From Bob McKenzie's Hockey Confidential: Uncle John, Young John In his 2014 book Hockey Confidential: Inside Stories of People Inside the Game, TSN Hockey Insider Bob McKenzie spent a chapter looking at the relationship between lacrosse icon John Tavares and his nephew, hockey star John Tavares. With the younger Tavares joining his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs, here is a reprint of that chapter.

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Hockey Confidential: Inside Stories of People Inside the Game is a book I wrote in 2013-14. It was first published as a hardcover by Harper Collins Canada in October, 2014, and as a paperback a year later.

One of the chapters in that book was about John Tavares, two John Tavares actually. The lacrosse-playing uncle and the hockey-playing nephew. But it’s also the story of an immigrant family who came to Canada and went on to produce two of the country’s greatest athletes bearing the same name and extraordinary ability to score goals in their respective sports.

Given that the hockey-playing John Tavares has been in the news for some reason in the last few days, I thought it might be interesting to look back on the story of the Tavares family that appeared in Hockey Confidential four years ago.

In addition to the story, there’s also the transcript of a question-and-answer interview I did with with both J.T.’s on all things goal-scoring, a subject near and dear to their hearts. That interview was conducted in August, 2013, in a Mississauga, Ont., coffee shop.

The reprinting of the story and the interview is with the permission of Harper Collins Canada.

If anyone would like to get more information on Hockey Confidential, you can do so by clicking here.

Joe Tavares is not the type of man to wonder what might have been. He’s economical with his words, projecting equal parts stoicism and strength. If he were being cast in a movie, he’d be the strong, silent type.

So as much as a nine-year-old boy, brand new to Canada, desperately wanted to join the other boys his age and play the sports they were playing – soccer and baseball in the summer, hockey in the winter – Joe Tavares knew it was not to be.

“I wanted to play so badly,” he said, “but I couldn’t.”

Tavares said he had to deal with “reality” and this was his: When Manuel and Dorotea Tavares left the harsh life of the Azores (a string of volcanic islands off the coast of their native Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean) behind them in 1967, emigrating to Toronto in Canada’s Centennial Year for the promise of a better life, there was neither time nor money for sports or recreation, certainly not at first, not for their eldest son Joe or his younger siblings Rita, 7, and Danny, 5.

Even as a nine-year-old, when Joe’s grade school day was over at Ryerson Public School in the Alexandra Park area of west-end downtown Toronto, he had to hustle to his part-time job to help support the family, hucking dry goods in the Kensington Market. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t times when Joe was still sorely tempted to be a kid, one with a passion for sports.

“One day, instead of going to my job at the Market after school, I played for the school baseball team,” Joe recalled. “I was pitching, I was on the mound when I saw my mother coming across the (baseball) field towards me. I dropped the ball and ran right to work. My teacher was mad. He didn’t understand why I left. I ran because I knew what was coming next if I didn’t."

Not only was there no time for Joe to play sports, it wasn’t long before there was no time for school at all. His “reality” was work, not education. With the Tavares patriarch Manuel working as a laborer and matriarch Dorotea staying at home to look after the family, there were soon more Tavares’ mouths to feed. Another brother, John, the first of the family to be born in Canada, arrived in 1968, and youngest brother Peter in 1976.

By the age of 15, Joe was no longer going to school, working two jobs that allowed for younger siblings like John to play the games Joe couldn’t. And even though Joe was able to play some soccer and hockey once he got into his 20s, getting married and having a family of his own meant that “reality” would at times trump sports once again. Joe’s own son John would be given every chance to play the sports he loved, but Joe was often too busy in the sheet metal-structural steel business supporting his own family to fully partake in his son’s sporting endeavors.

“I didn’t really have that chance to play (sports) but I did what I could so (brother John and son John) could play,” Joe Tavares said. “If (son John) wanted it, the opportunity was there for him. I would tell him, ‘It’s there if you want it, go for it.’”

Go for it, they did. Both of them. Like you wouldn’t believe. Joe’s little brother John, the lacrosse player; Joe’s son John, the hockey player; an uncle; a nephew; the same name; different game.

Little did Joe Tavares realize when he dropped the ball on the pitcher’s mound to run to work that day with his mother in hot pursuit, it would help to spawn two of the country’s greatest athletes who would not only play Canada’s two national games, but, quite remarkably, dominate them.

***

If you hear the name John Tavares and automatically think of the 1990-born National Hockey League centre with the New York Islanders, it’s understandable. The eldest son of Joe and Barb Tavares of Oakville, Ont., has been a national headliner since, at age 15, becoming the first player to be granted “exceptional” status in the Ontario Hockey League, gaining admission to the league a year earlier than normal. He broke Wayne Gretzky’s OHL record for goals by a 16 year old, starred for Canada in back-to-back gold-medal performances at the World Junior Championship in 2008 and 2009 and was the first overall selection in the 2009 NHL draft. At age 23, he lined up with the crème de la crème and played for Team Canada at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. Five seasons into his pro career, he was already an NHL superstar in every sense of the word and if he plays his way into the Hockey Hall of Fame, it will come as a surprise to no one.

So, yes, it’s perfectly understandable if he’s who you thought of when you heard the name John Tavares.

But that would only mean you haven’t met Uncle John, or Johnny T or the original J.T., as he’s known (with apologies to his nephew and Justin Timberlake), the 1968-born, mild-mannered math high school teacher by day, ageless wonder and Canadian box lacrosse phenom by summer nights and winter weekends. If there were a prize for epitomizing Canadian athleticism and lack of national recognition, Johnny T would win it in a walk.

“Put it this way,” says Hockey Hall of Fame player Brendan Shanahan, who played minor lacrosse with J.T., “John Tavares the hockey player has a long way to go to accomplish what John Tavares the lacrosse player has done.”

Young John would be the first to agree, if only Uncle John would slow down long enough to let anyone catch up.

Every time he stepped on the floor for the National Lacrosse League’s Buffalo Bandits, he was setting NLL records.

His statistical dominance in the NLL has been Wayne Gretzky like. Going into the 2014 season, Tavares had played more games than anyone else (280), scored more goals (779, 142 more than the next best), assists (887, 109 more No. 2) and points (1,666, 404 more than the nearest competition).

If his offensive prowess was Gretzky-like, his longevity was Gordie Howe-like. The NLL was originally known as the Major Indoor Lacrosse League (MILL). It opened its doors in 1986 but it was in 1992 when a 24-year-old Tavares burst onto the scene with the Bandits, winning three MILL championships in his first five seasons. In 1997, the MILL became the NLL and while Tavares led the Bandits to four appearances in NLL championships, there was just one more title in 2008. Twenty three consecutive seasons later, at age 45, he was still at it, one of Buffalo’s most revered athletes, a big reason why the Bandits, first at the old Memorial Auditorium and then its replacement First Niagara Center, have been the NLL’s marquee franchise.

J.T.’s an institution in Western New York. Every time he scored a goal, the P.A. announcer would say: Bandit goal scored by Johnny Who? And the crowd would roar “Tavares” in response.

His impact in the summer lacrosse leagues of Ontario and British Columbia is the stuff of legends. In 1992, at the age of 24, he helped lead the Brampton Excelsiors to the national championship Mann Cup. They did it again in 1993. In 1994, he moved to the Six Nations Chiefs and won three consecutive Mann Cups.

But merely recounting his championships or MVP awards or all the goals or points can’t begin to paint the true picture of the artistry and athleticism of the 5-foot-11, 185-pound Tavares. Lacrosse is a hard game, especially the summer variety, played in hot, steamy, sauna-like arenas. Just running up and down the hard concrete floors can break down a man’s body, never mind that there are big men – mean ones, too – using the legal lacrosse crosscheck and other more violent illegal tactics to physically punish whomever has the ball. And in any game played by J.T., he has the ball. A lot. There’s no place to hide in lacrosse. Ask any hockey player who has played lacrosse, and there are many, and they’ll tell you how much tougher and rugged a sport lacrosse can be than hockey, especially in front of the net where a goal-scorer takes his life into his hands while cutting through the middle.

Lacrosse fans are no different than hockey in that they like to debate to who’s the greatest player of all time. In hockey, some will cite the statistical dominance of Gretzky, the longevity of Howe, the game-changing dynamic of Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux’s unheard of size, speed and skill or the fire in the eyes of Maurice (Rocket) Richard.

It’s no different in lacrosse. Oldtimers will say the greatest of all time is Gaylord Powless or John Davis. In the modern era, many would say it has to be Victoria’s Gary Gait, or his twin brother Paul, big men who excelled in field lacrosse at Syracuse before dominating any box game they played anywhere. Peterborough’s John Grant Jr., six years younger than Tavares, was making his own case for G.O.A.T. But there’s never any shortage of lacrosse people to tell you J.T.’s No. 1.

“I think he’s the best who ever played,” said Brian Shanahan, the older brother of ex-NHLer Brendan and a stalwart lacrosse defender who won five Mann Cups alongside Tavares in Brampton and Six Nations. “It’s not just that he’s played the game at the highest level possible, it’s how long he’s done it. It’s incredible. Gary Gait is amazing, he’s a lot like Mario Lemieux, that’s a good comparison. There’ll be lots of people who say Gary or Paul Gait are best. There’s always going to be that debate. But, for me, J.T. is Wayne Gretzky AND Gordie Howe all in one. Like Gretzky, he’s not the biggest or the fastest or the strongest but he is the smartest and the most skillful. He just thinks the game on another level from everyone else. He’s dominated for such a long time, so he’s like Gordie Howe that way. He’s 45 years old and he’s still playing. It’s incredible. He’s so competitive. He’d slit your throat to beat you, but he’s a tremendous teammate and a great guy, a really good person.”

Troy Cordingly would take it a step further.

“Not only do I think he’s the greatest lacrosse player of all time,” said the head coach of the 2014 Buffalo Bandits and a four-time Mann Cup teammate of Tavares, “I think you could make a case for him being the one of the greatest Canadian athletes, if not the greatest, in any sport. To do what he’s doing at age 45, in as physically a demanding game as lacrosse is, to have done it year in and year out, yeah, I think he’s one of the best Canadian athletes ever in any sport.”

Scoff if you like, and many will, but I’m going to tell you a story.

Since the early 1980s, I’ve had a front-row seat to the greatest professional hockey performances of all time. I was in Hamilton’s Copps Coliseum when Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux teamed up to win the 1987 Canada Cup. I was there at Maple Leaf Gardens when Gretzky played what he said was the greatest single game of his career, Game 7 of the Western Conference final against Toronto in 1993. I was maybe 20 feet away from Sidney Crosby when he yelled “Iggy” and scored the Golden Goal to give Canada the gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. All of those performances, and so many more, are burned into my memory as extraordinary athletic accomplishments but then there’s the hot, summer night in July of 1992, when I first saw John Tavares play lacrosse.

It was an athletic display I’ll never forget, a seminal sporting moment for me that I couldn’t help but think about when Cordingly made a claim many would say is outlandish.

It was an Ontario Lacrosse Association Major Series League mid-week regular season game between the visiting Brampton Excelsiors and the Brooklin Redmen at tiny Luther Vipond Memorial Arena in Brooklin, Ont. There couldn’t have been any more than maybe 50 to 75 people there, if that. I stood in the corner, at the glass, near the dressing rooms on the far side from the stands, where everyone else sat to watch the game. It could not have been further removed from Copps Coliseum or Maple Leaf Gardens or the Winter Olympics.

It was Tavares’ third year of senior men’s lacrosse, he was 23, but his first in Ontario after having played two seasons in B.C. I went to the game not ever having heard of John Tavares and I left the arena that summer night feeling as though I had witnessed one of the most incredible feats of athleticism ever, bar none.

I was totally captivated by Tavares that night. At just under 6 feet tall and, at that time, probably weighing no more than 175 pounds, he seemed so much smaller than the other players. Yet he was so dynamic and explosive, so graceful and cerebral. He ran the floor with a fluidity that’s difficult to put into words but his game was also so visceral. He was so lean, especially his legs, but they were like coiled steel. His swarthy skin glistened with sweat, his hawkish features evident under the wire facemask, his eyes bright like white-hot light.

To the best of my recollection, he probably scored five or six goals that night but it wasn’t that he scored them so much as it was how he scored them, how he played the game, demonstrating an uncanny blend of intelligence, athleticism and extraordinary skill.

His passing and shooting was on another level from virtually every player on the floor. You could seem him process the game like no other, Gretzky-like vision and creativity. The things he could do with the ball in his stick cannot even be described. He shot the ball overhand, underhand, side-arm, over the shoulder, behind the back, between the legs. He juked and jived all over the floor, faking and feigning, creating open spaces for himself, but he also carried big, aggressive defenders on his back through heavy traffic. He absorbed more physical punishment – crosschecks, big hits, blatant attempts at intimidation, physical and verbal – than I’d seen any star hockey player take. Ever. He gave as good as he got, too, figuratively baring his teeth, literally getting his stick into the faces of opponents taking liberties, protecting himself, creating space for himself. He used trickery to sneak off the bench and score on a breakaway. He scored a goal diving through the air like Superman. He scored in tight. He scored from far out. He scored from behind the net, he scored from in front of it. He beat opponents one on one, he beat them one on three. He played with unbelievable passion yet there was a calmness and sense of control and purpose in everything he did. Boundless energy, not an ounce of it wasted.

I clearly remember thinking that I was seeing someone and something truly extraordinary, an athlete who was every bit as gifted in his discipline as Wayne Gretzky was in his. I remember going into the parking lot outside the arena between periods and seeing him sitting on a curbstone minus his equipment, quietly gathering himself, sipping on a Gatorade, doing the intermission cool-down ritual that is standard practice at any lacrosse game on a hot summer’s night (the dressing rooms are, as a rule, stifling hot and it’s not uncommon for both teams to be out there in a parking lot). I recall thinking how Gretzky-like his body type was, that anything 99 could do in hockey, John Tavares could do in lacrosse.

I was fascinated by him, captivated by what he’d done. I asked the lacrosse fans there, who is this guy? John Tavares, they told me. A rising star, a phenom, they added. And they were right.

Tavares led Brampton to the first of his five straight Mann Cups that season. Twenty years later, in the summer of 2012, with Canadian summer box lacrosse stops in Vancouver, Brampton, Six Nations, Akwesasne (twice), Victoria and St. Regis, J.T. played for the Peterborough Lakers and hoisted the Mann Cup for a record eighth time. Laker captain Scott Self received the Mann Cup and instead of being the first to lift it over his head, as is the custom for the winning captain, he immediately handed it over to 44-year-old Tavares, who lifted it, quite likely, for the final time. A year later, in 2013, he didn’t play summer lacrosse for the first time since he picked up a stick as a young boy, resting his body for what he thought might be his final NLL season in 2014.

***

Unlike his older brother Joe, 10 years his senior, the first Canadian born member of the Portuguese Tavares family wasn’t obliged to work one job as a kid, never mind two. So as a young boy, John Tavares was able to pursue his passion for sports. That didn’t mean his parents were thrilled with John’s sporting life. Money was still hard to come by and sports cost money. So when John would borrow his older brother Danny’s lacrosse stick and wanted to play for St. Christopher’s at nearby Alexandra Park – registration was $20 -- it was more tolerated than embraced.

“My father didn’t dislike sports, he actually liked them,” John said. “He just felt playing sports was taking away from potential income for our family. So, me playing lacrosse, they didn’t really want me to play.”

Maybe they would have looked more favorably had it been a sport they knew like soccer, but young John played one game of European “football,” never touched the ball, and had no desire to ever do it again.

Lacrosse, though, he took to it instantly. It just felt right. Dorotea couldn’t always see her son John from their house on Ryerson Avenue when he went to Alex Park but she could certainly hear him. For hours at a time, he’d be there, shooting the Indian rubber lacrosse ball against the boards.

It wasn’t long before he was scoring goals, lots of them, and thrilling the rowdy, enthusiastic neighborhood crowds who would come out on summer’s nights to cheer on St. Christopher’s at the outdoor box.

He also gave hockey a try. More ball hockey than organized ice hockey, which wasn’t readily available at Alexandra Park. But he’d try skating in the winter when the lacrosse box became the community hockey rink.

“I was a real ankle burner,” he said. “I had a pair of old Orbit skates we bought from Honest Ed’s. But hockey was never my game.”

In fact, if winter, and hockey season were holding on too long, John the lacrosse player would hurry it along.

“I was so impatient for lacrosse season to start, I’d go over once the ice started to melt and I’d chip away the ice with my boots, break it up, help it along so the box would be clear for lacrosse,” Tavares said. “I couldn’t wait for lacrosse season to start.”

Tavares loved playing for St. Christopher’s at Alexandra Park. It felt like home. It wasn’t easy for him when his family left the Bathurst-Queen Street area for the suburbs in Mississauga, where he wound up playing minor lacrosse as well as Junior B and Junior A.

Even in midget lacrosse, playing alongside future NHLer Brendan Shanahan, everyone knew J.T. had that special something.

“What I always remember about him is that he was working on his (lacrosse) stick,” Shanahan said. “Constantly. The other thing about him is that he was so smart, so tricky. He was always working on trick plays, hiding the ball, pretending to leave the floor on a line change but then racing back into the play to score a goal. I can’t tell you how many times he would score a goal and the game would be delayed because the refs would have to consult and figure out what they just saw and whether it was legal. He was always pushing the envelope on rules, finding loopholes, getting creative.

“He was in minor lacrosse what Pavel Datsyuk is now, a guy you just like to watch practice to see all the creative things he would try.”

Shanahan loved lacrosse, too, but knew he would have to give it up to focus on hockey. Tavares, though, was a pure lacrosse player, although Shanahan laughed at what might have been had Tavares been inclined to skate or play hockey.

“John Purves, who was a very good hockey player, played lacrosse with us too and John (Purves) would rent ice in the summer,” Shanahan recalled. “John (Tavares) would come out for fun. He couldn’t skate very well at all but you could see he was taking everything in, sizing up what everyone was doing, where they were on the ice, it was like he was studying us. So even though he couldn’t skate, it wasn’t long before he was starting to dangle guys and make plays. (Purves) always said, ‘If (Tavares) ever decided he wanted to be a hockey player, he’d be better than all of us.’ He had that kind of mind to really process things.”

Tavares won a Founder’s Cup national Junior B championship with Mississauga in 1986. Statistically, he ripped up Jr. B (132 goals in 17 games in one season) and Jr. A lacrosse. He played and starred in high school football and wound up going to Wilfrid Laurier University, playing defensive back on the Canadian university football team.

He graduated from Laurier, with a desire to become a teacher. He wanted to go to teacher’s college but didn’t have the money. He found work at the high school he attended as a student, Phillip Pocock Catholic Secondary School in Mississauga. He was hired as an educational research worker with special needs kids and did that for a couple of years. It was while he was playing for the Buffalo Bandits that he got hooked up with D’Youville College in Buffalo, getting his teaching certificate there, ultimately landing a fulltime teaching job at Pocock.

Technically, one of Canada’s most gifted athletes is a high-school math teacher.

It wouldn’t be accurate to say Tavares made no money playing lacrosse, but it’s never been nearly enough to call it a livelihood. In 2014, he was getting the maximum NLL salary of close to $40,000 for the five-month season. Officially, the summer leagues in Ontario and B.C. are amateur loops, but everyone knows there’s cash to be made, “expenses” to be paid, but even for a superstar like Tavares, we’re talking modest amounts of money.

By anyone’s best guess, the most Tavares has ever made in one year from lacrosse would be around $50,000, and keep in mind, when he started playing in the MILL in 1992, he got $125 per game for the eight-game season.

“Yeah, but it went up to $150 a game in my second year,” he said with a laugh.

If such an extraordinary athlete ever felt bitter about his career lacrosse earnings being a mere fraction of what the lowest-paid NHL player would get for one season, never mind what superstar athletes of Tavares’ ilk earn in other sports, he doesn’t show it. Or that he had to spend hours in rush-hour traffic, driving the 100 miles from Mississauga to Peterborough for summer games rather than traveling in style on an NHL charter.

“It would have been nice to make more money, but lacrosse has brought a lot of good things to my life,” Tavares said. “It would have been great to make a livelihood at it, but that wasn’t possible. I am a math teacher. When I was growing up, I played lacrosse because I loved it. There was no pro league to aspire to. I never set out to be a lacrosse player so I can’t be disappointed. I’m fortunate to have been able to play at the level I’ve played.”

Now, he takes great pride in being a father. He and his wife Katrina had son Justin in 2006 and daughter Breanne in 2007. J.T. coached Justin in tyke lacrosse but Justin suggested he might want to play baseball.

“If he likes (baseball) better,” Tavares said, “I don’t mind.”

But when Justin suggested he’s interested in being a goalie, the father had to put his foot down.

“I told him when he can afford to buy goalie equipment, he can play goal,” Tavares said. “I’ve never liked goalies.”

As he prepared for the 2014 NLL season, he knew there was a good chance it would be his last. His body had been breaking down. His 2012 summer season and 2013 NLL year were marred by injury, micro-tears of his calf muscles that made it difficult to run. If it turned out 2014 was his final season, he’s at peace with it.

“When you’re old, you can’t be playing hurt,” he said late in the summer of 2013. “(Injuries) caused me to struggle the last few years. (The Bandits) still seem to think I can help out and I’m still loving to play. I’m not sure why they want a 45 year old on the team. I look at it that there are stages of being retired. Like, when you’re at home and you don’t want to go to the arena but once you get to the arena you like being there. That’s when you know you’re near retirement but not there yet. That’s me (going into 2014). I’ve still got some fire left. But the next stage, the one where you know it’s time to retire, you just don’t want to go to the arena at all. That’s when you know it’s time. I’ll know. That won’t be a problem for me.”

As for his place in the game, his legacy as the greatest player of all time, the comparisons to Gretzky, he doesn’t get too caught up in any of it, his humility shining through it all.

“I’ve got numbers others don’t but the numbers don’t tell the whole story,” he said. “That doesn’t make you the best player.

“Gretzky?” he said with a grin. “I was dirtier than Gretzky. I’d stick guys or fight. Wayne was a Lady Byng guy. Me, not so much. For me, hands down, Gary Gait is (the best lacrosse player of all time.) Paul was no slouch either. John Grant’s name should be in there, too. There are so many great players. I’m just fortunate to have played for as long as I did.

“You know what I’ll remember more than any championships, any accomplishments or goals I scored? My early years, my minor lacrosse, just playing in the box at Alexandra Park, with the rowdy crowd, just looking forward to go there with my stick. I wanted to play lacrosse because my brother Danny played and I’d take his stick. That’s what I’ll remember most.”

***

John Tavares the lacrosse player was never going to be a hockey player but John Tavares the hockey player most definitely could have been a lacrosse player.

Young John’s mother Barb remembered her brother-in-law Danny suggesting she put four-year-old John in peanut lacrosse, which she did. Uncle Danny took little John to his first game, brought him home and told Barb that they would have to put John in an older age group with his Danny’s six-year-old son Ryan.

“In John’s first lacrosse game, his team won 17-1,” Barb Tavares said. “John scored all 17 goals.”

As natural as John was with a lacrosse stick in his hand, hockey was his first and enduring love. He first skated at Clarkson Arena when he was two-and-a-half years old.

“At any given time it was hard for me to say what I enjoyed more, hockey or lacrosse, but I know I fell in love with hockey first,” the NHL star said. “I can still vividly remember learning to skate, not wanting to use the boards, going to the middle and trying to not fall down. I had a hockey stick in my hand when I was two years old. My first connection was to hockey but as I got older, I wanted to be (uncle) J.T.”

Uncle John remembered a young John who was crazy for hockey. “He’d rather watch Wayne Gretzky videos than cartoons,” J.T. said. “I’d come over to his house and we’d play hockey in the basement. If I didn’t let him be the commentator, he would cry. I wouldn’t let him beat me either.”

But seeing Uncle John play for the Bandits had a huge impact on young John, who with his collection of cousins would make the drive on Friday nights to see the Bandits play at the old Aud in Buffalo.

“I was only three or four years old and it was so loud,” young John said. “What I remember is how steep the seats were in the Aud.”

“His mom (Barb) would tell you (young John) would just stare at the game, even as a four year old, and take it all in where a lot of kids would be running around all over the place,” J.T. said.

In the summer months, young John would go to the old Memorial Arena in Brampton and watch Uncle John in the MLS. That, too, left an indelible imprint on him.

“It was such a great atmosphere in a real old barn,” young John said. “The lacrosse was so good. I would watch it and say, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I play this game.’ It was fantastic. I loved it.”

It didn’t matter which sport young John was playing, he filled the net in both, always playing up one age group in hockey, but since lacrosse age groupings are two years, he was, in peewee lacrosse for example, a 10 year old playing against 12 year olds.

It just didn’t matter. In the highly competitive peewee, bantam and midget provincial qualifiers and championships, the underage kid would still dominate and often lead everyone in the province in scoring. In hockey, he was the kid the other teams would go to extraordinary lengths to stop.

“I loved playing both sports,” young John said. “I really looked up to (J.T.) and until I was 13 years old, I really thought I could just keep on playing both sports. I played lacrosse with my cousins and we had a lot of good friends. It was how we bonded. My lacrosse highlight was winning the provincial championship in bantam. Our Oakville team started out as kids and we were getting beat by Whitby by 15 or 16 goals and in bantam, we won it all. That was a really tight group of guys that grew up together. We beat Whitby in the final. I had the game-winning goal in the semi-final and the final.”

In midget lacrosse, at the Ontario Summer Games in London, Tavares’ Oakville team finished third but his lacrosse game really took off. He was named tournament MVP. He played a year of Junior A lacrosse for Mississauga the summer before he was granted early admission to the OHL. And even after he finished his rookie season in the OHL with the Oshawa Generals, he played one more season of Jr. A with the Tomahawks.

It was only after he played his second OHL season that he knew, as difficult as it was for him, he’d have to stop playing lacrosse to focus on his hockey career.

“I went to the (Jr. A lacrosse) tryouts that summer and for the first time, I knew that was it for lacrosse,” he said. “I ran in that practice and when it was over, I told them I was done, that I had to put more time into my off-season hockey conditioning. You just can’t train for hockey and play lacrosse at the same time. I’d get home at 1 in the morning from Peterborough or St. Catharines and then have to get up and work out in the morning. I just couldn’t do it. It was time.”

***

Joe Tavares never imagined the two Johns -- his brother the lacrosse superstar and his son the hockey superstar – would make the impact they have on their respective worlds, so there’s plenty of Tavares pride to go around.

“We’re all very proud, our whole family,” Joe said. “They’re phenomenal athletes and they’re very proud of each other. You can see that.”

Proud, and thankful as well, especially to the man who never got the same athletic opportunities as they did, which allowed them to chase their sporting dreams and scale the greatest of heights in their respective games.

Older John is eternally grateful that Joe sacrificed his own youth to work and support the family so John was able to play lacrosse. Younger John feels the same way about his Dad doing everything he did to allow him to play both hockey and lacrosse.

And maybe, just maybe, this J.T.-John Tavares story could turn out to be a trilogy. Peter Tavares, 18 years Joe’s junior, is the youngest of Manuel’s and Dorotea’s children. On Sept. 14, 2012, -- six days after lacrosse John’s 44th birthday and six days before hockey John’s 22nd birthday -- Peter Tavares became a father for the first time. He and his wife Misty had a little boy.

They named him Jonathan.

Jonathan Tavares.

Reprinted with permission of Harper Collins Canada.