MORWEENA, MAN.—Long before he became the starting netminder for the Toronto Maple Leafs, James Reimer was a swimmer. The medals hang proudly around his neck in a pre-teen photo at his boyhood home, a tiny hamlet of about 20 homes, surrounded by long fields all tied together by the river weaving through them.

Looking back, Reimer admits the canoe was a bad idea. Putting three teenage boys inside it was worse.

A melted winter rushed into rapids, swelling the stream and swallowing its banks. It was here, in the surging Icelandic River, that Reimer the swimmer first became Reimer the saviour.

The way Marlene Reimer tells it, her son saved his friend Adrian from the Nile. “But if you ask him about it, he'll tell you it happened in a bathtub,” she says with a laugh, standing at the river's receded edge.

It was less funny then. The canoe tipped, dumping the boys into the frigid water. Reimer's cousin Jason managed to get to shore. But Adrian was drowning.

James swam through the frigid water, grasped his friend and tugged him to shore. In the process, the current was so strong that the river ripped away his pants. The legend goes that the bottom half of a Red Deer Rebels track suit is still drifting down the Icelandic.

With his cousin and friend soaking and shaking — but safe — Reimer jumped back into the river and swam across the rapids, hollered for his cousin's pants to be thrown to him, then put them on before bolting across a snow-patched field for help.

This is the story of a kid from Manitoba who made it big with the Maple Leafs. From a distant consideration on the Leafs' depth chart to the No. 1 guy in a matter of months, it may seem Reimer came out of nowhere.

Close. He came out of Morweena. The 23-year-old's roots are planted firmly near that river, in this town. The man behind this mask is the sum of what's on it. Reimer's mask is dedicated to his youth, with each drawing a representation of what has made him the man he is today.

Two boys

Mark Reimer put him in goal, because he's the older brother and that's what older brothers do.

“The only way I could play is if I was in net, and he could just rip clappers at me,” James says of his brother, who at 26 is three years older.

The family fashioned an outdoor rink. The two brothers would play well into darkness. James wore road hockey pads, but sometimes forgot a toque.

Once, his ears froze. He wore bandages for weeks, and as his mother Marlene points out, they've never looked the same. He had “forgotten” it was -30C outside.

“I was having too much fun, I guess,” laughs Reimer, over the phone from Vancouver where he is training this summer.

There's a large outdoor pad tucked behind the local school, enclosed by trees and next to the river. In Morweena it's common for guys to play hockey here through the night, under lights that look over the rink like stars. Eventually, they'll huddle into a wooden change room next to the ice, and sleep on sofas next to the shovels they use as a Zamboni.

“You just skate harder,” Mark Reimer says matter-of-factly when asked how players deal with the cold.

This is where Reimer's reputation began. At 12 years old — fresh off winning his swimming medals, and still nicknamed Bucky for his large front teeth — Reimer stood next to his mom as a coach spoke with her on the phone, urging her to finally let him join a local team. “Please mom. Please,” Marlene recalls.

Even as Reimer excelled through minor hockey, the outdoor rink was a cornerstone. After bad games, Mark would take his brother back to the ice and shoot on him for hours.

“It was huge,” Reimer says of Mark's contribution to his career. “Me and him would go and just practise, practise, practise.”

Ron and Don

Every Saturday night James Reimer would find his place on the floor, with his brother and two older sisters, Christy and Amanda, nearby. Harold Reimer would be there too, watching his kids and the game.

“The only hockey fix I could get out there in the country in those days was CBC,” Reimer says. “So you'd look forward to Saturday nights.”

After watching Ron and Don, the boys would often go to their father's shop to play ball hockey. “We'd end up coming back halfway through the third period,” says Mark.

The shop is where Harold Reimer works on the massive trucks he uses in the family business. He has been moving houses for more than five decades.

When they were younger, Harold would bring the kids along for trips down Manitoba highways, way up north, down south, and over into Saskatchewan. Sometimes they'd move homes to places that could only be accessed in the winter, driving the massive trucks over frozen lakes.

“Sometimes they'd just come for a ride with papa,” Harold says of the kids while standing in the company office, lined with maps and photo albums of past moves.

“I always loved to go with him,” James says. “It was a lot of fun, and plus I'd get to miss school. It was just a bonus.”

James inherited his soft, steady temperament from his father, Marlene says.

“For sure,” James says. “He's calm, cool, more of a laid-back personality, but obviously a hard worker. He just won't fret too much.”

Sometimes those Saturday nights with Ron and Don would include some different faces. Through the years, Harold and Marlene Reimer brought nearly 20 foster kids into the home. “Some were just here for a couple months,” Harold says, sitting at the kitchen table. The walls and fridge are scattered with photos of family and friends.

“Some were here for a couple of years,” Marlene finishes the thought. They rhyme off a list of names and memories.

“They brought in different mindsets, different perspectives,” James says of the people who came through the house when he was growing up. “I'm pretty good friends with most of them.”

Reims

Before he was Optimus Reim, and after he was Bucky, James Reimer was simply known as “Reims.”

He was Reims in Red Deer where he played junior hockey under Brent Sutter with the Rebels of the WHL. Those were tough times. Sutter once told him that his 12-year-old daughter could stop pucks better than him.

Reimer's older sister Christy, her husband Jake and their young son Christian moved out to Red Deer to be with him through those years. Sometimes he'd come home from a bad game and lock himself in his room, Christy recalls.

She'd try to bring him dinner, but “He'd say, ‘I don't deserve to eat.' ”

It wasn't all bad. It was here that Reimer met April, his future wife. She came to a game in Moose Jaw with a mutual friend.

“I'd think we'd have to credit Facebook,” April says of their relationship, while Reimer made his way through the minors and she studied in Western Canada.

“We did everything long distance.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“After the first time we hung out, I thought, ‘Wow, I could really see myself marrying this girl,' ” says James.

He says April was essential during his rise last year. Before every home game, April drove to East Side Mario's to pick up his pre-game meal of chicken parmesan. By the end of the season, staff knew her by name.

“I love her and she loves me,” James says, “and that's the main thing.”

Ramona's Courage

There are a little more than 100 students at Morweena Christian School.

James grew up in its halls. His kindergarten classroom was in the basement, next to the gym, where the walls are continually reinforced to cover holes left by wayward sticks and bodychecks from ball hockey matches gone too far.

Some of his first goalie equipment is still used by student netminders.

He celebrated his high school graduation here a day after being drafted by the Maple Leafs. He went four-wheeling while his family stayed glued to the television.

Friendships are forged for life in Morweena. On the back of James's mask there's a yellow heart and the phrase “Ramona's Courage.”

Ramona was married to James' cousin, Earl (who is also brother Mark's best friend). They grew up together. Ramona died in 2009, after a 31/2-year battle with cancer. She was 26. She is buried in the small graveyard next to Morweena Christian School.

“She wasn't diagnosed until they were married maybe six months or so,” says Mark. “She was battling the whole time they were married.”

James left the Marlies to be with Ramona and the family when she was ill, and flew back again when she died.

“I knew her for as long as I can remember,” James says. “The whole community was involved with her and what she was doing and how she was fighting it.”

Jesus and Peter

James Reimer is not Amish, although sometimes his facial hair makes it look like he is.

“He can't grow a moustache,” April laughs. “He keeps the beard because I like it, trimmed of course. ... When it gets to Amish length, that's when I'm saying no, no, no.”

He is Evangelical Mennonite. He doesn't travel in a horse-drawn carriage, shun electricity or wear simple, homemade clothing.

He does go to church regularly, in Oakville and when he's home. The Morweena Evangelical Mennonite Church sits across from the school. Contemporary Christian songs float through the small sanctuary during a Sunday service — “How great is our God? Sing with me. How great is our God? And all will see, how great, how great is our God.”

On the back of the mask is a drawing of Jesus walking on water and reaching for Peter, who is sinking in the Sea of Galilee. “Matthew 14:31” is sketched above. In that verse, Jesus asks his disciple “You of little faith, why do you doubt me?”

Reimer meets regularly with former Leaf forward Mark Osborne, also a devout Christian, who acts as a spiritual mentor.

“When you focus on all the crap that's going on around you, then you're going to sink,” Reimer says. “But if you focus on Jesus, in my case, then all those things seem to fade away ... and you can do amazing things.”

On his mask, next to Peter, is the saying: “Obstacles are just things you see when you lose sight of the goal.”

He credits faith with getting him through the difficult times — those days in Red Deer, his injury before camp for the world junior tournament, the lonely days in Reading, Pa., after being sent down to the East Coast Hockey League by the Marlies.

And for the good times — his first game with the Leafs against Ottawa on Jan. 1; representing Canada at the world championship; signing a three-year deal, which has made him a millionaire.

“It's an anchor that keeps me from getting too low, and keeps me humble enough to keep from getting too high,” Reimer explains.

Reimer will retire his mask. He's opting for a new look with a Transformers theme, embracing his new identity and nickname. The old one will likely collect dust — perhaps at his parents' home in Morweena. But the stories it tells will carry on within him.

“It really is who I am,” James says.

Read more about: