Sheng Peng
BOSTON — The San Jose Sharks’ Collin Graf has always been an underdog.
According to his mom, Terri Graf, a seven-year-old Graf didn’t make the first team that he had to try out for, the East Coast Wizards.
“At first, he was really disappointed, but he was seven, I’m not sure he really got it. Fortunately for him, we’re like, ‘Well, you can still play hockey, there’s another, another team here.’ We took him to that tryout, and he made that team,” she recalled. “I think at that point in his life, it was just, ‘I just want to play hockey.’”
Collin Graf remembers missing out on the Bedford, Massachusetts-based Wizards slightly differently.
“They wanted me to make it because the drive was closer,” Collin laughed, said of his father Robert and his mother.
Instead, Graf made the Assabet Valley Patriots, now known as the Patriot Hockey Club.
“The one he made and the one he didn’t make, they played against each other — but obviously, the one he didn’t make was a better team. They kind of always won, and he kind of always had a little chip on his shoulder.”
That chip on his shoulder has served Graf well throughout his life.
“As he got older, he was small, he was very small, so he tended to get a little bit overlooked because of his size,” Terri said.
Graf, unlike younger brother Justin, who’s scoring at a point-per-game pace for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders right now, didn’t play in the USHL. The NHL skipped drafting him for three years. The most prestigious NCAA programs like Boston University and Michigan weren’t interested.
Even as a San Jose Sharks prospect, Graf, signed out of Quinnipiac, hasn’t received as much of the limelight, because of the likes of the 2024 No. 1 pick Macklin Celebrini, 2024 No. 11 Sam Dickinson, 2023 No. 4 Will Smith, and more.
But the 23-year-old has arrived this season as a bona fide middle-six winger and a top penalty killer. He’s tied for third on the Sharks with 16 goals.
Graf returns home on Thursday night, as the San Jose Sharks visit the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.
This is Graf’s second NHL homecoming game, but this time, he’s coming back as an everyday NHL’er, unlike as a rookie last season.
Terri and Collin Graf spoke to San Jose Hockey Now about his formative years, and Terri shared many pictures of a young Collin.
How It Started
Terri Graf: “I skated when I was very young. My mother’s best friend was a professional figure skater, so that was just the thing to do, start ice skating at age three or whatever it was. I wanted him to learn to skate, so we put him in a Learn to Skate at almost four or three-and-a-half.
“He saw the kids down on the other end of the ice playing hockey, and he was like, ‘Oh, can I do that? That’s fun,’ and I said, ‘Well, you have to learn to skate forwards and backwards and do crossovers. Then, after you do that, you can try hockey.’
“He was a very motivated little kid, that was how it all started. He wanted to do it, it was all him.”
Backyard Rink
Terri Graf: “We had a backyard rink for 14 years, he and his brother, too. They just loved being able to just go right outside and skate before school and after school.
“I remember the funniest thing was the very first year we did it, you have to wait for it to freeze. I remember the first day—it was the first time we did a backyard rink—we told him ‘Okay, it’s good, you can skate,’ he’s out there skating, and I finally was like, ‘You need to come in and eat dinner,’ so he comes and he’s like, ‘Can I just leave my skates on and go right back out?’
“He didn’t want to take his skates off. He wanted to eat dinner and go back outside.
“That was probably one of the best things we ever did, was just have that rink out in the backyard, because they just loved it.”
Cars
Terri Graf: “We probably had — over the course of their youth hockey — I bet you, I went through four or five cars just because I put so many miles on them. I remember when I’d bring them in for oil changes, they’d be like, ‘You’re back again?’”
Best of Times
Terri Graf: “Honestly, thinking back on it, that was some of the most fun, right? You’re in the car with your kid or your kids, depending on where we’re going, and they’re sort of trapped, right? They have to talk to you.
“Early morning skills, weekends of back and forth to rinks, traveling to tournaments. I used to joke, sometimes somebody would say, ‘Oh, what do you do?’ I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m an Uber driver’ and they thought I was serious.
“When you think back on it, it was a lot of fun, because you got to spend all that time sitting in the car and just chatting with your kids, but there were lots of days of eating meals on the run and kids doing homework. A lot of times, I would take them to practice, and my husband did a lot of the games. We would split up a little bit, one would take one kid, one would take the other one. During the week, when it was practice and I had to do both, one kid would be eating dinner in the rink while the other one skated, or things like that, but it was a lot of fun. Honestly, it was a lot of fun.”
Coaches
Terri Graf: “There’s a guy in this area, his name’s Greg Carter, and he worked with him at a very young age for skills…Then as a kid, he worked with [former NHL’er] Freddie Meyer.
“That’s a funny story — there’s a video out there that Greg did, a promotional video for his skills program, if you look it up, and I remember Collin was in that video. They did a professional video, I can’t remember how old he was, maybe 9 or 10, somewhere in that range.
(Graf is in yellow, wearing No. 11)
“I was thinking about the skills people he worked with when he was young: Jeff Serowik, Dena Taylor [did] skating, and Graeme Townshend. We made a point of having him work with different people because he learned different things from each of them.”
The Pedestal
Terri Graf: “A really big thing was when he was a fairly young teenager, maybe 13 or 14, he started working with a different skills coach, and he got to get on the ice with some NHL players and some pro players that he probably had no business being on the ice with, but just the opportunity was there several times for him to skate with these guys and sit in the locker room with them and listen to how they talk and how they train.”
Collin Graf remembers Jack Eichel and ex-San Jose Sharks teammate Jeff Skinner as among the NHL’ers at these sessions: “I feel like, honestly, I might not even have introduced myself, or like, said hi. I was probably scared to talk to them, try to go out there and fit in as well as I could. I don’t think I spoke to those guys very much.”
Terri Graf: “It was their off-season too. If the ice was at 6 AM, that’s when they were showing up to train with this guy, and how serious these guys took it and what it took to be a professional player. I think that that was something that really motivated him, even as a young teenager, as he was starting to think about what he might want to accomplish with hockey.”
Collin Graf: “As a kid, you sort of see the NHL as like a pedestal. Getting just the opportunity to skate with those guys a little bit was something that made the goal more attainable.
“You could definitely see how much better they were at some things, and they gave me some stuff to work on.
“I remember their shots were really good. Maybe it was just because I was still sort of a kid, so I was weaker. But I just remember their shots being really hard. Mine wasn’t as hard, so I was embarrassed. But it happens, everyone gets stronger.”
Growth Spurt
Terri Graf: “He did get picked for teams. He was never the best, but he was one of the best kids, and he was always picked for some of the better teams. But then, as he got older, he was small, he was very small, so he tended to get a little bit overlooked because of his size.
“I think it made him a better player. Because of his size, he had to really learn body positioning and keeping his head up and staying safe and making sure he knew what was going on around him and playing smart.
“As he got into those early teen years, and all throughout his teen years, he was definitely overlooked at that point. Not necessarily picked for a lot of the things that he, as a younger kid, was getting picked for.
“His big growth spurt, I would say, was around after he was 18, like 18 or 19, and he probably grew five or six inches. He was small at 17, probably maybe 5-foot-7 or 5-foot-8, something like that, not very big.
“Then he, all of a sudden, grew and he was still growing when he was in college. He probably hit six feet when he started college—he was, what, 18, almost 19—and then he grew another inch or so after he started college. I would say that year was probably his big growth spurt.”
“Always a Real Serious Kid”
Terri Graf: “He was always a real serious kid, he takes everything seriously, and he just always wanted to try and be the best. He kind of went from just making the team to probably being one of the best players on the team, just because he was so motivated and so dedicated to it, even at [a] young age.
“We always thought it would be great if he could play college hockey and go from there. He always wanted to play in the NHL, I would say, even as a little kid. He always wanted it, and we weren’t going to say, ‘No, you can’t.’ We never really knew if he would or not, but you let little kids have their dreams and just keep working hard.
“I think we always gave him the opportunity to do skills as a kid growing up and to improve [himself]. We were like, ‘You can accomplish whatever you want to accomplish,’ and we gave him that opportunity to do the skills, and he took it from there.”
Special thanks to Maddie Dutra for her help transcribing!