Rocky and Colby Saganiuk: It takes a village to raise a hockey player
Mixed-race prospect hopes to make his mark in the Toronto Maple Leafs development camp with his former NHLer grandfather cheering him on
After playing exactly two organized hockey games in the past 20 months, Colby Saganiuk woke up in a hotel room on the first day of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ development camp Thursday morning feeling weak and nauseous. Thankfully, it wasn’t COVID-19, but it was nasty enough to keep him out of the action for at least one day.
That came about 24 hours after he was notified by the Leafs that, because severe weather had scuttled so many flights the previous night, his Wednesday flight from Pittsburgh to Toronto for the camp was cancelled. The 72-hour window for his most recent COVID-19 test came at six o’clock that night, so he and his grandfather jumped into the truck and made the drive to the U.S-Canada border, where the Maple Leafs had a car pick him up and take him to Toronto. His grandfather, former NHLer Rocky Saganiuk, then turned around and went back to Pittsburgh, where the next night he planned to get into his truck with his wife and daughter and head right back to Toronto to watch Colby participate in the camp.
At just 5-foot-8 and 154 pounds and undrafted in 2021, 18-year-old Colby Saganiuk is one of 39 players the Maple Leafs invited to their development camp, which opens with on-ice sessions on Friday. Saganiuk hopes he can impress the Leafs enough at this camp to be part of the team they send to the NHL Prospect Tournament in Traverse City, Mich., next week.
Hockey Unfiltered with Ken Campbell is a reader-supported platform. Both free and paid subscriptions are available. Those who want to support my work are encouraged to take out a paid subscription.
“I just told him, ‘Hey, if it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be fun,’ ” Rocky said.
Rocky Saganiuk should know. One website classifies Saganiuk as a Cult/Star Player for the Taber Golden Suns and he won an Allan Cup with the Brantford Mott’s Clamatos, whatever the hell those things are. In between he enjoyed a brief NHL career, the bulk of it spent with the Maple Leafs in the early 1980s. Four decades later, he’s driving his grandson to the border so that he can make it in time for his first pro camp. That might seem a little above and beyond, particularly for a grandfather, but it’s the kind of thing Rocky Saganiuk has been doing for his grandson all his life. “Colby turned out to be my best friend,” Rocky said. “I don’t know what I’d do without him. What a blessing the good Lord has put in our life to have him as my best friend.”
On the surface, you look at Colby Saganiuk’s backstory and you might be tempted to come to certain conclusions – mixed-race kid born in Chicago to a single mom, raised in part by his maternal grandparents. But the reality is that Saganiuk had more support around him growing up than most kids. He lived in a home with his grandparents and his mother, Candace, a social worker who worked at schools in some of Chicago’s most notorious neighborhoods. His father, Brandon Grant, was always close by and involved. And when Colby’s family moved to Pittsburgh in 2017 after Rocky got a job with the Pittsburgh Penguins, Grant relocated to Pittsburgh as well. In fact, both Candace and Brandon agreed to move to Erie this fall and share an apartment with Colby while he plays for the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League. It’s interesting to note that at 18 years old Colby will be living with both his parents for the first time.
“It’s a bit of a change-up for me, but I’m looking forward to it.” Colby said. “And I’ll have my grandparents about an hour and a half down the road.”
And when Rocky introduced his grandson to hockey as a young boy, Colby took to it with a passion. That should come as no surprise since Rocky, who operated a learn-to-play program for 21 years in Chicago before being hired by the Penguins to operate their learn-to-play program, has a gift for dealing with players just starting out. “Rocky is the best learn-to-play coach I’ve ever seen,” said Penguins president David Morehouse, who hired Saganiuk four years ago to oversee a program that runs out of 27 rinks and has since been adopted by the NHL. “He’s like the Pied Piper when it comes to learn to play.”
After finishing his career and playing and coaching in Great Britain for the better part of nine years, Rocky decided to come back to North America and took a job with a learn-to-play program in suburban Chicago. That program ended up being called Rocky Hockey and graduated more than 5,000 kids, including William and Alex Nylander, Chris Chelios’ children and U.S. women’s national team captain Kendall Coyne. There is no real secret to dealing with young people, he said, but it helps to be young at heart. “When the kids are on the ice, I turn six years old just like they are,” Rocky said. “I get down on one knee so I’m eye-level with them and we talk about cartoons and farting, so it’s all fun.”
Morehouse had gotten to know Rocky when his son, Jackson, played on the same team with Colby. Under Morehouse, the Penguins have built a grassroots hockey program that has introduced thousands of kids to the game and created an elite program that includes a hockey academy. After they made the move from Chicago, Colby began playing for the Pittsburgh Pens elite program and, prior to going to the U.S. National Team Development Program in 2019, he helped the Pens win a national championship as a 15-year-old with their Under-16 team. He was also one of the highest rated young players in the U.S. at the time. “You ever see (Sidney) Crosby’s one-handed backhand over the shoulder?,” Morehouse said. “I watched Colby do that as a bantam. He’s got great hands, he’s got a great shot, he’s got great speed, good hockey awareness, he’s unselfish and he was one of the most fun players to watch.”
But there have been some setbacks. While playing with the U.S. Under-17 team in 2019-20, he was moved to the wing and took time to adjust to the position. He also suffered a hip contusion in early January and was out 10 weeks. He came back to play one game before the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the season. He decided to leave the U.S. program to join the Otters and didn’t play a game after the OHL scrubbed its season due to the pandemic. Despite the offer of a full scholarship from Penn State University, Colby decided to go the OHL route, thinking major junior hockey offered a style of play closer to his own. “He said, you know, Grandpa, I don’t know if I’m ready for university, I want to go to the OHL,’ ” Rocky said. “And I said, ‘Well, are you going to give up your Penn State?’ and he said, ‘I’m going to take up a trade.’ He realizes that university is a great thing to do, but sometimes you go to university for four or five years and you end up saying, ‘Would you like fries with that order?’ God bless him, why not.”
With no viewings last season, NHL scouts were not willing to take a chance on an undersized forward who had changed positions the previous season. In many ways, Saganiuk sees this season as his actual draft year. Those who have watched Saganiuk say he can certainly skate with the best NHL prospects and, despite his size, he plays a surprisingly robust game. As a natural center, Saganiuk takes pride in his 200-foot game. He’s not afraid to go to the high-traffic areas to create offense and he’s not afraid to stand up for his teammates. He gets both attributes from his grandfather, who was the most valuable player in the American Hockey League in 1978-79 before joining the Leafs, where he scored 24 goals as a rookie. In his final year of junior hockey with the Lethbridge Broncos, the elder Saganiuk had 60 goals and 203 penalty minutes.
“I was so stupid back then,” he said. “I was all of 5-foot-8 and 185 pounds and I thought I had to fight everybody. I was so dumb in not realizing I was a fast skater and I was supposed to be a goalscorer, that’s what I showed in junior and the minors, but every time something happened, I had my nose in there. What a dumb-ass I was.”
Rocky Saganiuk knows his grandson has the heart to be an NHL player. And despite the odds, he just might be one. Even if he doesn’t, both the grandfather and grandson will take pride in the fact that they both got to wear the Maple Leaf sweater, albeit under different circumstances. Rocky said Colby has been talking about playing for the Maple Leafs since he was 10 years old.
“I’m just hoping to show them that I play a full 200-by-85 type of game,” Colby said. “I can set up plays in the ‘O’ zone and make things happen. I can get points for myself, whether it’s with a good shot, scoring some goals or making the right passing play. And I can take care of the defensive end. I hope they see that in me. Being an undersized guy, I play with a big heart. My size doesn’t have any effect at all.”
I remembet Rocky from his time with the New Brunswick Hawks in the AHL. He was a terrific player and came out a time or two to help at practice with a high school team I was coaching at the time.