TORONTO — Kevin Porter won’t take no for an answer.

He won’t take “no” from player agents. He won’t take “no” from professional hockey teams.

And he certainly won’t take “no” from his mind or body. Not even at age 42, when he strolls into the arena disorientated after a day-long shift as an emergency worker.

“Hey, just wanna let you know I’m getting off a 24-hour shift,” Porter has warned his skating and skills coach Adrian Lomonaco on multiple occasions.

“He might wipe out a few times during the first drill, but he’ll get right back up,” says Lomonaco, who has also trained NHLer Sean Monahan.

“At the end of our session, we’re getting off the ice before the Zamboni comes on to flood the ice and he’s doing line drills, stops and starts all by himself.”

Despite never pursuing a career in hockey for the bulk of his adult life, Porter, a firefighter and paramedic by trade, is intent on chasing the dream through his 40s.

“I’ve got unfinished business,” he says, stonefaced.

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Four major events have shaped Porter’s life, for better or worse.

The first three — not making a double-A minor hockey team, his grandmother dying of cancer, his mother dying in a construction accident — all occurred very suddenly as a teen.

“I went back to school to be a paramedic, almost to — I’ll use it lightly — avenge my mother’s death, if you will. I wanted to help out people,” Porter says during a break in an on-ice workout on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ practice pad at the MasterCard Centre.

The fourth event: a near-death experience while answering a house call for Brampton Fire in 2010. Porter and his coworker fell through ceramic flooring and into the basement, a fiery marijuana grow-up.

Shortly after the accident, at the over-the-hill age of 35, Porter pledged allegiance to hockey, a sport he had abandoned competitively at 17. And, for the better part of a decade, he has done everything in his power, including spending thousands of dollars on high-end equipment, ice time and coaching, to catch on with a pro-hockey club.

This off-season, Porter has been renting ice for individual sessions, as well as running hills and swimming laps with teenagers in former NHLer Jim Thomson’s summer camp. “If he went to an AHL training camp, as far as fitness testing he’d be in the top percentage,” Thomson says.

Since he is full-time at the fire department and holds down two part-time paramedics jobs, Porter’s schedule is all over the place. The Kitchener native, who now lives in Milton, estimates he trains 10 to 15 hours per week.

“When you go to a tryout, you’re just a number,” Porter says. “No one cares. I’ve had to find a way. Tired, not tired. Shift work, not shift work. You have to find a way. No excuses.”

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Technically, Porter has already achieved his baseline goal.

During the 2014-15 season, he played one game for the Steel City Warriors, a one-year member of the Federal Hockey League. Last season, Porter took a sabbatical to travel overseas and dress for IFK Ore of Sweden’s fifth-tier pro league. He played seven games, scoring twice.

However, those cups of coffee in bottom-feeder leagues — IFK Ore plays in a loop considered by some to be on par with North America’s Southern Professional Hockey League — are not enough for the built-like-a-truck left winger. Although finding a permanent agent has proved unsuccessful, he has his sights set on the ECHL and beyond.

Since 2014, Porter has attended a number of free-agent tryout camps for ECHL teams, including the Brampton Beast, Toledo Walleye, Reading Royals and the now-defunct San Francisco Bulls. Brampton is the lone team to express interest, placing the 5-foot-10 Porter on its call-up list for the 2012-13 season but never tapping him for game action.

“What are your options?” Porter says of his relentless quest. “You can take it (poorly) and not pursue your dreams, or you can use it to light your bonfire.”

For Thomson and Randy Edmonds, an ex-Swedish Elite League coach who helped Porter land the gig in Sweden, pitching Porter to prospective employers has been a struggle. “It’s not easy,” Thomson says. “He doesn’t know half the conversations I’ve had with people. He’s 42. There’s zero option with some of these teams.”

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Nobody knows for sure how this last-minute grasp at fantasy will end.

“Initially, I thought it was going to be a phase,” says Ashley, Porter’s wife. “But, he’s the type of person who would give himself the best opportunity at any and every thing before choosing to pack it up and move on.”

Porter has a professional tryout lined up in the fall with the Federal Hockey League’s Port Huron Prowlers. He is also talking with Fotskäls HC, another fifth-tier Swedish team, about a potential contract.

“For me, I know I don’t have a lot of time left. I’m not 22 anymore. But I think I can eke out a few more years and see what happens,” he says.

The sure bet: Porter retiring on his own terms and staying involved with the sport in some capacity. Thomson thinks he’d be a great coach, but Porter hints he may have a trick up his sleeve.

“I may try goaltending,” he says with a smile. “Because, with the mask, they can’t tell how old you are.”

jmatisz@postmedia.com

[Correction: A previous version of this story stated IFK Ore plays in Swedish pro hockey's third tier. In fact, they play in Division 3, the fifth tier. We regret the error.]