10 p.m.
Once homework is done, it’s time to hit the ice for practice with Amherst. Hockey has been Gilbert’s favorite sport since he first put on skates at three years old, leaning on an orange Gatorade cooler to maintain balance on the rink his father had built in the backyard.
He’s home from practice around 11:30 p.m. and quickly off to bed, another early start awaiting him.
—
Gilbert was shuffling from the weightroom to school to sports at an age when the average high schooler might have been roaming the mall or playing video games. His parents recall him willfully skipping school dances to attend hockey practice. It was a sacrifice, but it didn’t seem like a sacrifice, because he was doing what he loved.
Kim Gilbert still has the hard-covered book that Dennis made for a school project in the third grade, all about how he would grow up to be a professional hockey player, a common dream that slowly materialized as a feasibility over the course of his youth career.
It didn’t come easily. Gilbert and his father drove to Syracuse annually to try out for national camp but never made the cut. He played his youth hockey for Amherst rather than the Buffalo Regals, the elite program at the time. (His favorite memory, alongside his state championship with St. Joe’s, is upsetting the Regals in the state tournament when he was 13 years old – “It was like Miracle on Ice at the time,” he said.)
Rejection drove him to work harder. More shots taken. Extra ice time with his brother’s team. Early mornings, late nights.
The first time Dennis Sr. recognized that his son could have a future in hockey came during a tournament when Dennis was 14. Amherst was hosting nationals and losing their opening game badly against a team from Los Angeles. In the final minutes of a blowout loss, Gilbert laid out to block a slap shot.
Dennis Sr. thought it was a reckless decision, given the circumstances. But after the game, he was approached by two college coaches whom he had never met. One of the coaches asked what he thought about his son’s game.
“I said, ‘Well, I didn’t like the fact that he laid out to block that shot at the end. It’s a wasted play, he could have been done for the tournament,’” Dennis Sr. recalled. “The coach says, ‘That (play) is why I’m talking to you right now.’”
Dennis was offered his first scholarship by Niagara that summer. He kept getting better, rising to Notre Dame and then onto NHL Central Scouting lists, and finally to the third round of the draft. He’s continued to adapt his game since turning pro, carving out the physical, dependable role he currently plays for the Sabres defense corps.
“Everything Dennis has, he’s earned,” Crozier said. “And if you look at his journey, it’s quite significant. He scratched and clawed at every level. … It’s almost like he’s got the mentality that he refuses to be denied.”
Gilbert sat in the locker room of his hometown NHL team, surrounded by the fruits of early workouts and two-a-day practices and late-night skates, and thought back to those days.
“Those were long days, looking back on them now.”
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