Schwindt brothers find healing through hockey

After losing their father to suicide, three brothers with OHL and NHL aspirations are more determined than ever to realize their hockey dreams

Brady, Kai, Cole, Laura and Jason Schwindt, seeing Cole off to the training camp for Canada’s World Junior team in 2020.

Author’s note: This story originally appeared in the Nov. 26, 2022 edition of The Toronto Star.

Before leaving for training camp with the Florida Panthers and embarking on his professional hockey career in the summer of 2021, Cole Schwindt had an earnest conversation with his father. Jason Schwindt was not well. Cole was about to get on a flight to chase his dreams and was looking for some assurance that things would be all right if he left. “You just saw it in his eyes,” Cole remembered. “For me, it’s one of those moments I’ll always come back to.”

Cole told Jason he wanted him to be there for his first NHL game and for his wedding. “And his answer was, ‘There are no guarantees in life,’ ” said Laura Schwindt, Jason’s wife and Cole’s mother. Those were some of the last words Cole Schwindt and his father would exchange. About a week later, the day Cole was scheduled to travel with his teammates to Tampa to play in the Panthers’ rookie tournament, 49-year-old Jason Schwindt committed suicide. It was not the first time Jason had tried to take his own life.

Over the past 19 years, hundreds of thousands of men have grown moustaches in November and have raised $1.37 billion for men’s health initiatives globally, including $24.6 million in Canada last year. A significant amount of that money goes to support men’s mental health and suicide prevention. None of that money will bring Jason Schwindt back, but Cole and his brothers hope to use their platforms as elite hockey players to tell their story in the hopes that it might prevent another family from the same fate.

From the time Cole, Kai and Brady Schwindt could walk, they were all on skates, playing hockey on the backyard outdoor rink their father built for them in Breslau, Ont., a suburb of Kitchener. Jason ensured the rink was flooded and maintained, built a changeroom with a heater and television and, along with Laura, spent most of his winters shuttling his three sons to practices, games and tournaments. All three of them got their love for the game from their father. “The first house we lived in, the backyard wasn’t as big as the one we have now, but it took up the whole backyard,” Cole said. “The backyard rink was something that all three of us enjoyed and my dad was the first one out there enjoying it with us.”

And it helped all three become top players. Cole, 21, is in his third year of pro hockey with the Calgary Wranglers of the American Hockey League, the top affiliate of the Calgary Flames. Originally drafted by the Panthers while playing for the Mississauga Steelheads, Cole was part of the blockbuster trade this past summer that sent Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers, with Jonathan Huberdeau, Mackenzie Weegar and Schwindt going to Calgary. Despite not being drafted into either the Ontario Hockey League or the NHL, 18-year-old Kai is a standout for the Steelheads this season. After being invited to the Panthers’ training camp as a free agent, Kai signed a three-year deal with the Panthers. “Kai earned it, plain and simple,” said Panthers GM Bill Zito, who agonized over trading Cole. “The equation was very simple. Do we think this guy has a chance to play in the National Hockey League? And it was 100 percent across the board. And then when attach his character to his on-ice performance, it was a no-brainer. These guys get it. They have an energy, a charisma, a leadership, a presence.” Brady, 17, is playing Jr. B hockey for the Elmira Sugar Kings this season. After being drafted by the Kitchener Rangers in 2021, his rights were traded to Mississauga, where he hopes to one day follow his older brothers’ path to the Steelheads.

Jason Schwindt

Jason Schwindt had always been a heavy drinker. In fact, the boys knew never to take a swig out of a water bottle in their house because there was a pretty good chance it would be filled with vodka. But the tipping point for Jason came when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, just as he had returned from a 30-day stay at a rehab facility. Jason was forced to temporarily close his graphics business and temporarily lay off employees he had come to see as family.

“That devastated him,” said Laura, sitting in the stands of the Paramount Fine Foods Centre along with Kai after a recent Steelheads game in which Kai had five points and was named first star. “The employees understood, but he just could not get past the fact that he had to lay people off and put them in a bit of a hardship. From that point on, it was sitting in his chair, rocking, pulling his hair. He just could not get over the fact that there are people trying to feed their families and he had to let them go. From that point on, he kind of shut himself off from the boys.”

In a matter of months, the same man who was known for his happy-go-lucky demeanour and generosity became sullen and withdrawn. He would spend much of his time at work, then come home late and drink into the early hours of the morning. “He would sit in the basement by himself until who knows what time, probably 3 or 4 in the morning,” Kai said. “Talking to himself, drinking, listening to his loud (expletive) music.” By the time the lockdowns and the most devastating effects of the pandemic had passed and the graphics business was back up and running, Jason had spiralled down so dramatically and deeply that nobody was able to pull him out of it.

With Cole playing in the AHL and the OHL and minor hockey shuttered for the 2020-21 season, Kai and Brady were on the front lines, watching helplessly as their father sunk further into his abyss. Kai, who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 194 pounds, took on the role of his mother’s and younger brother’s protector. He would try to reason with his father in the mornings, the only time of the day when Jason, often oblivious to the chaos he had caused the night before, was not away at work and coherent. Jason’s behaviour caused a number of verbal clashes with Kai, something Kai looks back upon and feels guilt, even though he was standing up for people he loved.

“I’ve kind of just got to deal with it day by day,” Kai said. “There’s still the blaming yourself and stuff. I was the only one there to protect my mom and I would talk to him sometimes and it wasn’t very good. That’s what really bugs me. He’d be screaming and yelling at us the night before and then I would wake up and I’m not going to treat him like, ‘Hey, how are you?’ Why would you be nice to someone who is treating everyone in your family like sh-- the day before? And that’s the big thing I regret now. Why couldn’t I just let it go? But that would be any 16-year-old kid’s reaction really.”

As Jason’s mental health worsened, his children and wife felt powerless to help him. The drinking continued unabated and so did the clashes with Laura and his boys. Jason told his wife on a number of occasions that his sons would be better off without him. Three weeks before he died, Jason ran his truck into a guardrail and had to be taken to hospital. On another occasion, his brother found him passed out at his desk at work. He talked about killing himself and the police were called. It never seemed as though there was a moment of peace. “I would say to him, ‘You’re so kind and generous and caring with everybody else and then you come home to your family and you sh-- on us,’ ” Laura said. “No word of a lie, 400 days in a row. Every single night. It was almost like Groundhog Day. I’d say to the kids, ‘Just give us one night where it’s going to be quiet and he’s not going to be screaming and yelling.’ And then, there it goes again.”

Brady, Cole, Kai and Laura Schwindt at a memorial for Jason.

Sept. 11, 2021 was a sunny Saturday morning. With a baseball tournament being played in the fields behind his house, Jason went to the office. One of the employees noticed he was nervous and agitated. Then he returned home, with Laura doing chores and Brady enjoying a rare opportunity to sleep in. Cole was at Panthers’ rookie camp and Kai was in Mississauga after making the Steelheads as a walk-on. Jason quietly went into the backyard and ended his life.

Fellow Panthers’ rookie Owen Tippett, who now plays for the Philadelphia Flyers, rushed to Cole’s hotel room to be with him when Laura called to break the news. He had to come home from camp and Laura said Cole has often lamented the fact that he left for training camp. “Whatever he was feeling was something that he couldn’t fully explain to me or to anyone,” Cole said. “It’s something where I wish I could have done more.” Brady, meanwhile, woke up to see an ambulance in his driveway. Even though he was only 16, Brady often wonders what might have happened had he been able to talk to his father that morning. “When she told me, it just felt like, I don’t really know, like my world was falling apart,” Brady said. “After that, I was kind of in disbelief. I didn’t know what to feel, kind of numb.”

Brady, Cole, Kai and Laura Schwindt after Cole’s first NHL game, Dec. 16, 2021.

Laura’s biggest fear after Jason died was that her sons might lose their passion for hockey and stop to pursuing their dreams. The opposite has actually happened. Cole played three games in the NHL for the Panthers last season before being traded over the summer and is one of the top scorers for the Wranglers. He scored 19 goals for the Charlotte Checkers of the AHL last season and credited coach Geordie Kinnear with supporting him on and off the ice. Kai scored 12 goals and 17 points with the Steelheads, but like his older brother, impressed with his determination and willingness.

Being away from home for a teenager is difficult at the best of times, but Kai was dealing with so much more. It was important for Steelheads coach-GM to ensure his office door was always open. “I told him, ‘We can’t hide from this. This has happened,’ ” Richmond said. “ ‘If you need to come in and cry, you come in and cry. You want to come in and yell and scream about something, come and yell and scream. But I’m here to try to help you along the way. Because it’s not going to be done tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. It’s something that stays with you.’ ”

It does, but as days and milestones pass, Cole, Kai and Brady Schwindt continue to heal. And they continue to play, for themselves and their father. “All three of us, all we’ve really done all our lives is play hockey,” Cole said. “We know he’s watching over us and we just know he’d be proud of all three of us and we’re not going to stop chasing that dream.”