Two decades ago, London Junior Knights U15 and U16 head coach John Caldarozzi had a star player drafted by the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League. He worried the teenager might have a tough time living away from home for the first time, so he called in a favour.
“There was the captain of the team, Justin Azevedo, who used to skate with me all the time in the summers,” he said. “So I reached out to Justin’s dad and said, ‘Listen, can you do me a solid? Just tell Justin to adopt little Naz.’”
“Little Naz” would have a challenging rookie season as a homesick 16-year-old in Kitchener with just 22 points, but Nazem Kadri’s hockey career took off soon after.
He’d end up being drafted in the first round in 2009 by the Toronto Maple Leafs, earning a silver medal for Canada at the 2010 World Juniors, winning a Stanley Cup 14 years later with the Colorado Avalanche, notching 720 (and counting) career points, and inspiring new communities to take up the sport.
On Wednesday, Kadri will suit up for his 1,000th career NHL game when the Calgary Flames face the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“It’s exciting, for sure,” a beaming Kadri said on Tuesday afternoon. He sported a yellow jersey early in practice, joking after that it was a non-contact sweater so he could make it to the milestone night. After the session ended, he led the team stretch to stick taps, with defenceman Rasmus Andersson yelling “999!”
“I’ve got lots of friends and family coming into town, and just to be able to share it with everybody means a lot to me. I’ve been able to reflect over the past couple of days and it hasn’t quite sunk in yet, but I’m sure with the ceremony and everything tomorrow, at some point it will.”
In typical form, he danced around a question about exactly how he’d savour the milestone.
“Try and get a win,” he said. Calgary is 3-9-2 and in last place in the NHL, but coming off a 2-1 win in Philadelphia on Sunday.
“Try to get a W. That’d be a great start…keep that momentum going. [To] add another win in the win column would be huge. That’d be a great way to celebrate, and then I’m sure there will be some celebrating afterwards.”
Kadri’s impact on the rebuilding Flames cannot be understated. Since signing in 2022, he’s at times taken the team on his back. Last season, he became the first Flame in history with overtime winners in consecutive games and, at 34, had a career-high 35 goals.
“Some guys just have that clutch gene, that ‘it’ gene,” veteran forward Blake Coleman said in the spring of Kadri’s heroics. “They want the puck on their stick in a big moment. They’ve got that calmness and poise with it to make the play that they need to make.”
Head coach Ryan Huska often puts young wingers like Matt Coronato, Connor Zary, and Martin Pospisil on Kadri’s line. He wants them – and the rest of the team – to understand the right way to play the game and how to rise to the moment instead of being intimidated by it.
“‘Gamer’ is the word everyone uses with Naz,” Huska said. “The higher the stakes, the more he elevates his play. For a young guy, what I would like them to see is just that. When you have a situation or a chance in a key game to bring your best, you find a way to do it, no matter what the situation is.
That’s what Naz does so well. He’s ultra-competitive. He’ll do whatever he has to do to score, help the team win, whether it’s a fight, a hit…he’s a gamer where he comes to play each and every night.”
Kadri’s influence transcends the Saddledome ice and National Hockey League. He’s a proud Muslim playing in hockey’s top league, leaning into being a role model and trailblazer, co-founded the Hockey Diversity Alliance (which works to make the game more accessible to different communities), and brought the Stanley Cup to the London Muslim Mosque.
“That’s one of the craziest parts,” Kadri said. “As I got older, I started to understand that maybe I do have an impact and became a bit of a pioneer in that demographic…I’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way and tried to be the best example as I possibly could.
“[I’m] not perfect. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my career. A lot of things I wish I could take back, but a lot of things that I wouldn’t take back…being looked at as someone to follow, it means a lot to me.”
Family friend Mohammed Jomaa was at the London Muslim Mosque when Kadri made history three years ago and used the word surreal multiple times to describe the moment.
“The community seeing one of our own coming to the mosque, bringing the Cup, to celebrate with him, enjoy that moment, enjoy that feeling, it was something surreal,” Jomaa said.
That scene, he said, will have an impact for years to come.
“Nobody would have thought that the Stanley Cup would have ended up at the mosque, but when you have a combination of a supportive family environment and then you yourself have dedication and motivation, you can make things happen,” Jomaa said.
To Jomaa, Kadri isn’t a star NHLer on the cusp of a feat only 406 others have ever accomplished. He’s just Nazem from London.
“He never made it feel like he’s a celebrity and you’re and you weren’t,’” Jomaa said. “The relationship was always very open. He was somebody that gave you the time of day. That always he always made sure that the people that were around him and that came to talk to him, they felt happy.”
Wednesday will be another opportunity for Kadri to cement his legacy, both on and off the ice.
“He makes us feel that there is a place for individuals like ourselves,” Jomaa said. “That you can be in the hockey NHL environment and still represent your religion, your background, your ethnicity, your race. He really allows you [to believe that]. He makes that a possibility that others might have not seen before.”
