SAINT JOHN, N.B. — Arber Xhekaj is the scariest player in junior hockey — and one of its very best stories, too.

The story starts and ends in Hamilton, Ont.

It starts as the son of two immigrant parents who were introduced by mutual friends at Hamilton’s Sheraton Hotel more than two decades ago. His father, who he shares his name with, is from Kosovo, and his mother is from Czechia. Because neither of his parents speaks the other’s native language, he speaks proudly about how he was “raised through their English accents.”

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It ends, today, back in Hamilton as the menacing, mean star of his hometown OHL-champion Bulldogs, now on junior hockey’s biggest stage at the Memorial Cup and signed to an NHL contract with the Montreal Canadiens.

The journey from A to B was a long one and this destination was never promised, though. Xhekaj got here on his own, paving his path himself through hard work.

The scariness is something else altogether.

“You’d have to ask the opposition,” Bulldogs general manager Steve Staios says with a smile when asked about it.

“He’s a monster out there,” Bulldogs head coach Jay McKee adds.

The first time Kitchener Rangers head coach and general manager Mike McKenzie and his team began paying attention to Xhekaj, he’d already passed through the OHL draft once.

It was the fall of 2017 and they’d taken note of his name when he’d earned a spot on the St. Catharines Falcons in the Jr. B GOJHL at 16 (OHL clubs typically keep lists of 16-year-olds who make a junior team in the leagues below the major junior level).

What started as a “hey, let’s take a look at him” then became regular visits from one of McKenzie’s area scouts who had some connections in St. Catharines’ loop.

By year’s end, they’d watched as that 16-year-old had played bolder and more aggressive than kids his age typically do at the Jr. A and Jr. B levels usually dominated by bigger, stronger and older players. And after he posted 23 points and 134 penalty minutes in 57 games, intrigue turned into interest.

Only there was a hitch: Xhekaj had to go through the draft again. The Rangers, impressed enough to think about drafting him his second time around, ultimately decided to play the odds that he’d pass through a final time. When he did and became a free agent as soon as the 2018 draft was over, Xhekaj became a “super high priority camp invite” for McKenzie and his group, and they reached out to ask if he’d come to their spring camp.

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He performed pretty well, McKenzie felt there might be something there, and the Rangers decided to invite him back in the fall for the team’s proper training camp in order to get a look at him against their actual roster. Though he didn’t stand out quite as much the second time around, McKenzie felt Xhekaj had the tools to become a “pretty solid OHL depth player” and signed him out of camp.

“You could project him to see that he was big, he moved pretty well (at that time, he wasn’t as good or as powerful a skater but he had the technique, it was just a little more raw being younger), he had strength, and he had pretty soft hands for a big guy too so he was making some plays,” McKenzie said on a recent phone call.

Getting twice passed over in the OHL draft’s 15 rounds only to work his way onto a roster anyway was just the beginning, though. After he’d earned his contract in Kitchener, Xhekaj posted just three points in 63 games in what was technically his NHL Draft year as a 17- and 18-year-old rookie in the OHL in 2018-19.

The year after that, he was passed over in his fourth draft in as many years when he slipped through the NHL Draft’s cracks for a second time after posting 17 points — and 88 penalty minutes — in 51 games as an 18- and 19-year-old.

Along the way, McKenzie watched as he went from physical to mean.

“We saw it happen right before our eyes. He didn’t come into our league like that. I don’t think many guys do when they’re 17. It’s tough to play that way when you’re one of the younger guys. But over time he got more confident that he could play that way,” McKenzie said. “And I think a big part of it is how hard he worked off the ice. He’s naturally an athletic freak. But he enjoys working out, he enjoys putting time in off-the-ice training, and he just got bigger, he got stronger, he got into a couple scrums, and you could start to see it just kind of happen. Couple that with his size and his strength and he’s an imposing guy out there.”

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He never once appeared on an NHL Central Scouting list, though.

Then the pandemic hit, ending his 2019-20 season early and cancelling his 2020-21 season altogether.

Last year, with nowhere to play, he worked at Costco and skated whenever pandemic restrictions allowed in Hamilton.

At those skates in Hamilton, Staios took note of his progress.

It wasn’t the first time, either. Years earlier, Staios had actually made the first of several calls to McKenzie to inquire about Xhekaj when the Bulldogs were in need of a depth defenceman. At the time, though, McKenzie’s Rangers were banged up and he’d decided to hang on to him and see if they could mould him into something more.

When his year away from the sport was nearing its end and he was getting ready to return to Kitchener for his 20- and 21-year-old season in the OHL, Xhekaj then got a call from the Montreal Canadiens inviting him to their rookie camp.

After a strong showing at rookie camp, that spilled into a main camp invite and, somehow, a contract offer. When Xhekaj signed, he hadn’t played hockey in a year and a half and had just 20 points and 114 OHL games to his name.

After signing, his game took off. By the time he was back playing in the OHL, he’d also grown (in height and muscle), filling out his 6-foot-4 frame to 225 pounds, which made him the league’s third-heaviest player.

In his return to Kitchener, he was named one of the Rangers’ assistant captains and posted 17 points in 18 games while playing the OHL’s most physically imposing game. In the fall, he was suspended twice while still with the Rangers, first for five games for a slew foot, and then for another three games when he made a sleeping gesture after having appeared to knock out Attack player Mark Woolley (who’d had bad blood with the Rangers after taunting their bench following a fight in a previous game) in a fight.

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When the trade deadline approached and the Bulldogs were gearing up for a championship run, Staios then called McKenzie back once more about Xhekaj and the pair worked out a trade to bring the Hamiltonian home. Eventually, the two sides ironed out a deal to send Bulldogs overage forward Navrin Mutter and five draft picks (two seconds, two thirds and a conditional fourth) to Kitchener in exchange for Xhekaj.

Instead of moving in with a billet family, Xhekaj moved back home. On the ice in Hamilton, he pushed an already big, strong, physical team over the edge, turning them into an unstoppable force in the OHL.

By year’s end, he’d posted 188 penalty minutes in a combined 69 regular-season and playoff games. His 134 penalty minutes in the regular season were 30 more than the nearest player in 11 less games. And he wasn’t just putting his team short-handed, either. His imposing style worked and he finished the season with the league’s best plus-minus for a defenceman at plus-44. His game also took off offensively, to the tune of 18 goals and 50 points in those 69 games.

When it was all said and done, he was named to the OHL’s Third All-Star Team.

From afar, McKenzie watched on proudly as the hockey world finally took notice of Xhekaj.

“He’s a guy that you root for. He’s a self-made man. Even the whole Costco thing, he was actually working at Costco during the pandemic and then three months later he was signing an NHL deal and being in an NHL locker room. It’s not fluff. It’s actually true. He was missing our Zoom calls in the summer because he had shifts at Costco. It’s just cool. It’s cool to see,” McKenzie said. “He’s a guy we use as an example to lots of guys that come in as free agents or later picks to say ‘Look at what this guy did.’ So we’re rooting for him. He’s a good kid. It’s cool to see a guy that has that much success that has earned it and kind of come from under the radar and not an expected place. And it’s a cool ending: Hamilton boy gets to go back to Hamilton and win in Hamilton. It’s a nice story for him to finish it off.”

In the bowels of Saint John’s Harbour Station before the Bulldogs’ final game of the round robin at the Memorial Cup, Staios, whose team had begun the tournament 0-2, didn’t know if their evening matchup with the Edmonton Oil Kings would be the last game of Xhekaj’s junior career.

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No matter what happened, though, he’d developed the same fondness for the kid and player that McKenzie had before him.

“Arber’s a driven kid. He brings it every night. He’s obviously got the physical presence, the size, that ability, but I think he has surprised some people with his ability to skate, move pucks, and make some plays too,” Staios said. “We knew the character of the kid. That was the main thing. We look for that in Hamilton before anything. And then he just continued to improve his game — and what a story.”

After acquiring Xhekaj, Staios felt a shift within his team.

“I think he brings confidence to the group, from his physical presence to his ability to play big minutes and shutdown plays in big moments. He’s a confidence booster for the group,” Staios said. “I do know (the scariness) is there too. I do know it’s there. And he has had to scale back a little bit because of his size and strength playing against 16- and 17-year-olds. Sometimes just a normal hit could turn out to be a penalty. And I think he has done a great job of being able to mature in that way and manage that part of the game.”

Then in a win-and-you’re-in-the-semi, lose-and-you’re-done game, Xhekaj played the game of his life. The classic Xhekaj performance.

Playing on the team’s top pairing with OHL Defenceman of the Year Nathan Staios, Xhekaj filled in for Staios on the top power-play unit after his partner was stuck out for a long shift, and helped create the game’s opening goal, drawing a second assist on the play. Early, in the absence of team captain and overage defenceman Colton Kammerer, he double-shifted, playing both sides of the ice with each of the team’s defencemen. When opposing defender Simon Kubicek delivered a big open-ice hit in the first period and took an interference penalty, it was also Xhekaj who skated after him, barking at him on his way to the penalty box. When Kubicek delivered another big hit, this time from behind — and uncalled — on Staios, injuring him and sending him to the room for the rest of the game in the second period, it was Xhekaj who raced to his defence and jumped on Kubicek. Throughout the game, he set the tone, stepping up early and often in neutral ice to deliver big hits of his own, shouting at the Oil Kings bench between whistles, and finishing every play with a cross-check or a facewash.

In Kammerer and Staiois’ absence, there were a number of times when his partners were called off the ice and switched while he was told to stay. When the game was over and the Bulldogs had narrowly hung on to win and keep their season going, Xhekaj had logged two assists (he’d added a second on the buzzer-beating empty-netter which made the final score 4-2) and four more penalty minutes into the record. He’d also played over 30 minutes for the sixth time in Hamilton’s last 10 games between the OHL final and the Memorial Cup.

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And as he stood in a corridor behind the ice shortly after the buzzer, he smiled, a chunky necklace hanging over his shirt and his long hair dripping in sweat.

“With guys dropping out and getting injured, and our captain is out, and Staios is out, I had to log the minutes and I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. I’m just playing. Under pressure, I don’t put the pressure on my back. I just let loose and play,” he said.

Down the hall at a podium, McKee smiled when asked about him too.

“He’s a guy who can play 50 minutes,” McKee said. “We don’t want to play guys minutes above 30 but he can do it. He’s so big and strong, the game is effortless to him. We’ve been low on D or had injured players and he just seems to get better. He wants to jump over the bench every other shift. He wants to be out there. We’re fortunate to have a guy like that.”

Nearby, his teammates echoed their coach.

“He has been so good all year,” Bulldogs goaltender Marco Costantini said. “He gets guys in front of the net and lets me see every shot. He blocks shots, too, and he’s a big, physical guy.”

“He’s huge for us, especially now with (Staios) and (Kammerer) out. It’s tough, that’s two OA (overage) defencemen and he has definitely elevated. He can do everything. He can break out pucks and he’s really hard to play against,” added Ducks first-rounder Mason McTavish.

Four years ago, when Xhekaj was playing Jr. B, he never imagined he’d be here. He wasn’t even sure what hockey had in store for him. He only knew that he wanted to try to make the OHL, and that he could try to give it a go in Czechia because he was a dual citizen there and wouldn’t be considered an import if things didn’t work out over here.

That was the extent of it. Signing with an NHL club? Leading a team to an OHL title and the Memorial Cup semifinals as the league’s most intimidating player?

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“No, definitely not,” he said of whether he’d ever even thought about it. “I believed in my game enough to make the OHL but that’s all I was playing for back then. I’m thankful that Kitchener took me on. It’s super hard to wrap your head around it. Things happened so fast. It was a contract and then I was right back to the OHL, starting my season with Kitchener, and then getting traded here, playing in an outdoor game, Game 7 of the finals, and now we’re here going to the semifinals at the Memorial Cup. It’s hard to put into words.”

He wasn’t thinking about this during his lost year to COVID-19 when he was stocking shelves at Costco, either.

But with a jolt from Montreal and hard work, he stands tall talking of his accomplishments to date.

“It was tough during COVID because I didn’t get to play any games, but after signing in Montreal I got a lot of confidence and I have built my game pretty well. I’m proud of it,” he said.

And he’s not done, yet. He’s going to take his career as far as he can now. After the Memorial Cup, he looks forward to turning pro with the Canadiens organization and hopes to model his game after Jake Muzzin and former Canadiens defenceman Ben Chiarot, a fellow Hamiltonian. The Canadiens have kept in close contact with him throughout the year and have representatives in Saint John watching him finish it.

McKenzie thinks with his style of play, he’ll fit a desired role at the next level too, even as fewer players quite like Xhekaj continue to make it in today’s game.

“The scariness is definitely part of his game, there’s no doubt about it. And I think it’s going to serve him a bit more well when he moves up and it’s against men and everyone’s fighting for jobs in pro hockey,” McKenzie said. “He plays hard, he’s physical, he’s not shy of any type of rough stuff.”

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His younger brother Florian is trying to follow the same path he did, too, so he’s got to keep setting an example. Florian was undrafted into the OHL, just led the GOJHL’s Pelham Panthers in scoring this year, and has recently signed with … those Kitchener Rangers.

Though he knows how people perceive him — big and mean — he says there’s more to him than meets the eye, too.

“I have that hard-nosed Hamilton style and I carry that in my game and bring that to the table for the team, but that’s not all I am,” Xhekaj said. “My game is definitely much more than the physical side. Obviously I’m a tough guy and I like to play physical and step up on guys and close gaps really quick, but I also think I’m a really good puck-moving defenceman with underrated skill and offence.”

But when he’s asked about playing against fellow Canadiens prospect Kaiden Guhle and eliminating the Oil Kings, he calls Guhle a good guy and great player who he has a lot of respect for.

He adds something else with a smile, also.

“I think I hit him a few times,” he says. “There’s no friends on the ice.”

(Top photo: Vincent Ethier)