There is a reason Travis Hamonic looks up to this one specific place in the Nassau Coliseum before every game. It’s in the northeast part of the rafters, the “top left,” from his home-team view. There is a small sitting area, and an old spotlight.

In his mind’s eye, that’s where a man sits, big bushy mustache, the wide shoulders of a farmer. He looks down with approval, not because his son is down there, playing in the NHL, but because he is proud of the man he has become.

“That’s where my dad sat in St. Malo, the top-left part of the arena,” Hamonic told The Post on Wednesday before practice. “I ask God to let my dad be watching. I believe God is letting my dad watch.”

Hamonic is a rugged player, proud of his missing front tooth, proud of his hit totals, proud of how he stands up for his teammates. He’s also proud of where he’s from, the small town of St. Malo, Manitoba, just south of Winnipeg in the Canadian flatlands.

It was where, what seems like so long ago, Travis’ father, Gerald, ran Hamonic Farm. It was where, in the middle of the wheat harvest season, Sept. 15, 2000, a 10-year-old Travis was woken up in the middle of the night by his sister, Melissa, screaming at him.

“I remember rushing out of my room, and at that point, my dad was getting stretchered out,” Hamonic told ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap in an “E:60” documentary that will air Wednesday night at 7 p.m. Eastern. “The last thing he did was — he couldn’t talk at that point, he just held out his hand, and I just remember grabbing it as they wheeled him away. And I just remember grabbing it, and that was it. That’s the last memory I have.”

Gerald Hamonic died of that heart attack at 44 years old. His name is now tattooed on Travis’ right forearm, and a scene of a wheat-harvesting tractor is emblazoned on the inside of his left bicep. Not as if there needs to be a constant reminder of the hole left in Travis’ heart.

“Life stopped as we knew it,” said Travis’ mother, Lisa. “Devastation.”

***

In the days after Gerald’s death, Travis and his brother, Jesse, finished bringing in the harvest. It was a time of utter grief and despair. The family lost its centerpiece.

“You’re still trying to comprehend what’s going on, what’s not going on, what’s real, what’s not real,” Travis said. “I mean, you’re in shock.”

Eight days after Gerald’s death, Travis and his mother went to a hockey game. It was a preseason contest the NHL would annually play in Winnipeg, a small recompense for deserting the city after the Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996. Gerald had bought the tickets to go with his youngest son, who was what Lisa called “the caboose baby,” born well after the youngest of their first three children.

Because of the age difference, there was a special bond between Travis and his father, and hockey became their common ground. Gerald was the commissioner of the St. Malo junior league, and though he coached Travis’ team, he was never too pushy.

“He was my superhero,” Travis said. “He was someone who I felt more safe with in this world than anyone could imagine.”

That game between the Canucks and the Avalanche became a small glimmer of hope for young Travis. He was already one of the best juniors in St. Malo, talented enough to start dreaming about playing hockey for a living. That game that was supposed to be a regular bonding moment for a father and son became something else. It became a beacon of hope.

“That was one of the best/worst experiences of my life,” Travis said.

By the time he was 17, Travis was a second-round draft pick of the Islanders. After two years playing at AHL Bridgeport, he got the call-up to join the team. It was Nov. 24, 2010, and it was a day that meant so much more than professional accomplishment.

“I had six [missed] calls,” Lisa said, “so I called him back and he said, ‘Mom, they called me up. Dad would be so proud. Dad would be so proud of this.’”

“Words can’t even describe,” said his brother, Jesse. “It was an unbelievable, defining moment in our family.”

***

It’s now this past Saturday, the Islanders’ 2014-15 home opener, the last in the Coliseum, and Hamonic is staring at that spot. In the time since that call-up, Hamonic has become one of the better young defensemen in the NHL. He was rewarded last offseason with a seven-year, $27 million contract.

He is a leader on a team that is no longer just up-and-coming, but is trying to make some postseason waves. After playing 19:16 and pushing around the Hurricanes in a 4-3 win, Hamonic retreats into the locker room, where he has a new friend waiting.

That would be Kevin, who has found his way into the bowels of the Coliseum through charity, one of the many that works with the Islanders to help children and families who have lost a loved one. After the games, there are a handful of Islanders players who meet with children, some of them from less fortunate backgrounds or related to military charities.

But the group that meets with Hamonic is special, because there is an immediate bond. More than just handshakes and signed sticks, Hamonic opens up to them, as the children often do to him. They are part of what he calls, in his own disarming way, “a sh—ty club,” but one they’re in together.

“Realize,” he tells them, “that you’re not in it alone.”

Since January 2012, Hamonic has done this for every home Islanders game. Come Thursday’s Coliseum match against the Sharks, that will be 67 contests and more than 90 children who have come through, sat with him at his locker, had his arm draped around them, and have received his email address — to reach out, if ever there is a crisis.

One of those children, spotlighted in the ESPN documentary, was 15-year-old Thomas Callahan. It was five years since the passing of Callahan’s father from a stroke before he met with Hamonic, and it was a very dark five years.

“I think if I hadn’t had outside help from Travis,” Callahan said, “I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t be here.”

“A lot of these kids I see are lost, they don’t know which way to go,” Hamonic said. “I see myself in a lot of them. I try to let them know that the sun will come up the next day, that it will get better.”

But getting better doesn’t always mean the sorrow goes away.

“I would trade in every game and every game I will play in the NHL just for one shift of [my dad] being able to watch me play,” Hamonic said, “and for me to be able to talk to him after the game about it.”

***

Hamonic struggled with the idea of making this film. He never has really opened up on the subject of his dad. He was convinced by a friend, an Islanders staffer, that ESPN and Schaap would do a good job, just as they had done in profiling the Rangers’ Dominic Moore, who took a year off after his wife died of cancer at 32 years old.

Yet Hamonic opened up, a lot, and even allowed access to a treasure trove of home movies. The themes of grief and coping pervade the film, which is sure to moisten more than a few eyeballs.

“I opened Pandora’s Box as far as grief,” Hamonic said. “I thought maybe I could do what I did with my mom after my dad passed away — bring someone to a game.”

Hamonic is doing quite a bit more than just bringing someone to a game.

“They always think that I’m helping them,” he said, “but they really are helping me.”

And so he will continue to look up to that spot in the Coliseum, and have that one last bit of comfort before the intensity and focus of a game. And after the game, he will go and help someone who was just like him at some point, in need of guidance.

It’s just a reminder of where he came from and what he’s gone through to get to this point. And the whole while, up on that perch next to the spotlight, his dad watches.

“I think he just really loved watching his son do whatever I was going to do, whether it was hockey or on the farm,” Hamonic said. “I think he was just proud of me.”