Article content continued

“I got my first pair of hockey roller blades. They had the Bauer boots and skate laces. I remember taking them outside right away and whipping around the gravel and tearing up the wheels. That wasn’t too popular with my parents.”

ALEX BIEGA

“It was a GT racer (a modernistic sled contraption which came out about 20 years ago). I remember that because we were doing an appearance the other day and I was on top of a mountain. I would have killed to have my GT racer. We were outside with that thing for a week straight. We lived pretty close to Beaconsfield Golf Course (in Montreal). They had a great hill there.”

BROCK BOESER

“The one that sticks in my mind was my Xbox 360. That started my whole addiction to Xbox. NHL ’12 was my go-to game.”

When Boeser uses the term addiction, he’s not exaggerating.

“I was ranked 120th in the world in NHL ’12 (out of literally hundreds of thousands of players). I used to take pride in it. I’d go through the whole leaderboard and challenge the best guys in the game. I beat the No. 3 guy in NHL ’13.”

But he never played Thatcher Demko, the Canucks’ goaltending prospect who was ranked as high as ninth in the virtual world.

“We roomed together at training camp this year and got NHL ’18. We played a lot. We got up to 90th in the world.”

And didn’t once break curfew.

SAM GAGNER

“My first (one-piece) graphite hockey stick. We had a rink in my backyard so the minute I got it, I taped it up and used it. It was hard for my parents. How do you wrap a hockey stick and make it a surprise? It has a distinctive shape. I kind of knew it was coming but I was still pretty excited.