The warm wishes, the texts, the tweets and the public comments flooded in after Thomas Hickey’s first NHL game in 687 days. They are a testament to who Hickey is — a hockey player with lots of connections through 15 years of playing at the highest amateur and professional levels, sure, but also one of the best teammates many players say they’ve ever had, one of the most genuine people to be around.
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“He comes in and lights up a room even when his light is not shining very brightly,” Barry Trotz said. “That is a human quality that very few people have.”
All that time away from the competitive ice can weigh on the most well-adjusted NHLer. Compound time with grief, with doubt, and you have a stretch of nearly two years where simply being a Good Guy doesn’t come close to getting you through. Hickey’s world was beset by mental-health challenges well before the pandemic hit last year. And it hit just days after his brother Dan, just two years older, died after a long battle with brain cancer, leaving behind a young daughter in their native Calgary.
There has been too much time to reflect. To wonder. To go through the daily grind of offseason workouts or in-season bag skates and believe it will somehow, someday, be worth it all.
And doubt could easily creep back in. Monday in Pittsburgh will be Hickey’s fifth game in the past nine days after that 687-day pause, but it could be his last for a while. Noah Dobson is likely to return from the COVID-19 list when the team gets back on the ice on Thursday at the Coliseum. Hickey may return to the taxi squad and the uncertainty. But he’s learned plenty during these two years.
“I’m having a lot of fun being in the room, playing the game; it’s easy to make that all I’m thinking about,” he said. “You don’t realize how much you miss the grind — getting up, going to meetings, a nap, playing a game and then doing it all over again in a day or two. The physical anguish, the soreness, it’s really something I missed, and that’s keeping me in the moment.”
It was March 10, 2020, and Hickey, who’d been recalled from Bridgeport five days earlier, was with the Islanders in Vancouver. The thought of getting into a game was on his mind, but so was a chance to see his brother, with the Islanders headed to Calgary next. Dan’s condition had deteriorated through the winter and he was home, with nothing other than palliative care for the aggressive glioblastoma that his doctors had discovered the previous September.
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Thomas didn’t get a chance to see his brother one last time. He was on his way to Calgary when Dan died at age 33. Two days later, the world shuttered, leaving Thomas with his family in Calgary to plan a funeral that barely anyone could attend.
The months after that, when he returned to Long Island and started to resume his professional life in anticipation of the summer 2020 playoffs, were hard.
“Sometimes it’s not just OK to ask for help, you need to ask for help,” he said. “I’m not someone who looks for pity or wants it, but you’re suddenly in a situation where you feel like you really need to seek out some help. I have a lot of great people in my corner, people who have helped me with the grief side of things. You’re selling yourself short if you don’t take advantage of the resources that are available when you need them.”
Being back with the Islanders as they returned to the ice for the playoffs last June was a boost. Hickey is the longest-tenured Islander defenseman, now one of only 10 defensemen in Isles history to have played 450 games with the club. There are many close friends in that room and others around the league.
But the pandemic meant tight controls. And the composition of the Islanders roster had changed — where Hickey might have gotten consideration to play in March, with Adam Pelech now healthy, he was back to No. 8 on the depth chart. He and Otto Koivula were the only players on the active roster through the whole playoff bubble to not get in a game.
“You lean on the people you have to in these sorts of times,” he said. “My wife (Ashley) is there for me, even when we’re not together. When times are quiet in situations like that, sometimes it’s easier than you think to have one or two people to share your thoughts with. It was difficult not to play and be away from home, but every situation gives you some opportunity to reflect.”
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Coming into the 2020-21 season, Hickey was healthy. A concussion derailed him in December 2018, paving the way for Devon Toews to step into his spot and not relinquish it. Hickey took his demotion to Bridgeport at the end of the 2019-20 training camp with his usual professionalism, but injuries there derailed any hope he had of showing the Islanders or another team he could still play, plus the weight of his brother’s illness made his hockey life feel exceptionally small.
And now he’d been out of real game action for going on two calendar years. Even if he was the next man up for Trotz, the gulf between him and a playing spot may have seemed vast, and the work needed to stay relevant, to stay ready, could have become a slog.
“You’re sort of doing your work in a vacuum, whether it’s in the offseason or during the year,” Hickey said. “No one’s really seeing it, no one’s having expectations of you, and that’s when it gets difficult. You obviously have a job to do and you’re paid to do something but you don’t have tangible results. It’s difficult. I learned a lot as it went on. There’s times to be disciplined and hard on yourself, but times you have to sit back and be easy on yourself. It’s too much pressure to be looking for results every day that aren’t there.”
When Dobson suddenly went on the COVID-19 protocol list minutes before a game in Newark 15 days ago, it was Sebastian Aho who got the call — Aho dresses as the Isles’ seventh defensemen every night. He played the first three games Dobson missed after three years between NHL games, but then Hickey got the call against the Flyers nine days ago.
His mind went straight back into his grief. There were things he’d wanted to do for Dan during his illness — play a great game, give his brother some small joy — that never came to pass. Even though Dan was gone, the feelings remained a source of motivation.
“I wanted to just put a smile on his face, go out and do something good to make him proud and happy,” Hickey said. “And that just carried over. You feel, what have you got to lose? The worst thing that could happen has already happened. You try to channel it so it can help you.”
Hickey played exceptionally well last Saturday, with two first-period assists in a 6-1 win. His teammates knew how much it meant, and it meant something to them as well.
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“He played his heart out,” Casey Cizikas said. “What he’s been through definitely isn’t easy. As a friend — and I played alongside him for a long time here — to see him go out there and play the way that he did, that was something special.”
The texts that poured in after the game were special, too.
“I won’t name any names, but there were some people from the Kings organization (Hickey was the fourth pick of the 2007 draft by L.A.), people who were there with me when I was 18 or 19,” Hickey said. “To have those people following you after all these years, wishing you well, it means a lot.”
And it may all end again after Monday. Maybe the doubt comes back. The grief hasn’t left. The motivation becomes harder. But this has been worth it for Hickey no matter what comes next.
“Whether it gets noticed or not, this is just fun right now,” he said. “We’ve got a nice little groove going as a team, it’s great to be in the room with the guys again. That’s all I’m thinking about.”
(Photo: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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