Wheeler thankful for family, and Winnipeg, as he reaches 1,000 NHL games

Young players in the Winnipeg Jets organization often have a bit of a wake-up call during their first on-ice session with Blake Wheeler.
"Just standing on the sideboards in training camp, I'm going to hear one kid go, 'Oh my God is he fast,'" said head coach Paul Maurice. "You know, 'Holy shit, is he strong.' They get a taste of that in camp for the first time and that's the first time they've been on the ice with a guy that's 6-foot-5 that skates like that."
Wheeler has been that way every single practice and game of his career, and it'll be no different as the 35-year-old suits up for his 1,000th National Hockey League game on Sunday.
The overwhelming majority of those games have been with the Jets franchise (778 to be exact), and the Plymouth, Minnesota product has served as the team's captain for 385 of them.
So it's fitting that the milestone game comes in the Manitoba capital.
"It's the first place that let me be me," Wheeler said. "Being a big guy, you've got to hit more, you've got to fight more, you've got to do this more, you've got to do that more. I got to be me and I think the people here embraced the way that I play. I try to play hard for our fans every night and it's why I've committed my career here."

In fact, Wheeler's connection to Manitoba dates back to before he played a single one of his 1,000 games.
Prior to being drafted in 2004, Wheeler said only one organization, and only one person, paid a visit to his family's home.
That person was Vaughn Karpan - the Director of Amateur Scouting for the Phoenix Coyotes at the time - who not only began his scouting career with the first iteration of the Winnipeg Jets, but also played at the University of Manitoba between 1982 and 1985.
"I've stayed in touch with him over the years. He texted me a couple days ago," Wheeler said of Karpan, who now works for the Vegas Golden Knights. "I remember him meeting my family and sitting down for an hour or two, just talking hockey. Nothing about the conversation stands out. Like I said, it's been a relationship, kind of from afar, that's been maintained over the years. It's cool to bump into him at rinks and say 'Hey, remember back when?' We were the only two guys who knew."
Nothing about getting to the NHL is easy, no matter where a player is drafted.
Wheeler is known for his durability, his competitiveness, and his high-end skill that can change a game in an instant.

All of that had to be learned - especially the durability part, he admits.
"I was dramatic as a kid. So, I was a kid that laid on the ice a lot, liked attention and all that," Wheeler grinned. "I don't think my dad liked that a whole lot, so I was taught early that there's a difference between being hurt and being injured. If you're going to play this game for a living, you're going to feel hurt a lot."
His competitive drive came from his father, James, who played fastpitch as long as Wheeler can remember. His dad also travelled a lot, so his mom - Pat - would be the one taking him to the majority of practices and games.
"She was (dealing with) the highs and the lows of youth hockey," Wheeler laughed. "Crying after losses and celebrating wins."
The highs and lows of the game certainly don't stop at the pro level. Over the course of 1,000 games there are winning streaks, losing skids, and everything in between.
What his mom was for him as a kid, his wife - Sam - is for him now.
"She's the only one that sees the day in and day out, the highs, the lows. She's been there for me through it all," Wheeler said. "Having her there, that one means the most to me. Nobody knows what 1,000 good days and bad days or in between has looked like more than her. She's the one I'm looking forward to sharing that with."
Their household is a busy place with three kids - Louie, Leni, and Mase - who are just as involved in the family's community work as their parents. The best example is the Ride Inside - Wheel with the Wheelers event that raised $330,000 for CancerCare Manitoba Foundation this year.

Wheeler might be the one accepting the silver stick - the traditional gift in the NHL marking the accomplishment of hitting 1,000 games - but as Josh Morrissey has learned early in his career, it's far from an individual accomplishment.
"For him and Sam, it takes the whole family to make it happen, especially when you've got three young ones at home," said Morrissey. "Still one of the hardest-working guys on the ice every single day, if not the hardest. Like I said, he's earned it, so it's a pretty special night."
Morrissey is right, Wheeler has certainly earned it.
From the time he was the fifth overall pick of the Phoenix Coyotes in the 2004 NHL Draft, to his stand-out NCAA career with the University of Minnesota (who can forget the memorable, diving overtime winner against the University of North Dakota in 2007), to the trade that saw him come from the Boston Bruins to the Atlanta Thrashers in early 2011 - Wheeler has earned every accomplishment and every minute of ice time he's been given.

And he did it the only way he knows how, the way he still does it today: through hard work.
"I remember his first game (with Atlanta). It was in Edmonton at the old arena. I sat pretty close to him in the dressing room," said Bryan Little.
"I didn't know him beforehand. It was one of those things that we played together and were teammates at a young age and we kind of grew up and developed together," Little said. "It's pretty cool to see him develop from a young prospect, basically, to the player and captain he is today. I had a pretty good front row seat to it all."
For close to five seasons, Little was Wheeler's centre. On the other side was Andrew Ladd.
The trio was in their mid-20s and all their careers were taking the next step in front of a passionate fan base. They were the number one line in a town that loves hockey, and their team.
"If I was at the net, Blake would find space. If Blake was at the net, I could find space. It seemed to work really well," said Ladd. "We weren't afraid to grind it out. We could also make plays and play a bit of a skilled game. Blake and Bryan were both tremendous passers."
Ladd was traded to Chicago at the trade deadline in 2016 and the Jets wouldn't name another captain until that summer.

Although in Little's mind, there was little doubt in the room who would get the 'C' next.
"We knew he was going to be the captain. He fits that mould so perfectly," Little said of Wheeler. "He's a role model for younger players to look at. When they come to the rink every day and see their captain in the gym, or on the ice early working on stuff, he's always trying to get better.
"He's one of those guys that is as natural of a leader as you can get."
As natural as it may have been for Wheeler, who was coming off a 2015-16 campaign with 78 points in 82 games, there are still challenges to being a captain in a Canadian market.
Wheeler leaned on Ladd for advice during those early days.
"Blake is a guy that wears his heart on his sleeve. He wants the best for everybody involved," said Ladd. "I think it's been a journey for him to figure out the best way or path for him to make that happen for his teammates, his team, and that organization. I think he's done a tremendous job with not only inside that room but the community as well."
The Wheeler and Ladd families are still close to this day. In fact, Ladd is knocking on the 1,000 games milestone himself.
"He's a great friend. Our kids are similar ages, our wives are close," Ladd said. "His oldest and my oldest still hop on the iPad and play Minecraft - or whatever game they're playing these days - there is still that connection. To me, it's the whole journey and the whole relationship that means the most to me. It's why I'm proud of him hitting this milestone. I know how much that means to him, his kids, and his wife."
As Wheeler's on-ice production through the seasons kept climbing, including back-to-back 91-point seasons in 2017-18 and 2018-19, his influence on his younger teammates built as well.
In fact, Morrissey remembers a moment early in the 2017-18 campaign - a year that Wheeler led the entire league in assists with 68 - that the captain said just the right thing at just the right time.

It was in Edmonton, the third game of the season, following two blowout losses to the Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames. Morrissey, a calm player with a smooth stride and a brilliant mind for the game, had made a couple of "jumpy plays" with the puck, as he describes it.
"He just came up and said 'Do you know how good of a player you are?' This was at the TV time-out," Morrissey said. "I didn't know what to say. He said 'Do you know how good of a player you are?' And it was basically saying know that, and go frickin' play. We went on to win that game, I think it was a pretty tight score, and it got our season rolling."
Stories like those are endless. It's no wonder why Wheeler was named a finalist for the Mark Messier Award that season, an honour that recognizes a player who exemplifies great leadership qualities on and off the ice.
Seemingly every player in the Jets room has been impacted by Wheeler's leadership.
"I think what he's done for Kyle Connor, because Kyle has a skill level and a speed level that he could be a perimeter player and still put up a lot of points and still be a good player," said Maurice. "Kyle practices like Blake now. He doesn't go at half speed, and at his size, I wouldn't expect Kyle to burn it out every day, but he has a fitness level that he can."
Just as Wheeler was synonymous with the Ladd and Little line, these days it's Connor and Mark Scheifele.
"He's taught me a lot. He's been a mentor of mine. He's been there through it all," said Scheifele. "He's definitely been a big role model of mine in the way that he works, the way that he comes to the rink and puts his best foot forward and works hard and shows that each and every day."
Scheifele said he's benefitted from a few "back door tap-ins" thanks to Wheeler's passes, and Connor has as well.
"His approach each day and his work ethic, it's contagious. He wants to get better and he leads by example," said Connor. "For me, that's one of the takeaways, that I got from him, that you've got to bring it every single day, that it doesn't matter, you've got to earn it every single day. So I take that into life and coming to the office here in hockey."
The Jets captain has the respect of his teammates and his coaches. In fact, what Maurice has seen out of Wheeler since the coach came to the organization in January 2014 is up there with the best he's ever seen.
"(Wheeler's) been an in-traffic player, full sprint, every practice, every game," Maurice said. "It's not just the games, it's the days that he would prep, it's the summer that he'd put in to drive his body as hard as he has, to be as prolific as he has.
"Rod Brind'Amour was like that, Mats Sundin drove himself real hard, learned how to compete heavy like that. Those guys, because they play like that, carry 1,000 games injured an awful lot."

Safe to say Wheeler has come a long way from laying on the ice as a kid.
Coming into this season, Wheeler had only missed 12 games since coming to Winnipeg in 2011. It's not by luck either. He's endured a puck in the throat in 2012, broken bones, and the one Maurice often references - crashing into the door in Dallas.
"There's only about four minutes left in the game, trainer is shaking his head, they're worried he broke his shoulder blade," Maurice said. "He's back on the bench a minute later and he was fine. Now after, he's got a significant injury but he went out and played hard. So I'm looking at the trainer going, 'Are you sure this guy is right?' He's back, he's ready to go."
Of course, those types of decisions are made with Wheeler's safety in mind. There are some injuries one can't play through, like the concussion Wheeler had in 2020-21, and the five games he missed with COVID-19 this season.
But, if there was a silver lining of sorts to missing five games this season, it bumped Wheeler's 1,000th game from a road game in Columbus to Sunday night in Winnipeg.
"Not that it wouldn't have been great but after seeing how mad they were at Dubey … I remember leaving the rink that day being that, 'Maybe it was a good thing it wasn't tonight,'" he said with a laugh. "Once we kind of did the math and figured out which game it was going to be, at home against Toronto, Toronto and Montreal in our building, that's an extra-special buzz every night so it lined up well."
He'll skate on the ice that night with 817 career points, with 707 of them coming with the Jets franchise. He's the only player in franchise history to reach 700 points with the organization, and in the pre-game ceremony, Wheeler will surely be given an incredible moment in the spotlight.
But as it's always been with him, it's who he shares the moment with that will mean the most.
Those people will be his family, his teammates, and the city of Winnipeg.
"Coming to work every day and having people care about what you're doing, as a pro athlete, I mean that's what it's all about," Wheeler said. "This is where I want to be and this is where I want to win. I think it's a relationship that has allowed me to flourish and it's been over 11 years now, it's been an honour to play in front of these people every night."