Part 2: Childhood | SUMMER IN HERISAU

Like most professional athletes, Timo Meier has a trophy room. Much to his nature, the room is humble, a small bedroom in his home with three cases filled with memorabilia, two racks of game worn jerseys, framed team photos hanging on the walls and a basket filled with game-used sticks.

Meier lifts one stick: “This was when I played the World Championship. We won my first silver, in 2018.”

He lifts another stick: “This is an older one, from junior. This was from the Memorial Cup when I played for Rouyn. I kept this one as a memory.”

The collection of jerseys ranges from ones he wore with Team Switzerland, New Jersey and San Jose, as well as soccer jerseys that he’s collected over the years. He even found his first childhood jersey.

“I found my first-ever jersey, a Germany soccer jersey,” Meier says pulling out a child-size jersey. “My mother is from Germany, so she made sure I got a German soccer team. I hope the Swiss people aren’t disappointed about that.”

Meier goes through more pieces throughout the room. A bronze cup from the 2013 Youth Olympics in Romania, a Memorial Cup ring, pucks from his first NHL goal and the five pucks from his five-goal game, silver medals and, notably, his Devils “Timo Time” bobblehead clock.

The biggest item in the room is a massive frame over his desk. It includes three pucks from his 200^th goal, 200^th assist and 400^th point. All earned while playing for New Jersey and with corresponding action photos from each game.

“Hopefully, pile up a couple more of those pucks,” he says, “and then get the big Cup with New Jersey.”

Meier launches into great detail with each item, recalling details of events some of which occurred nearly two decades ago.

“When I read through what tournament it was, you see the pictures in your head and the memories you have from that and it’s very special,” he says.

Of all the items Meier has accumulated from youth hockey to junior hockey to the NHL, he saves his favorite for last.

“This one is the best picture I think,” Meier says walking over to a photo hanging on the wall. It’s an on-ice team photo of Meier’s first youth team.

“I don’t even know how old I was, but that’s when I started. You can see little Timo here,” he points to himself. He adds laughing: “I still look the same.”

Meier ruminates on the photo, studying the details in his head.

“This is the old Sportzentrum, before they renovated it,” he says. “It’s funny how you’re still friends with some of these guys that you grew up playing with.”

Meier points to some former teammates: “He still plays and I went to school with some of these guys over here.”

He looks on, adding: “This picture is my favorite.”

Without that photo, nothing else in that room would exist. Meier’s life as he knows it would not exist. That picture is where it all started for him in the sport of hockey.

Well, it actually all started a little before then. Meier’s passion for hockey predates even his days on the ice. It started with street hockey – or as they call it in Switzerland, floorball. Meier and his friends would gather in the street in front of his home to play.

“We had a good little group of friends that played floor hockey pretty much all day,” Meier says. “We played until it was dark and you couldn’t see the ball anymore.”

Meier and his friends used a ball with holes in it. But since it was too light to play, they would stuff a sock inside to add weight. One of Meier’s friends – and a current coach at his annual youth camp – owned a Dominik Hasek jersey. Meier would put on the jersey and gear and pretend to be the Dominator.

“I loved being goalie, I don’t know why,” Meier says. “I loved being in net. We had pads and everything.”

Those were the early days of the Internet. So, while Meier and his friends were aware of the NHL, they more closely followed the local club, HC Herisau. The team, a third-level professional team, played at the Sportzentrum, a complex located a five-minute walk from Meier’s home.

“I was always cheering for our team in Herisau, even though they weren’t high up,” Meier says. “It was the third-highest league when I went to watch them, but for me it was amazing.”

Most telling is that of all the jerseys Meier has collected over the years, his favorite is tied to HC Herisau. From his jersey rack, Meier pulls out of his collection an HC Herisau jersey with autographs from the entire team.

“I got this from a fan,” he says showing it off. “A really old jersey. I’d say this is the coolest. A fan gifted it to me. A real special one.”

Meier went to nearly every HC Herisau game at the Sportzentrum. That was also the ice surface in which he first put on a pair of skates.

Meier’s sister Larissa, three years his senior, had been taking skating lessons. A 4-year-old Timo stepped on the ice for the first time, joining his sister.

“I remember my parents telling me I have to go learn how to skate first before I get to pick up a hockey stick,” he says. “I remember I was with my sister. And there were sparks going through my head when I stepped on the ice. I just loved it.”

“He was always very passionate about sports, like soccer, hockey, everything he did,” Larissa said. “But he turned mostly to hockey more and more with how physical he is. It was the perfect fit for him.”

Meier developed physically more quickly than his peers as he grew. No matter his age group, he tended to be the biggest and strongest of the flock. And while his other major passion was soccer, he realized early on that hockey was a better fit.

“I tried (soccer) but I realized quickly my talent was somewhere else,” Meier laughs. “I think I was a little too aggressive for soccer. I didn’t last long on the field, too many red cards. I just played for fun with friends. But hockey, I loved hockey right off the start. It was more action, the physicality, speed of the game.”

Meier also realized quickly that when it came to ice hockey, he liked playing forward instead of goalie.

“When I was in net, it was too boring,” he laughs. “Sometimes your team was in the offensive zone, and I wanted to be more involved. I wanted to have the puck. So, I wasn’t very patient in net. I wanted to go out and play the puck too much and that didn’t go very well.”

Hockey was a perfect outlet for Meier, who had an abundance of energy as a youth. If he wasn’t playing sports, you could find him riding his bike or swimming in the public pool.

“He was very sweet and affectionate, but also very wild,” his mother Claudia said. “He would always run off and always be doing something. Even on vacation, we always had to keep him occupied. We were always playing table tennis or soccer. There always had to be something happening. He was very active.”

But even his mother could tell there was something different about the way he took to hockey.

“From the very beginning, hockey was his whole life, his whole soul,” Claudia said. “He always wanted to be on the ice.”

Every year for his birthday – October 8 – his parents bought him the annual season pass to the free skates at the Sportzentrum. Meier rarely missed a free skate. And even if he wasn’t skating, Meier still would make his way to the rink.

“I was always there,” he says. “I went to pretty much every (HC Herisau) game that was at the rink to watch. I would go watch beer league teams. I would go to the free public skates. I just loved being at the rink, collecting pucks or broken sticks and fixing them with my dad, putting the blade back in. I loved every second of it.”

And if his parents were ever unsure of where their son was roaming on any particular day, there was an easy solve.  

“If my parents couldn’t find me, they just went to the rink,” he smiles.

And if Meier ever misbehaved, his parents knew the best way to get him in line.

“Whenever Timo got into trouble, we threatened that he wouldn’t be allowed to go to practice or play hockey,” Claudia laughed. “He immediately behaved himself and did everything he was supposed to do at home so he could keep playing hockey.”

At 10-years-old, Timo was skating on the ice at Sportzentrum during the free skate hours. Of course, he hit the ice at the beginning of the free skate and did not leave until the free skate ended. It was a typical day for Meier, expect this typical day would have an atypical ending.

As the free skate was wrapping up, a coach for the older youth team – and a neighbor of Timo’s – approached him. The coach’s team – filled with 13- and 14-year-olds – didn’t have enough players for their game that evening.

“Are you ready to play with the older kids?” he asked Timo. The youngster’s response was a resounding yes.

“I had been skating on the free ice the whole day, and as soon as he asked me, I sprinted home,” Meier recalls. “I told my mom to cook up some pasta, ate some pasta, got my full gear and went back to the rink. I was fired up because it was my first game with the older guys.”

Despite the age difference, Timo held his own. In fact, he scored a goal in the game.

“It was like a semi-breakaway and I shot low blocker,” says Meier, a smile crossing his face while reliving the moment. “I can still see it in my head.”

As Meier aged and improved, he took the sport more and more seriously. The passion took over his life.  

“He was ambitious from the very beginning,” Claudia said. “At 13 years old, when the other boys were going out, all he wanted was hockey – nothing but hockey. Even as a teenager, he wasn’t going out. He was going to the rink and getting on the ice.”

Meier’s routine spoke of his commitment. He would wake up early in the morning to work with one of his youth coaches, Christian Rüegg. Meier would take a train 30 minutes to a rink in Romanshorn just to be on the ice at 7:30 a.m. After skating, he would take another 30-minute train to his school in Kreuzlingen for the day. After school he got back on another 30-minute train back to Romanshorn for evening practice. This was three times a week and didn’t include the games he played for his local youth team.

“One time his father came with him and said to me, ‘This is crazy. So early in the morning to get here from Herisau and taking the train,’” recalled Rüegg, who helps coach at Meier’s youth camp every year. “But Timo did it. That’s who he is.

“That’s what I told (the camp kids). For young players that look up to him, I told them that he did it all with hard work and with heart.”

Rüegg, who played professional briefly and has coached for over 30 years, saw the fire in Meier from an early age.

“He had his goals. He knew what he wanted,” said Rüegg, who also coached fellow NHLer Kevin Fiala at the same time. “He would get angry when I called for line changes and he had to come off. Or if he didn’t get power-play time.

“With Timo, mentally he wanted to work hard. Timo was always a hard worker. I think Timo is a good example that when you work hard, you can achieve a lot.”

Meier took a major step in 2012 when he accepted an apprenticeship with the SC Rapperswil-Jona Lakers, a National A League team in Switzerland. That was an hour away from his home in Herisau.

As part of the apprenticeship, the 15-year-old Meier had to work in an office. During down time, he would log onto YouTube and watch hockey highlights. He began idolizing NHL players like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin.

But he was also drawn to fellow countryman Nino Niederreiter, who had been drafted fifth-overall by the New York Islanders two years prior. Meier watched clips of Niederreiter playing for Portland of the Western Hockey League.

Watching Niederreiter and other teenagers playing in front of packed crowds in the CHL seemed to be an exciting prospect for Meier. It seemed an improbable possibility, until Halifax of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League drafted Meier, 12^th overall in 2013. Meier and his family had a big decision to make.

“When he was drafted into the Canadian junior league, we realized it was a huge opportunity,” mother Claudia said. “We had to let him go at age 16. That wasn’t easy. I was very sad when he went to Canada alone, but he had wonderful host parents. We visited him often and saw how happy he was. That gave us peace of mind.”

“That was the first step I took going to Canada, away from my parents,” Meier recounts. “It was an awesome experience. Really happy that I made the decision to go over there and play junior hockey.”

Meier joined Halifax for the 2013-14 season, scoring 17 goals and 34 points in 66 games.  But it was the following season – 2014-15 – that his game exploded. The 17-year-old posted 44 goals, 46 assists and 90 points in 61 games during his draft eligible season.

A team photo of that season hangs in his trophy room.

“It’s just nice to look at some old pictures with your teammates, some you still play against,” Meier says looking his Mooseheads teammates. “Playing in front of 10,000 people in Halifax was unbelievable, a great hockey organization, my teammates there, I had a billet family that was super nice and took me in, made me part of their family, and it was an awesome experience.”

In the summer of 2015, Meier’s career would hit another milestone after he was selected by the San Jose Sharks with the ninth-overall pick in the NHL Draft. He would return to the QMJHL for one final season in 2015-16 split between Halifax and Rouyn-Noranda following a mid-season trade. He totaled 34 goals and 87 points in 52 contests, helping Rouyn-Noranda win the QMJHL title and a berth in the Memorial Cup.

Meier made the jump to the pro ranks starting in 2016. He opened the year with the San Jose Barracuda – the Sharks American Hockey League affiliate. After a few months with the Barracude, Meier got the call that he would be heading to the NHL.

Meier’s boyhood dream to play in the NHL became a reality on Dec. 16, 2016 (which happens to be his sister Larissa’s birthday), when he played in his first NHL game at Montreal. Late in the first period, he circled from behind the net and toward the slot. Sharks blueliner David Schlemko threw a puck to the net from the point. Canadiens goalie Carey Price made the save, but Meier swooped across to pick up the rebound and batted it backhand into the net for his first-career NHL goal. The first of over 200 (and counting).

“It was definitely not always an easy path (to the NHL),” Meier contemplates. “I always had fun playing hockey. I love the game, so that made the tough moments easy because I wanted to go out and play.

“And obviously, there are a lot of people that made that possible for me, the support I got from my family, the coaches I’ve had over the years and my friends that supported me through all these times. Very fortunate and I enjoy every second of the dream I get to live.”

After his first NHL game and goal, Meier posed for a photo in the locker room, his hair slicked back, a smirk on his lips and the first goal puck held up in his hand. That puck currently sits in his trophy room. Next to it is a framed blurry picture of the locker room pose.

“My dad made this picture and framed it. I think he just printed it off the Internet or something,” Meier smiles. “It’s not super professional, but I think it looks good. I like it a lot.”

It all started with a group of neighborhood friends playing floorball in the street and culminated with Meier reaching the highest professional level in the world. From walking five minutes to the local Sportzentrum to skate as a kid to walking the runway at Bell Centre to skate in his first NHL game as a man. In some ways, not much has changed.

“I played that first NHL game a couple times in my head out here in (the Sportzentrum) rink, and I always scored,” Meier laughs. “So, playing the first game in the NHL was better than what I dreamed of.

“There are a lot of things that go through your mind when you get that call-up to go play in your first NHL game. Being out on the ice as a little boy definitely comes through your mind. You’ve dreamed it for so long. It almost feels like you’ve been there before. And when you’re out on the ice you have to pinch yourself. That dream you had as a kid is reality now. I’m so very grateful for that.”