Nickel Capital Wolves captain rises up through adversity - Randy Pascal

Over the course of a typical season in sports, ups and downs are inevitable.

However, Sudbury Nickel Capital Wolves captain Jacob Bonin wasn’t expecting quite so many crammed into the first few months of the year.

Bonin has been one of a number of key contributors for the Sudbury Midget AAA squad, sitting second in the Great North Midget League (GNML) standings.

By all accounts, the speedy forward played some of the best hockey of his career in London, helping lead the Nickel Capital Wolves to a tournament victory, last month, at the Gold and Green Invitational.

Playing equally as well in his return to the Big Nickel Tournament in Sudbury, Bonin was sidelined by an injury, one that will shut him down likely until just after Christmas.

The valleys and peaks within the minor hockey world can be countless.

Certainly nothing drastically new for a youngster who first donned skates at the age of two and remembers first missing school for tournament play in Grade 5 or 6.

Bonin took to hockey quickly, garnering a reputation early on for his smooth-skating style. It enabled him to crack the AAA programs as early as minor-peewee, enjoying four years under the tutelage of well-respected long-time coach Mike Brunette.

“He pushed me to play to my top potential,” Bonin said. “He wanted me to be a good player and I wanted to excel as a player, as a student of the game.”

That focus has remained a trademark for Bonin, through several years as team captain with a variety of squads.

As a third-year midget, the Grade 12 Collège Notre-Dame student has developed quite a reputation as a top-notch penalty-killing specialist.

“I like to read the play and then pressure when it’s most weak,” he explained. “Once the puck is out, I like to use my skating to put back-end pressure on them.”

It was while in typical full out skating mode that Bonin was initially injured, first taking a knee to the thigh in the quarter-finals of the Big Nickel Tournament. Playing in the semis the next morning, he reinjured the same muscle, playing through the pain.

“After the game, I went to my buddy’s and it just kept getting worse and worse, swelling bigger and bigger,” Bonin said. “Now I’m thinking that there is definitely something wrong.”

Thankfully, his father is a family physician, making the call just before the championship encounter to rush Bonin to the emergency room. He was diagnosed with “compartment syndrome” in his leg, essentially a pooling of blood around the muscle following the break of a vein.

Best case scenario, six to eight weeks with rehabilitation should see the competitive teen right back on his skates.

Just another challenge to face along the way.

As a minor-midget, Bonin went undrafted.

“It would have been nice (being drafted), but it wasn’t a major setback,” he said. “One of the routes that I was really looking into is the NCAA route.”

With an academic bent that sees Bonin eyeing the area of bio-med, possibly pursuing the same profession as his father, the passionate young athlete opted to return to Sudbury for his final year of minor hockey, rather than pursue junior options in other locations across the province.

“I wanted to finish my schooling here, make sure I get good grades and then look for a good university that I can go to that suits the junior program where I play.”

And when he arrives, expect him to play the same role that has made him such a huge part of every team he has enjoyed.

“All of my coaches have always said that you need to play two-way hockey, and I listened,” he said. “I wanted to be on the ice in those situations, with the game on the line.

“Everybody likes to score goals. Me too, I would like to score more. But there’s a whole other side of the ice where you have to stop them from scoring goals.”

The side of the ice where team leaders are built.

Randy Pascal is the founder of SudburySports.com and a contributing sports editor for Northern Life.

Posted by Laurel Myers