COLLINGWOOD, ONT.—Mitch Marner’s journey to the Maple Leafs started on a public skating rink in Clarington, Ont. He was 2 ½ when he put on skates for the first time.

“I remember a little bit,” says Marner, the Leafs top draft pick in the June draft. “I didn’t even have skates. I had those things you put on your shoes. It’s a memory that lasts a lifetime.”

Marner’s dad, Paul, remembers it, too, because Mitch took to skating — and all things hockey — so easily.

“I kind of knew right away when he was young that there was something different, something special about him,” says Paul Marner. “He literally could skate the first day we put him on skates.

“The next day, I took him to a pond and by the end of the day he was pushing the puck and taking some strides. It came to him that easy.”

The story of how Mitch Marner got to be one of the best 18-year-old hockey players in the world — and one of the Leafs brightest hopes — is the story of a close-knit family spending a lot of time in rinks and a lot of money on hockey.











“Without them, I wouldn’t be here,” Mitch says of his family. “I’m really lucky to have my family behind me. Our family is really close. We try and do as many family events as we can. That’s the kind of family we are.

“Nothing is ever going to change between us.”

Mitch is the youngest of two. Christopher is four years older, and played hockey and Mitch wanted be like his older brother.

“When he was learning to walk, he had a hockey stick in his hand,” says Paul Marner. “He played mini-sticks in the kitchen with my wife (Bonnie) while she was cooking. He’d watch his older brother play and Mitch would be in the rink in a corner with a stick and a puck and shooting at the net.”

Both sons played top-level hockey, but Mitch — like Connor McDavid — played against older kids. He might have been the smallest player on the ice, but he was also one the fastest and most skilled and unafraid to hit the bigger kids. At 4, he was singled out as athlete of the week by City TV.

“I think he was born with some God-given talent,” says Paul Marner. “My older boy had the same training, but it came very easy for Mitch, the skating, his hockey sense.”

Father and son would work on skills together — one-timers, the give-and-go, wraparounds.

“Whenever I got the chance, I’d want to go on the ice and do fundamentals and shooting and stuff like that,” says Mitch. “It was my fun as a kid.”

As youngsters, the brothers would watch the Leafs before going to bed. But Mitch would also watch his own games — Paul recorded as many as he could — to see what he was doing right and what he was doing wrong and what he might do differently next time.

It was a learning tool then that has become a precious family heirloom. And while Mitch admired Mats Sundin, the father would tell stories and show video about his favourite player, Doug Gilmour.

Scouts have long likened Marner’s game to that of Gilmour’s. Offensive, crafty, can score and pass, and plays well in his own end. And Marner’s slight, like Gilmour.

“That’s why I wear 93 — for him and my brother’s birth year,” says Marner. “Me and my dad would watch Dougie clips, see what he used to do. He was famous for that wraparound of his. When I was a kid, the wraparound was my go-to.

“Nowadays, it’s a little more difficult. But he’s a guy I’ve always looked up to and watched and a guy I want to be one day for Leafs Nation.”

As Mitch grew — first playing in Whitby, Ont., then for the Vaughan Vipers, then for the Don Mills Flyers, then finally with the London Knights — mother and father attended just about every game. Home and away.

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When the all-in price tag is considered — from registration fees to new equipment to private lessons, hotels and gas money to get to tournaments for both sons — Paul Marner figures the family spent between $600,000 and $700,000 on hockey.

“It’s staggering when you think what most hockey parents spend,” says Paul Marner. “We’re one of the lucky ones where at the end of it hopefully Mitch is going to have a career out of it. That’s not why you do it. But it’s an expensive sport, very expensive at the upper level.”

Marner took a few minutes on Thursday on his lunch break at Leafs prospects camp, reminiscing while looking at a few old photos.

“It’s crazy to think about it,” says Mitch. “It’s all helped me get here now. I wouldn’t change anything.”

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