Riverbend hockey player makes NHL debut

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This article was published 18/02/2020 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Usually Adam Brooks, a former Riverbend resident, can be found on the ice skating as one of the Toronto Marlies.

But on Dec. 28, he traded his regular jersey in for Maple Leafs threads. Though the colour of gear may not have changed, it made all the difference.

Brooks, 23, made his NHL debut three days after Christmas — a belated gift to both he and his family.

“It was obviously a pretty special moment,” Brooks recalled. “It was a dream come true.”
On the eve of the big game, the moment Brooks had been working his entire life for finally arrived.

“When Toronto phoned and told him he was going up, he called us,” his mom, Lisa, said. “It was a Friday night during the Christmas break and 10 o’clock at night. We were on a plane the next morning at 5 a.m. and it was surreal. Lots of tears and very humbling.”

“When he started skating at probably three years old, and as soon as he could talk, everyone would say, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ He would say, ‘I want to play in the NHL.’ He did say he wanted to be a dentist, too,” she laughed. “That was his dream and everybody knew that.”

The left-shooting centre spent 4:50 on ice in the away game against the New York Rangers — whose hockey camp Brooks attended only a few years earlier.

Since then, Brooks has played a total of seven games with the Leafs, racking up three points with the same number of assists.

“The biggest thing is you’re playing against some of the best players in the world,” he said. “Just focus on the moment and not who you’re on the ice with.”

Brooks, a West Kildonan Collegiate alumnus, said he has become more comfortable with skating after working with Barb Underhill, the Leafs’ skating coach and a former pair skater with multiple championship titles under her blades.

“I just feel comfortable playing at that level and that speed,” he said.

In the current season with the Marlies, Brooks has chipped in with eight goals and 10 assists in 27 games.

During breaks when Brooks isn’t bearing a leaf on his chest, he can sometimes be found at his old skating grounds: the Red River Community Centre on Murray Avenue.

The facility, where Brooks has spent countless hours practising and training, didn’t exist until his family arrived.

“We moved to the area and there wasn’t a very nice community centre,” Lisa said.

Her husband, Scott, mobilized the community and helped to secure funding for the project. The centre was completed in 2006.

“That community centre being built was a big reason why I furthered my career,” Brooks said.

Brooks was drafted 92nd overall by the Leafs in the 2016 NHL Draft, after spending four years with the WHL’s Regina Pats.