Steven Lorentz is living his childhood dream with the Maple Leafs
Arguably no one was more psyched by Mats Sundin's appearance at Toronto Maple Leafs training camp this fall than Steven Lorentz .
Lorentz was, as you might know by now, a die-hard Leafs fan growing up in Waterloo, Ont. , and "Sundin was always my guy."
He was pumped to meet the franchise legend, the one whose number he wore as long as he possibly could, but tried to play it cool when they met for the first time last month. "I didn't want to fanboy too much," Lorentz said of his introduction to Sundin, who had been invited to attend camp by Leafs management. "I didn't want to make him feel old either, like, 'Hey, I had a poster of you in my room when I was yay, big.'"
Lorentz won a Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers last season. Now he's fulfilling another childhood dream, a fact his sister, Steph, immortalized last weekend with a photo from her brother's yearbook in which he declared that in 15 years he would be playing in the NHL with the Leafs.
"I don't know if I was the only kid in the yearbook that put that," Lorentz said with a grin, "but I think I'm the only one that it panned out for. It's surreal. I won't take a day for granted."
Lorentz had followed the advice of Hall of Fame defenceman Al MacInnis who told young Steven once upon a time — signed it on his stick for that matter — to dream big.
He still can't believe that it's happening, that he's in the NHL and now, suddenly, playing for the Leafs. He pinches himself every day. The Leafs were the team he was born into rooting for. There was no choice. His father, Mark, had broken with his father and brother, both Bruins fans, by cheering on the Leafs. Mark loved watching Börje Salming go end to end on Saturday nights.
He passed on his love of the Leafs, and of hockey, to his son and three daughters, all of whom played hockey.
Steven was born on April 13, 1996, the weekend of the Masters. "When the doctor handed him to me," Mark Lorentz recalled, "I said, 'Two things buddy. I want you to play hockey because I always wanted to. And one day we're gonna go to the Masters on the Sunday.'"
They're still waiting on the Masters.
Steven attended his first Leafs game when he was in grade three. It was preseason. They sat way up in the nosebleeds. Steven can still picture watching the likes of Alex Ponikarovsky and Nik Antropov.
At home, his mom Karen, had painted his bedroom with a mural of the ice at what was then known as the Air Canada Centre. Steven's bedroom light was the Leafs' score clock. On the walls were posters of Sundin and Curtis Joseph. He couldn't wait to grab a bowl of popcorn and watch games on TV with the family.
"I was always mesmerized," he said.
Steven would flip through hockey magazines before he could even read. The pictures were all he needed. He would draw sketches of his own of Sundin and Trevor Kidd. In time, grew to adore the game of Matt Stajan. "I remember his first NHL game. I remember his first NHL goal. I was like, 'I like this guy,'" Lorentz said.
In the basement of the family home, Steven spent hours firing shots into a net and then into the refrigerator and freezer. The dents are still there. Mark works for Bell Canada. His home office is down there. When co-workers see him on video calls, they often ask if he's using some sort of fake background. It's all hockey jerseys, sticks, skates, equipment.
The first time Mark put Steven on skates, Steven needed no help. He just started skating. From house league, he was invited, almost by fluke, into a three-on-three tournament, where he then received an invite to a spring hockey program called Regional Express. Lorentz played on a dominant team with future NHLers like Aaron Ekblad and Roland McKeown.
"Some parents have to push their kids to do things, to practise and stuff like that," Mark said. "He was the opposite. We had to go downstairs and say, 'Stevie, you gotta stop. You gotta come up and eat.'"
There were three rules for young Steven Lorentz to follow every game.
One, he had to have fun. This was pricey stuff. If he wasn't enjoying it, what was the point? Two, he had to work hard. The third rule? That was up to Steven. It might be as simple as making two great passes or not going offside.
Steven's work ethic, the kind that's quickly endeared him to Leafs coach Craig Berube, had been reinforced from the earliest days.
Dad told him once that he knew a magician and this magician had sent along magic hockey wax. (It was really just a bar of soap.) If Steven used the wax, and worked hard, good things would happen.
For a long time, he wondered if it would ever happen for him, playing in the NHL, if ever for the Leafs.
"I didn't really grow until I was about 17," Steven said. "I got cut from Junior B my first year after being drafted by Peterborough, so I played major midget. I think that year I went from like five-foot-nine to six-foot-three. It took me a long time to get coordinated and fine tune the skills and stuff."
He was picked in the seventh round of the 2015 NHL Draft, one pick after the Leafs selected Nikita Korostelev. His pro career began mostly in the ECHL with the Florida Everblades. It was there, far from the NHL, that he couldn't help but wonder if his dreams would come true.
In time he learned to remodel his game, become a checker, someone who would crash and bang, block shots and defend.
Steven was almost 25 when he made his NHL debut for the Carolina Hurricanes during the 2020-21 season. These were pandemic times. No fans, including his parents, could be in the building. That's what made the Leafs home opener on Saturday extra special.
Karen and Steven's fiancée sat in the two seats that Steven received from the Leafs. Upper management at Bell, where Mark worked, made sure that he would be there too. He sat in the company box, at centre ice. The crowd roared when his son, already a fan favourite, was introduced.
Mark welled up with tears watching it all unfold.
"It checked all the boxes," Mark said. "Just a real warmth in your heart when you see that, when your child is living out their dream. And vicariously, he's living my dream too. The only one that wants to be down there more than him is me, 100 percent."
It was in the summer of 2000, when Steven was only four, that New Jersey Devils defenceman Scott Stevens brought the Cup out to Kitchener. Mark wouldn't let Steven touch that Cup though, just in case. Little Steven had to keep his hockey gloves on.
It worked.
Winning it all was a career highlight for Lorentz.
One day this summer, after they were done hitting a bucket of golf balls, Steven and Mark sat on a deck and sipped a celebratory beer. (The best sip came earlier, from the Cup, Mark said.)
"I said, 'Stevie, you've done it all,'" Mark recalled of their chat. "'Where do we go from here? What motivates you? I know you love the game more than anything. What's the motivator?'"
"Why not bring a Cup to Toronto?" Steven responded.
"You do that," his dad said, "they'll never forget who you are.'"
—With files from Chris Johnston
(Photo: Imagn Images / Courtesy Lorentz family)
