Dallas
How’s this for overcoming your world turning upside down? On a wintry Canadian afternoon about 10 years ago, Wojtek Wolski was a passenger in his parents’ car when it went out of control and flipped. Mom suffered back and neck injuries. Dad was shaken up, but OK.
Wojtek, a star on the Toronto Marlboros, a bantam hockey team, played in his team’s game about two hours later.
That was expected of young Wojtek (pronounced VOY-teck) in the Wolski household. Wojtek’s hockey career was paramount to his parents.
The tall, curly-haired son of Wes and Zofia Wolski always felt pressure to excel in hockey, even leaving his parents behind at the hospital to play a lousy game. The Wolskis weren’t going to let all those expensive private hockey lessons at 5:30 in the morning go to waste. But it wasn’t just Wes’ decision that day. Wolski had the blessing of his mother. She would be fine, she told him. Go play – and dominate.
“It was a scary thing, but the injuries to my wife weren’t that bad,” Wes Wolski said Tuesday. “Ever since then, it’s been a dream come true for Wojtek, and us.”
Wojtek’s parents lived humbly in Zabrze, Poland, when he was born. They moved to Berlin when he was 2, and on to Toronto when he was 4, before landing in Mississauga, Ontario, three years later. His parents were determined to inspire their son to better things – even if it took a few kicks in the pants from Wes, who scraped out a living as a stonemason.
“He always pushed me,” said Wolski, an Avalanche rookie who had two assists Tuesday night in the NHL’s YoungStars Game while playing for the Western Conference.
“If I played bad, he would talk to me,” Wolski said of his father. “It was hard at times. He always seemed to point out the things I did wrong. But now I realize he was always trying to help me, not trying to put me down. When you’re a kid, you don’t understand the motivation behind it. He just wanted me to do well.”
The family has come a long way from communist-controlled Zabrze. Today, Wolski’s parents are in good health – she manages a supermarket, and he has his own construction company – and their son is one of the best young players in the NHL.
The Wolskis spoke no English when first coming to Toronto. They had almost no money, coming to Canada because siblings of Wes’ had found jobs and a better life there beforehand. Young Wojtek, his parents and his older brother, Zardian, lived with his aunt and uncle for months while Wes and Zofia found work. Wojtek and Zardian slept on a sofa together.
“We came with very little. I would definitely call it modest,” Wolski said. “But they always made sure I got the best attention from the coaches, that I had a purpose for playing the game.”
A few weeks ago, Wolski felt like he was reliving his hardscrabble youth as Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville took on the role of the critical Wes Wolski. Too many blind passes, too many one-on-one moves at the blue lines, Quenneville said, and he had seen enough. He sat Wolski down as a healthy scratch, and told him to watch a game from the press box and learn something.
A chastened Wolski did what he always did when Wes laid a little verbal lumber at his locker. In his next game he went out and showed Quenneville he wasn’t some greenhorn floater on the ice. He scored a goal and assisted on three others in a 4-1 victory over Vancouver, pushing his 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame around the backboards, rattling a few Canucks into turnovers.
“It was good for me, although at the time I was mad about it,” Wolski said. “But I was mad also at myself. They probably had a reason to sit me. I didn’t want to give them another one when I got back.”
So far, he has not. He entered the all-star break with 16 goals and 32 points, playing on the first line with Joe Sakic.
Said Wolski’s father: “I always just told him to think about the things he could control, not the things he couldn’t. But he’s always been very determined. We’re so proud of him.”
Wolski is the Avalanche’s first choice on shootouts, which doesn’t surprise Mike Griffin, the president of the Brampton Battalion, Wolski’s junior team.
“The fun part of Wojtek was watching him in shootouts,” Griffin told NHLPA.com.. “He was 6-for-6 with us. He was a piece of work. He’d have goalies looking up at the rafters. Every one was a highlight reel- type goal.”
“He’s using his size better now,” said Sakic, who will captain the Western Conference all-star team tonight. “He’s got a great shot, and he knows how to get into scoring positions to use it.”
Wolski used some of his $984,200 salary to buy his parents a four-bedroom home in the Toronto area, and Wes was part of the Avalanche’s recent father-son road trip through Anaheim and San Jose, Calif.
“It was a great time,” Wojtek said. “A lot of the things that he pushed to achieve were right there in front of us. It was a nice reminder.”
Wolski/Facts
Avalanche wing Wojtek Wolski had two assists in Tuesday’s NHL YoungStars Game and is among rookie leaders in several statistics:
