It’s an NHL first for veteran Canes goalie James Reimer: A “Moms Trip” with Marlene
James Reimer has enjoyed many a “Dads Trip” with his father, Harold, in his almost 10 years as an NHL goalie.
But never a “Moms Trip.” Not until this season with the Carolina Hurricanes.
Marlene Reimer traveled from Morweena, Manitoba, to join the other Canes moms for Sunday’s home game against the Edmonton Oilers, a practice Monday at PNC Arena and then Tuesday’s road game at Nashville.
“Harold has had about eight of these trips and now it’s my turn,” she said Monday. “It’s slightly surreal. I used to take James to practice all the time and to the games, and for many years we haven’t been able to be at a lot of his games. Now, to actually be here ...”
Moments before, James and his mother had posed for a photo on the ice, just the two of them, after a group shot of the players and moms.
“He said, ‘Old times, watching me practice?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, sort of the same,’ but it’s not,’ ” Marlene said. “It’s still slightly surreal. He said even for him that sometimes he’ll look around and say, ‘Wow, this is really happening to me?’ ”
One thing about Reimer: He always knows when mom is around.
“She always sucks all the oxygen out of the building,” he said, smiling.
That is, every time a shot comes Reimer’s way, Marlene gasps. That includes the Oilers game. Edmonton took 24 shots at Reimer, beating the Canes 4-3 on its only shot in overtime, by forward Josh Archibald.
That was the 24th gasp.
“I only watch each net and I watch where the puck goes at the net,” Marlene said. “I lose track of what goes on between the nets. When I’m with other hockey moms I realize, oh, they see the game completely different. I watch the net.
“I’m like, ‘No, no, no no ...’ I have a scarf or blanket and I always do this,” she said, covering her eyes. “Anxiety, I guess. I don’t know why I’m anxious. My daughter says, ‘Why are you worried, Mom, you know he’s good and he’ll be fine. It’s just being a mom, I guess.”
There was a time when Reimer was a kid that his parents weren’t sure they’d let him play organized sports. But James was too good and too persistent, convincing his folks to allow him to compete in junior hockey. They relented and that’s when Marlene became the designated driver to practices and games.
“It was a 45-minute drive and dashboard homework on the way home in the dark,” Marlene said. “It has been an exciting ride. People see the glamour and excitement but don’t know all that goes into it unless you’re in it.
“We didn’t really know what we signed up for when they came calling and saying ‘We need a goalie and we hear your son’s good and would you let him play?’ We thought maybe, maybe not. We never thought we’d put our kids into hockey and after he started, it was like, ‘Whoa, ye-yikes.’ We had no clue. We said, OK, one year, one year.”
Marlene laughed, adding, “It was more. A lot of years.”
Reimer played for the Interlake Lightning, a Midget AAA team in the Manitoba League. From there, it was on to the Red Deer Rebels of the Western Hockey League, where his teammates included former Canes center Brandon Sutter.
A fourth-round draft pick by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2006, Reimer made stops in the ECHL and the American Hockey League with the Toronto Marlies after turning pro before making his NHL debut with the Leafs in December 2010.
He was in the NHL, at 22 with a $555,000 salary. He said he’d often ask himself if he deserved it.
Morweena, a two-hour drive north of Winnipeg, is a small town — “Fifty people,” Marlene Reimer said Monday. But one of its own had made it to the big time, to the NHL.
Ten years later, after a number of ups and downs in his NHL career, Reimer is with the Hurricanes.
A year ago, the goaltending tandem of Petr Mrazek and Curtis McElhinney was good enough, consistent enough, to get the Canes into the Stanley Cup playoffs. McElhinney left in free agency after the season but Reimer, acquired in a trade with the Florida Panthers, has been a more-than-adequate replacement.
“It’s worked out that way,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’ve kind of used both guys and when you feel confident in both, that’s a good thing.”
Reimer, 31, has not had a regulation loss since Dec. 27, going 6-0-2 in his last eight starts. He was 2-4-0 in his first six starts of the season, losing four in a row, but has gone 12-2-2 since early November, with three shutouts and three shootout wins.
One concern: he has given up nine goals in his last two starts, beating the Vegas Golden Knights 6-5 in a shootout. But his overall numbers through 24 games — a 2.67 goals-against average and .914 save percentage — are solid.
Reimer has been called a “battler” in net and that’s a good description. He’s not always fluid in his movements or reactions, not always the best puck-handler when he leaves the net, but he uses his 6-foot-2, 220-pound frame well and is dogged in his play.
In a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Reimer was down on his belly in the crease but kicked up his leg to somehow stop the puck. Hardly a textbook save, he called it “just throwing up a prayer and a leg” and it helped the Canes take a 3-2 road victory.
“You’re always trying to get better, you’re looking at videos and working on things, and it’s always kind of morphing,” he said of his goaltending. “But your main pillars remain the same. Every goalie has their own little pillar, their own little thing of what they trust and what they need to do. You stick with it and trust it and at the end of the day hope it’s good enough.”
Reimer has played 362 regular-season games and seen and done a lot. But he now has an NHL first: A Moms Trip with Marlene.
