice extremely hard, do you play extremely hard? Those are the leaders that I think are the most unique (...) you look at Mack, he's got all those qualities, he's got every one of those, he can speak when he needs to, but at the end of the day he leads by example, he leads by the way he prepares himself throughout the summer, how he comes into training camp as the best conditioned guy in our team, how he practices like it's the last practice he's ever gonna have, and how he plays like it's the last game he's gonna ever play. So those are the things that I've seen from Mack and very similar to Sid and talking to Celly (...) and we're seeing it now (...) playing for team Canada Mack was the captain and Sid came over and was like, nope, you're the captain, you know, and Sidney Crosby is, you know, captain Canada right? (...) We do believe Mack is well on his way to being the guy who is, you know, carrying the torch going forward. (...) Everyone's taught a little bit differently, Mack is very accountable the next day when you bring him in and you have conversations with him and he sees something, whether that's on film or whether that happened throughout the day, he sees it very very well for a 19 year old. And during the game you know when the temperature's hot sometimes it's hard, you know, and he sees it a little bit differently, which, you respect that (...) I'm very similar, I'm passionate, I'm fiery, (...) but when the temperature comes down a bit I can see it clearly.

On being fiery but also calm in big moments + Tortorella:

It's a double edged sword in a sense, cause like I said it's who I am, it's the ultra competitiveness, but there's probably a time and place and to feel what your team needs and sometimes what I need is not what the team needs, or what I believe I need is not what the team need, and that's something that - and I need to continue to work on and grow with and get better at. (...) Sometimes, I watch a lot of hockey games, and I won't even watch the game, I watch the coach on the bench (...). Right now I've seen John Tortorella going to Vegas and he's been very calm, and he's a fiery guy, I've gotten to know Torts quite well over the last couple of years and there's a lot of similarities with ourselves, and, but I've seen him go into this team (...) he has come in and he figured out what the team needed, they needed a calm presence, they need reassurance, they needed belief (...). So I've seen that a little bit and (...) I've talked to some coaches that have won Stanley Cups (...) and I want to continue to grow this summer and that's something I'll look a lot at, really taking the temperature of your team and what your team needs is really at the end of the day what it's all about.

On turning the room around after the bad start to the season:

We kind of flipped the script a little bit and (...) aimed it more towards positivity and our process and how we wanted to play the game the right way, (...) I can't just say hey, let's go win a game tonight (...) Break it down a little bit to them and let them focus on you know, instead on five things, let's focus on these three things (...). At the end of the day this is a new group, this is different, we had a lot of new players, we had to come together (...). What was great for me when I look back there was, for the majority of the season, we had guys playing for one another, and when you play for the guy next to you, (...) we never gave up, we just played the game in front of us, but that is something we should all be proud of as the coaching staff that we had this group playing for each other, and that doesn't happen very often, that's hard to do, it's hard to get there, it takes time, and I think that's why we had a lot of successes. (...) At the end of the day it's about the team. If I go in there and berate them and yell at them and scream at them after losing 4-1, you know (...) sometimes we lost and I'd feel like, did they even care? And they do, these players do care, they care more, some people just show it a little bit differently, I show it you know and it's very evident that I care, Macklin Celebrini, you can see it, but you know, Will Smith cares, he really does, but he doesn't show it the same way I show it, he doesn't show it the same way Mack shows it. So you know, you have to sometimes take a step back as a coach and go, okay, they do care, (...) but you know, what do they need? Sometimes it is, I do go in there and kind of ruffle the feathers a little bit, but the majority of the time you go in there and you do this together (...). If we play hard for one another, if you go out there and you focus on what your job is within your shift (...) we can go back and win. And next thing you know you score a goal and make it 5-2 and all of a sudden that belief gets a bit more (...) and next thing you know (...) we tie it up and win it in overtime. (...) I'm bringing up that game [against Pittsburgh] up as an example of a huge switch in (...) building to our culture and our identity was that game, you know we come back, we win the game in overtime, (...) we're moving forward, now, no matter what the deficit is, we can come back and win.

On giving young guys chances and looking at their needs, juggling that with needing a win:

Especially where we're at, you want the Sam Dickinsons and the Michael Misas to get some experiences and some unique situations that they're going to be in for their career going forward, you know, then you gotta balance out, you know, a minute left in the game who you're putting out on the ice to win the hockey game cause at the end of the day that's coaches... as much as they say you're not judged by wins and losses, at the end of the day you are judged by wins and losses, that is what it is, so there's definitely, you kind of go back and forth in your head a little bit, but you know I've stuck to my guns, and if I can trust you, you know, you'll go on the ice. And sometimes you gotta gain my trust, sometimes as young players you're kind of given that right away and sometimes you have to reel it back a little bit, but you have to have trust in your players and your players have to feel that, and I think if they do, that's when you start making, you know, some true development in who they are as players, and you know it's all about trust and we get paid a lot to win hockey games, but these guys, these young players need to gain experience in these situations and you can't just when they make mistakes rip it away from them.

Social media; how do you not change who you are because of what is being said on social media?:

It's difficult, it's difficult for everyone, it's difficult for our players, it's difficult for my wife that reads some of this stuff (...) everyone has an opinion you know and if you, you know, make a decision and it works out great there's 51% that like it and there's 49 that don't like it (...) and if it doesn't work it's the other way around. (...) If I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down swinging in what I believe in. I'm not gonna make every right decision, I'm not going to win you know 82 games in a row and be undefeated all season, we know that, we're gonna try, we're gonna try like hell to do that, but you know you have to really ignore the outside noise and what we go through (...). Every decision can be criticized (...). It's a problem and I don't know what the solution is to fix it (...).

How do you help your players ignore social media?

I'll give you an example, this year obviously Will Smith - we're pushing Will Smith to be better than he believes he can be, you know, that's our job as coaches at the end of the day. (...) and I'm going to push these players and challenge them, you know, Macklin Celebrini to be the best ever, you know, not to be top five, to be the best ever. I'm gonna challenge Will Smith to be better than he believes he can be and others believe he can be and that's my job. And this year, you know, there's times you're a little bit harder on some guys and you push some guys and I think we had benched, you know I benched Will Smith for a period and man I got criticized like it was the end of the world (...) but what people don't realize is that me and Will Smith's relationship, I probably have the best relationship with Will than anyone on the team, you know, we talk every single day, we won our championship together, (...) we're extremely close, we see it the same way, he comes in my office, we talk, we go through things, he's like yep, I need to be better there, and you would think, you know, we hate each other and that's a strong word from people from the outside. We don't, we're very aligned in what we believe in and how we think we need to get better and he wants to be pushed, he wants to be challenged, he knows he can be better. There's certain situations where maybe I should give him some more rope, for sure, but if you listen to that that's where things can get kind of dangerous, and you have to really ignore that noise.

What is it that elite athletes need emotionally that fans never even think about?

I think as fans we look at statistics, we look at goals, we look at assists, we look at the high-light reel pass that they make or the high-light reel goal that they score, and there's more to the game than just that. And for us to win we need to play a certain way, we need to be, you know, we need to defend hard, we gotta win 50-50 pucks, we gotta, you know, play on the inside and at the net, we gotta defend extremely hard. You know we have to play a certain way to have success, not just today, tomorrow, a year from now, two years from now, you know, there's habits that some of these players have that they - being the best player in the world at their age at 18 or 16 or 15, growing up, it works, it does, they can do it, they get away with it, but when you come and play in the National Hockey League, (...) it doesn't work. And you have to play a certain way and we have to change some of those habits. Are they still special players? 100%. Can they do things that I could never do and I'll never be able to do (...)? Of course. And we want to keep those, we want to keep those traits and that tool set but we need to continue to improve in other areas (...). The best athletes of all time continue to hone their craft (...), that's where we're trying to get some of our young players to go, is the fundamentals that you need to play with to win, not just to score the highlight reel goal, they already have that, they can do that. Can they win a puck on the wall when there's 30 seconds left and you're tired and you have nothing left and maybe you're a little banged up and you have a bruise on your hip (...) can you fight through that, can you play with some mental toughness, can you do what's best for the team, not what's best for you and win that puck or block a shot? The small, the small fundamental things that at the end of the day, in any sport, is what makes you and what helps you win championships. And that's not - that's not (...) a secret, that is in every sport (...). We lose that (...) we have all these coaches, we have the shooting coach, the skating coach, we have the skill coach, we have all these specialty coaches nowadays but we've lost the fact that to win the event, or that championship, there's the fundamentals (...) of hockey really haven't changed. (...) It's extremely hard to win, it is extremely hard, you don't just show up and do it, it's hard, it's painful, you have to be mentally and physically tough, and that's the lesson we're trying to teach our players.

Stanley Cup being the hardest trophy to win in sports:

It's extremely difficult to win (...) it's physically, you know, demanding on you, it's every other day, it's mentally, you know, demanding for you to be mentally ready to go and play every single gay, it's the travel you have to go through to get to, you know, specific cities, there's certainly, there's luck involved (...) you gotta get a couple bounces, but the roller coaster that you go on when you win, and I would say every coach would say this, (...) you feel like you win, you go up 2-0, man, we've got this and all of a sudden it's 2-1 and it's like oh my god, they might come back (...) the roller coaster of emotion you go on when you coach, for me, especially is extremely challenging but to keep the mindset of just sticking to the process and ignoring that is kind of the awesome challenge which is so grateful when you look back on it (...). You see it in the Stanley Cup for sure, how hard it is, the emotional grind that you go through.

How do you ensure that the growth keeps happening?

I think, you know, we did a lot of work this year to move it forward in a way of our culture and our standard, now the culture is in a good place and our standard's gotta rise, the standard's gotta be, we're gonna start the season on time, you know, we gotta, that'll be object number one, we've obviously had some slow starts the last four years and our start is gonna be pivotal in getting us going. And that will start with bringing more belief to our group more than ever (...) We have a long summer of preparation and getting ready and till that moment, I think right now we're in the decompress phase, you know, we'll start building towards next season with a lot of conversations with the players, myself and the players individually and continue to grow those relationships and setting the goals out. (...) We still have a long way to go with getting to what the final goal is, which is the Stanley Cup, and it's not gonna happen over night, it's gonna take baby steps to get there throughout the summer and to the start of the next season and I think at the end of the day we gotta continue to get comfortable being uncomfortable (...) it's gonna take a lot of physical toughness, mental toughness, to get to where we wanna get to and we can't get wrapped up in what the outside thinks of us and perceives of us and wants us to do and goals that they have for us, you know, at the end of the day I've said to our group, the only people that really care, care about who we are and what we're gonna do is the people within the four walls of our locker room. That's just the reality of it, I say it all the time to our players, my dad is the biggest Sharks fan there is, he wants us to win, but when he wakes up the next morning he's not really worried about what the Sharks did. Of course he wants us to win, yeah, but it doesn't affect him like it affects the people in the locker room. That is the reality at the end of the day. So for us to continue to move this forward is going to take every one of us from our training staff to our equipment staff, to our assistant coaches, medical team, and the players from the top of the roster to the bottom of the roster. It's going to take every one of us to continue to push this thing forward, we want to be better, we want to take it to teams next year, and I thought that was a big step, we kinda found our way halfway through the season to really, to control the game, we want to do that more often, we want to be the team that's controlling the game and I think that will lead to more wins.

Extra: Warso's coaching history as detailed in the video description:

Smith and his Under-17 U.S. National Team Development Program teammates lost nine of their first 10 games in 2021-22. There was the 8-1 hammering against Youngstown (USHL). The 6-0 setback to Madison (USHL). The Michigan-to-Louisiana bus ride that preceded back-to-back losses to Shreveport (NAHL).

It wasn’t just that. Smith was grinding through practices and two-hour weightlifting sessions at USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Mich. While his friends at St. Sebastian’s School were on campus in Needham, Mass., the 16-year-old was taking online classes at the arena with his teammates. The native of Lexington, a Boston suburb, was adjusting to life in Novi, about 15 minutes away from the rink.

It helped that teammates and fellow Massachusetts boys Will Vote (Arlington) and Ryan Leonard (Amherst), usually in similar states of physical and mental weariness, shared Smith’s table as his housemates. 

The three friends replenished with chicken and steak cooked by Colleen Smith, Will’s mother. At 9 p.m., they would top off with Colleen’s recovery shakes, which followed U.S. NTDP director of sports science Brian Galivan’s recipe: almond milk, protein powder, Greek yogurt, blueberries, spinach, hemp seeds, flax seeds and chia seeds.

When Smith, Vote and Leonard were ready for bed, each retired to his room. Even though Lexington was 700 miles away, Smith was literally in his family home.

Natural talent

Smith is a 6-foot, 180-pound center. For the upcoming 2023 NHL Draft, he is No. 3 on NHL Central Scouting’s list of North American skaters after Connor Bedard and Adam Fantilli. The offensive dynamo’s 191 points over two seasons places him second in U.S. NTDP history after Jack Hughes(228), ahead of previous program prodigies such as Patrick Kane and Auston Matthews.

Smith originally committed to Northeastern when he was 14 years old. NCAA rules have changed since then. Schools must wait until August prior to a player’s junior year before making their offers.

Smith will be a freshman at Boston College this fall. He will be the 14th family member to attend BC. His Chestnut Hill residence may not last very long.

It goes without saying, then, that Smith has always had a hockey knack, ever since he first hit the ice at 4 years old.

“Pretty early, I knew he was good,” father Bill Smith said of his son, the younger of his two children (daughter Grace will be a BC senior). “I could tell he could play. He was always one of the top kids on the team. He was always producing. He loved the big moments.”

Bill played baseball at Lexington High School and Worcester Academy. Colleen was a swimmer at Creighton University. Neither played hockey. As proof of that, Bill likes to tell the story of how he and Will once prepared at a local rink for the Brick Tournament, the annual summer showcase in Edmonton.

As father and son stepped onto the ice, Bill hit the deck. He got up. He fell again. Leaving your skate guards on will do that to you.

A fellow skater rushed to check on Bill. It was ex-NHLer Freddy Meyer.

To become a possible top-five NHL draft pick, though, requires more than natural talent. For nine seasons, Smith played for the Junior Eagles, one of the Boston area’s strongest minor hockey programs. Montreal general manager Kent Hughes, then an agent, was one of Smith’s coaches. At St. Sebastian’s, Smith played for former Harvard assistant coach Sean McCann. Smith’s teammates included future BC commits Nolan Joyce and Tim Delay.

The family traveled regularly for Smith’s games: Connecticut for showdowns against Mid-Fairfield; Tampa, Fla., for Eagles tournaments; Waterloo, Quebec, for the annual peewee extravaganza.

All of this would advance to a different tier in 2021 when Smith made the U.S. NTDP. 

“The Program,” as it is known, is the premier destination for 16- and 17-year-old American players. Eight of the NHL’s top 10 U.S.-born scorers in 2022-23 (Matthew Tkachuk, Jack Hughes, Tage Thompson, Clayton Keller, Matthews, Brady Tkachuk, J.T. Miller, Alex Tuch) are alums. NHL coaches Greg Cronin, Don Granato and David Quinn coached at the program. Dan Muse, who would be Smith’s coach, was hired this week as an assistant by the Rangers.

Attendance, equipment, education and travel are free. But the U.S. NTDP is not for every 16-year-old. 

The competition is older. Training is intense. Pressure is high. Homesickness can set in. Rigor is the keyword to describe the culture.

“They make it really hard,” Bill Smith said of the U17 introductory year. “It’s like boot camp.”

The Smiths recognized the magnitude of the opportunity. They heard the line that Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, a U.S. NTDP parent (son Ryan played in 2019-20 and 2020-21), used to say: “There’s no better place in America to develop, Monday through Thursday, than the program.”

They believed an on-site support system would maximize what their son would get out of his residency. 

It just so happened that Bill Smith was a professional.

Will Smith at the 2023 BioSteel All-American hockey game. (Mike Mulholland / Getty Images)

Making the move

Until the recent sale of his business, Bill Smith was a principal at Boyd/Smith, a Boston real estate firm that specializes in luxury housing and commercial properties. His father, who was also named Bill, founded the company. 

Boyd/Smith’s headquarters is on Massachusetts Ave., a slap shot away from Northeastern’s Matthews Arena. When he was younger, Will’s summer duties included tending the grounds and servicing the air conditioning at Boyd/Smith’s building.

The man with real estate in his blood, then, knew better than most that buying a house in Michigan would serve his family well.

It used to be that most, if not all, U.S. NTDP players lived with billet families. The shift toward remote work has helped to encourage some parents with the means to rent or buy Michigan property and live with their children. 

Colleen felt that being with Will would ease his transition. Bill knew that buying would be better than renting.

“I’ve been doing this my entire life,” Bill Smith said. “You can go out there and rent, and spend $3,500 or $4,000 a month. After two years, it’s basically money all down the drain. I felt like the market was pretty strong and we could buy a place out there. Our goal, in two years, all we cared about was that we just break even.”

The Smiths looked in Plymouth. Through a family connection, they learned of a five-bedroom house in Novi with a finished basement. The Smiths completed the transaction in 2021. The Vote and Leonard families were on board.

Colleen Smith and Deb Childs, Vote’s mother, came up with a plan. Each would spend two weeks per month in Novi to watch over the three boys.

At first, it was harder than they expected.

‘If you’re not cooking, you’re shopping’

The way Colleen Smith remembers the early days of 2021-22, the U17s had to change in the hallways of USA Hockey Arena. A month passed before Muse and his staff determined the players had earned the right to their dressing room.

On the ice, Muse rolled his lines against NAHL and USHL competition. Development, not winning, was the priority. All of a sudden, 16-year-olds used to collecting trophies and being the best players on the ice were losing — badly, at that.

At the same time, Colleen Smith was adjusting to her own life away from home. During her two-week Novi segments, Smith cooked eight steaks at dinner instead of three, saving the rest to slice up for the boys to take to the rink for lunch the next day. She bought 48 eggs at a time instead of a dozen. 

“If you’re not cooking, you’re shopping for the food you’re going to cook,” Smith said. “It just continues. Then you think, ‘You just spent $500 at Costco and it’s gone in two days.’ You’re thinking, ‘Where did it go?'”

Meanwhile, Bill Smith was regularly home alone in Lexington. Colleen, Will and Rigs, the Smiths’ energetic white Cavachon, were in Michigan. Grace was at BC. 

Smith became a regular on Delta’s Boston-Detroit leg to attend Will’s games. For one game, Bill cut it so close that Colleen booked his flight while he was driving to Logan Airport.

Smith and his teammates, though, turned a corner before Thanksgiving of 2021. They traveled to Finland for their first international tournament. The Americans won all four games. 

A month later, they won two of three games in Slovakia. Their performance against their age group gave the Americans confidence.

Smith was on his way to scoring 37 points in 35 games. He and his teammates were playing well against their age group in international competition. 

Colleen Smith and Childs found their rhythm, guided by the five-color-coded spreadsheet that mapped out everyone’s flights and house schedules. At the end of a two-week shift, when it came time for Colleen to return to Lexington, she would drive the car they shared to Detroit International Airport, take a picture of where she parked and send the location to Childs. Once Childs landed, she would find the car and drive to Novi. Sometimes they passed each other in the airport.

“Having the house, it was instrumental in the whole story and how it ended,” Colleen Smith said. “Having that whole living situation with Deb and I there, easing the burden of anything else. They really just had to focus on their health, playing hockey, getting their studies done. That was the main focus of being there.”

What’s next?

Sometime last season, when Will Smith and the U18s were playing against a college team, it struck Bill Smith how much his son was growing. During the national anthem, all the players removed their helmets. Most of Smith’s college opponents had beards. Some of them were bald.

Butting heads with older players hardened Smith in 2022-23. He scored 51 goals and 127 points in 60 games. At the U18 World Championship in Switzerland, Smith helped the Americans win gold by scoring 20 points in seven games. His parents were there, just like they had been in Finland and Germany for other tournaments.

This fall, Smith will be joined by five U.S. NTDP teammates at BC: Vote, Leonard, Drew Fortescue, Aram Minnetian and Gabe Perreault.

Smith projects to be a No. 1 NHL center. Come the first round, he could be reunited with Hughes, his former junior coach, in Montreal. The Canadiens own the fifth pick.

Smith missed out on a normal high school experience. He gained hockey and life perspective, though, he would not have gotten at home.

“Prep hockey’s good. But it’s seasonal,” Bill Smith said. “You’re not going to get the development you’re going to get when it’s basically 24/7 hockey. You’re playing the best of the best every day. You’re getting trained by unbelievable trainers who are there full-time. I remember a couple boys said when they got out there, they didn’t realize that everybody in that facility — from the trainers to the equipment managers to the coaches — they’re all there for them. It’s like, ‘Wow, these people, their jobs, everything — they’re there for us.'”

The Smiths have since sold the Novi house. They bought a place in Harwich on Cape Cod. For Will, this new home will help him catch his breath away from hockey, not get closer to it.

But even if Smith’s U.S. NTDP experience is over, its imprint on his family will not go away.

“When are you ever going to have this experience with your 17-, 18-year-old son in this unbelievably exciting (situation)?” Colleen Smith asked. “And be experiencing it with them, not just from afar. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing that we’ll never forget.”

The Smiths recently attended orientation at BC. They saw Vote and Leonard. Both gave Colleen a hug. She feels like she has two more sons.