Travis Zajac: Born in Winnipeg, Made in Jersey I BIG READ

As a player, you never think about the end.

It's not that they're naïve. Every player that has ever tied a pair of skates or pulled a jersey over their head knows that one day it will all end, whether it's in youth hockey, junior, college, or, if you're lucky and good enough, in the NHL.
Travis Zajac was lucky enough to play in the NHL, for the past 15 years in fact. In that time, he wore the Devils logo on his chest and represented the great state of New Jersey.

"It's an extremely emotional feeling to think about where it all began to where I am right now," Zajac said. "A lot of memories."
There could have been more memories. In fact, Zajac expected there to be. Following last season, he had hopes of returning to New Jersey and playing one more year with the Devils.

But plans, as they often do, change.

"After this past season, I took some time off, and then took some more time off, and then took some more time off. I realized that I didn't have that fire in me to keep going," Zajac told the Devils' official website in an extensive and exclusive interview. "I never fell out of love with the game of hockey itself, but I did fall out of love with what it takes to keep playing - the time, the commitment, the conditioning, the sacrifice."

So after a couple of months, he came to a decision.

It was the same decision that he saw teammates and legendary players make before, like Martin Brodeur and Patrik Elias. These were guys that Zajac had played with and battled alongside, guys that mean so much to the organization.

And now, it is his turn.

“Time flies and here we are,” Zajac said. “And now, the time has come for me to say goodbye.”

Zajac has a luxury not afforded to many, going out on his own terms while still physically and mentally healthy and, relatively, young. It’s a gift not granted to many. But after weighing everything, the decision became clear.

“The ability to be around my family, seeing more of my children, being involved in their sports and school, to spend more time with my lovely wife, to dedicate myself to being a father and a husband, meant more to me now than playing,” he said. “That’s when I knew it was time to step away from the game.

“I feel grateful for the past 15 years, but also excited about the future. I’m ready for the next chapter in my life. I made some great friendships that will last forever; I made some great memories that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.”

Although he is hanging up his skates, Zajac isn’t hanging up his jersey. He will remain with the organization in an on/off-ice player development and consulting role, while also working to grow the club’s youth hockey efforts. Zajac will still have the Devils logo on his chest nearly two decades after joining the organization.

Or as he put: “I have always been a Devil and I will always be a Devil.”

As a player, you never think about the end. But now that it’s here, it’s hard not to look back at the beginning. Zajac has gone from skating on an outdoor rink in Winnipeg as a child to competing for an NCAA title with North Dakota to competing for the Stanley Cup with the Devils and playing in over 1,000 NHL games.

On top of that, he’s become a husband to his wife, Nicole, and the father of three energetic and wonderful children – son, Zenon, 9, and daughters Veronika, 7, and Anya, 4.

“You can never imagine where your life will take you,” Zajac said. “To be able to play 1,000 games, to play for the New Jersey Devils, growing up, having three kids, being married to my beautiful wife. There are so many great memories.

“I have no other way to describe it other than to say that I feel nothing but blessed.”

The first thing that comes to mind when people think about Winnipeg is the cold.

But, the first thing that comes to mind when Zajac thinks about growing up in Winnipeg is playing hockey on the outdoor rinks.

The cold, open air. The cascade of colors in the diminishing sky as the sun set. The gusts of breath when you exhaled. The unforgiving wind against your face. The white particles of snow that slowly descended downward. The packaged hand warmers shoved into your gloves and skates to guard against numbness.

The forced stoppages when the wind chill became too extreme. The vibration of your hands against the stick when you collected a hard pass. The sound of skate blades cutting the ice that seemed to echo into the ether.

“It was on those outdoor rinks in Winnipeg that I fell in love with the game,” he said.

Hockey was much more than a sport or activity to Zajac. It was life. His earliest memories of life involve those outdoor rinks, one a mere five-minute walk from his house, playing hockey with his father, three younger brothers and friends.

Every day after school his father, Tom Zajac, would take his four boys to the rink and they would skate for hours until it got so dark that they couldn’t distinguish the black puck from the equally black sky. They played against each other, they played against other friends, they played against strangers. Eventually, all the boys – Travis, Darcy, Kelly and Nolan – joined leagues that were played outdoors (Zajac didn’t play a game indoors until he was 6 or 7 years old). Every night at least one of the four had either a game or practice. And if there wasn’t, then they played pickup. Every night was hockey. Every night.

Hockey was life.

And nothing could stop them from playing. Not the cold. Some nights it would be so cold that other kids would complain that they couldn’t feel their hands or feet. But they would keep going. Not the snow. Other nights the snow would come down with vengeance, with flurries so furious that you couldn’t see a few feet in front of you. At stoppages or in between periods parents would come onto the unstable ice surface and shovel the snow so that the kids could keep playing.

But that’s Winnipeg for you. Hockey and community.

“Winnipeg is a blue-collar city. It’s a small city. It’s a close city,” Travis said. “It’s a city filled with hard-working, honest and humble people. They care about each other and want what’s best for each other.”

The city raises its own. Like Travis’ father, who worked a 9-5 job at a gas company to provide for his family. Like his mother, who took care of the household and raised four rowdy boys, dealing with some roughhousing and the occasional dent in the wall.

And it’s left an undeniable impression upon Travis.

“The people of Winnipeg had to work for everything they got. Nothing was ever given to you. Everything had to be earned,” he said. “And from a young age, I always tried to work hard. And my parents reinforced those lessons, teaching all of us that if you want to be a good player, if you want to go to the next level, if you want to have any kind of success in life then you have to work for it. You have to work for everything.”

Zajac’s father also taught him the game. Tom played three seasons of college hockey at the University of Denver, and coached all of his boys at some point in their youth.

“He knew the game. He knew how to coach,” Travis said. “He knew how to run practices. He knew how to make us better players. He always wanted what was best for his sons, as well as every kid that he coached.

“I remember looking up to him. I wanted to be just like him. And even before I went to my first day of pre-school, I hoped that I could go to college one day and play hockey just like my father.”

It only took one visit for Zajac to choose the University of North Dakota as his destination for college hockey.

“I never had a doubt that UND is where I wanted to be,” he said. “I fell in love with the school on my first visit to campus. Plus, it was only two hours south of Winnipeg, which meant my parents could easily come down on weekends to watch me play. Or I could make my way home to do laundry or eat a home-cooked meal.”

Zajac walked into a locker room filled with talented players like Colby Genoway, Rastislav Spirko, Drew Stafford and a few other future NHL players, including some future pro teammates. He walked into a locker room led by head coach Dave Hakstol and his talented staff. He walked into a locker room steeped in prestige, history and tradition.

“North Dakota was a great stepping stone for me to reach the next level,” he said. “It was another hockey environment, rich tradition. NHL players from that team. Dave Hakstol was a really good coach. They knew how to prepare guys and make guys better. We had a good team.”

The team was good enough to defeat Boston College to make the Frozen Four. There, they defeated Minnesota to advance to the NCAA National Championship Game, suffering a loss to Denver, his father’s alma mater.

“That freshman year was awesome, us going to the finals and losing to Denver,” he recalled. “But I really had a fun year there. I met a lot of new guys. Playing with some guys that I would play with in the NHL was pretty exciting.”

Zajac noticed the difference right away.

He walked into the Devils locker room the same way he had every day for his first-ever training camp. He was aware that this day was an important one, it was the final day of cuts and the official roster was being set for the start of the 2006-07 NHL regular season.

He approached the locker he had been occupying during that time. But from the distance he noticed that his number, 57, that had hung there all throughout camp wasn’t in the stall. As he got closer, he realized that everything else was the same. The stall was filled with his equipment. The nameplate above read: ZAJAC. The name on the back of the jersey read: ZAJAC. But the number below that name had been changed from 57 to 19.

“I figured that was a good sign,” he said. “When I saw that 19, I guessed that meant I was here, at least for now.”

“That first camp is still a blur,” he continued. “I tried to just keep to myself and not say much. I went to the rink, competed and then went back to the hotel and hung out with some guys like Andy Greene and Rod Pelley.

“You’re in awe the first time you step on the ice with the likes of Martin Brodeur, a future Hall of Famer, Jamie Langenbrunner and Patrik Elias. These are guys that I watched growing up. These are guys who I’ve watched win Stanley Cups.”

So you can imagine Zajac’s surprise when he learned that not only would he be in the lineup when the Devils opened the 2006-07 season at Carolina, but that he was starting and centering Langenbrunner and Elias.

“It was surreal for me when I found out,” he smiled in recollection. “Holy smokes. I couldn’t believe it. I just kept thinking to myself ‘don’t screw this up. Try to get them the puck. If they tell you to do something, just do it.’ That was my whole mindset.”

Fittingly, Zajac made his NHL debut in the same arena, RBC Center, where he sat in the stands as an 18-year old prospect and heard his name called by the Devils in the first round of the NHL Draft. Two years later, he returned to play his first NHL game, a 4-0 victory for New Jersey, in that arena.

“I was like, this is unbelievable. Not only playing your first NHL game, but winning the game,” he said. It was special.”

Peering down at blue paint all you could see was a mass of legs in red and white socks and the prone body of Brodeur inside his own net. Then there it was. The black circle popped into view just outside the crease and Zajac pounced. He dug the puck out and skated it out of danger.

Above his head, the center hung scoreboard read:

FLA 2, NJD 2 OT

It was the opening round of the 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs and at that moment the Devils were playing for their lives. Florida had a 3-2 lead in the series and the next goal would either mean the end of the season or the enforcement of a decisive Game 7.

Ilya Kovalchuk carried the puck into the offensive zone and crossed with Zajac, who cut toward the circle. Kovalchuk slid the puck across. Zajac collected the pass, went backhand to forehand and sent a shot at the net. The puck slid along the ice just under the left pad of Scott Clemmensen and over the goal line. Zajac reacted with a pseudo high-step of excitement as he was mobbed by teammates and drowned in the cacophonous cheers of the Prudential Center crowd.

NJD 3, FLA 2 OT

The Devils lived to fight another day.

“Kovy made a great pass to me and I knew I had to get my shot off really quickly,” Zajac said. “That goal felt good because I missed basically the entire regular season after tearing my Achilles twice. So coming back and being able to contribute in a crucial moment of the playoffs made it extra special.”

“That game really set the ball rolling for that whole playoff run,” Zajac added. ‘We came back the next game (Game 7) and won in double overtime to win the series. I think after we won that series, you felt the belief in the room that we could do something special.”

The Devils would defeat Philadelphia and the rival New York Rangers in the following rounds to advance to the Stanley Cup Final against Los Angeles.

“Of course, it didn’t end the way we wanted it to. We fell behind (the Kings) and that’s always tough to overcome,” said Zajac, whose Devils fell in six games to the Kings. “We couldn’t find a way to fight back.

“But regardless of the outcome, it was just a great run. We weren’t a high seed coming into the playoffs. It just shows how a team can come together and play the right way, and if everyone believes, everyone knows their role, then good things happen. But I’ll be forever proud of that group and what we accomplished.”

In his earliest playing days, Zajac always expected to return to the Winnipeg after his NHL career was over. It’s where he’s from. It’s where he grew up. It’s where he met his wife. The city helped shape him. It’s in his blood. It’s who he is. Winnipeg is home.

So, it only made sense that his family would move back to its roots. But over time things changed.

Zajac arrived in New Jersey at just 21 years old. Then a year went by. Then another year went by. Then another. Then another. With each passing year his family grew. Zajac married his wife Nicole in 2009. They welcomed their first child, a son, Zenon, in 2012. Two beautiful daughters followed soon after with Veronika and Anya. Nicole – an incredible hockey player in her own right having captained the University of New Hampshire – went to graduate school in Jersey. Their small circle of friends grew larger and larger with each passing year.

“As the years go by you get more and more embedded in the community,” Zajac said. “To me and my wife, Winnipeg will always be home. But now, Jersey is also our home. It’s where my kids were born. It’s where my family grew up. This is the life my family knows. Our kids have their friends, their sports teams, their schools. It’s all they know. It’s pulled us in. It’s where our home is.”

Zajac grew up in Winnipeg. But he also grew up in Jersey. He became a man, a husband, a father, a teammate, a New Jerseyan. The state helped shape him. It’s in his blood. It’s who he is. New Jersey is home.

“We spent 15 years in New Jersey,” Zajac said. “We don’t see ourselves going anywhere else. Jersey is where we know we want to be.”

In his earliest playing days, Zajac always thought he would finish his career and return home. But what he didn’t realize then, is that he was already home.

As a player, you never think about the end.

“Hockey has given me everything. It’s given me some of my greatest memories and some of my greatest joys,” he said. “I loved the game since childhood. I loved being around the locker room with my friends, throwing tape balls, listening to music, going out after games together for ice cream or pizza, going to hockey tournaments, staying in hotels, playing mini sticks in the hallways.”

And now he can see that same love of the game growing in his own children.

“I feel fortunate for them to fall in the love with the game the same way I had. I want to be there to help guide them anyway I can,” he said. “One of my greatest joys is watching them play. The smiles on their faces. How excited they are to come to the rink and be around their friends. Those were the things I’ve enjoyed. Those are the things I love seeing from them.

“Not only with hockey, but their joy with soccer, going to school, their whole lives. I’m really looking forward to being a part of it all and being there for them whenever they need me.”

As a player, you never think about the end. But when it came for Travis Zajac, he realized that this isn’t the end.

“I’m looking forward to me and my family being around the Devils organization. We’re not leaving New Jersey. It’s just a new beginning.”