The first time Paul Maurice met Eric Comrie, Comrie’s positive attitude struck him so intensely that he wondered if it was real.
“This must be a first impression,” Maurice remembers thinking. “Nobody could actually be this nice.”
The second time Maurice met Comrie, he was struck all over again by Comrie’s positivity and cheerfulness — and yet, Maurice still had doubts. Maybe Comrie was just having a uniquely good day. Maybe something great had happened to him on his way to the rink.
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The third time Maurice met Comrie, he finally realized the truth: Comrie’s good days aren’t unique. He is just a uniquely cheerful and positive person.
“He’s top-five best guys ever and if you know him you know I’m not exaggerating,” Maurice says.
He’s not alone in that assessment.
“I think he’s a consummate teammate,” Dave Lowry said after Comrie’s first career shutout in April. “This is a kid — and I say it every day — he is the hardest working guy. He comes every day, he loves the game. He enjoys what he does … Guys notice that, and they enjoy an opportunity to watch him be successful.”
Defenceman Josh Morrissey has been Comrie’s teammate on Team Alberta, on junior teams at the U16, U17, U18 and U20 level and again in professional hockey with the St. John’s IceCaps, Manitoba Moose and Winnipeg Jets. Their families are close. Comrie was a groomsman at Morrissey’s July 1 wedding to Margot Seaman and Morrissey returned the favour as one of the few non-family members at Comrie’s wedding to Haley Hull on July 9.
If anybody knows what Comrie is made of, it’s Morrissey.
“You see him stand out there after practice, after media availability and whatnot on the road at morning skates and he’s still out there taking breakaways,” Morrissey says. “Stuff that goalies hate. One-timers, cross-ice passes. Most guys don’t want that, even when they’re not playing.”
This is simply what Comrie has always done.
In June, as we sit down for coffee in Irvine, Calif., Comrie is a pending unrestricted free agent. He hopes to re-sign in Winnipeg — he loves it there and says it is his second home — but isn’t sure what is going to happen. He’s putting in full days of training and focusing on process goals as opposed to the end result and feels more at peace with his training than he has at any point in his career.
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But we’ll get to all that.
Everything began with a game of floor hockey between Comrie, now 27, and his big brothers, Paul, 45, and Mike, 41.
Picture him at 2 or 3, trying to fit in with his superstar big brothers in Edmonton. Paul was a new Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick and would play 15 games for his hometown Oilers before concussions derailed his career. Mike was a teenager who went on to hit the 30-goal plateau once for Edmonton and once for Phoenix, playing 589 NHL games.
The eldest Comrie boys were gifted scorers who played hockey every chance they got. Offence came naturally to them. Goaltending? Not so much.
“I became a goalie because of my two older brothers,” Comrie tells The Athletic. “They’d stick me in the net and just shoot pucks at me — not real pucks but these soft, spongey things. They basically used me as a shooter tutor. I would just sit there. So I was 2, 3, 4 years old and my oldest brother said, ‘You will never, ever make a save on me.’”
As luck would have it, it wasn’t long before one of Paul’s shots found its way straight into the youngest Comrie’s glove. He’d made a huge glove save that nobody expected him to make and the boys couldn’t get enough of it.
“Mike carried me around the gym in front of Paul and said, ‘Look it! He made the save, he made the save!’”
In the euphoria of the moment, with his brothers Mike and Paul going wild and cheering his impossible save, Eric made an immediate and long-lasting realization.
Like the soft, spongey puck in his tiny, toddler-sized glove, he didn’t want to let that feeling go.
“Ever since then, I was hooked on hockey, you know?”
From that moment on, hockey is all that he wanted to do. He became convinced he wanted to be a goalie; even when he played as a skater, he pictured himself as Scott Stevens and tried to block every single shot. Eventually, people stopped playing him anywhere but in net.
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Paul and Mike both became Oilers players and Mike introduced Eric to his idol, Oilers netminder Tommy Salo. Years later, he played on the same WHL team as his younger brother, Ty, but at that point, his big brothers were his heroes. His sense of belonging became inextricably entwined with the game.
“When I watched Paul and Mike play hockey, that’s how I became enthralled,” he says. “All I wanted to do was play hockey because I wanted to fit in with my older brothers.”
Comrie’s ability stood out early in his life. He played competitively in Edmonton and again in California when his family moved south.
As hockey progressively ate up all of his time, his dad Bill gave him an option. Is there anything else — anything else at all — that he would rather do?
“I was like: No. This is what I want to do. And if I don’t want to do anything else, then why would I?” Comrie says. “Never once did he ever say, ‘Hey, you have to go to practice today. It was always me, like, ‘Can I skate today?’ And he was always very, very, accommodating to the point where I can’t thank my parents enough for how much they helped me.”
Comrie’s gratitude to his dad and to his mom Roxanne ran deep, even in his youth. He calls his mom “the good cop” of the duo while crediting her for being the source of his kindness.
“She is the best mom ever. She’s the most loving, nicest person that you’ll ever meet in your life.”
Comrie reflects on being 12 or 13 in California and being unable to drive to the rink. Uber didn’t exist yet; every time he wanted to get on the ice, he needed his parents’ help. He didn’t know how far the game would take him but in California, he knew he needed to work hard to get into the game.
In a hockey world that is increasingly preaching multi-sport athleticism, summers off and breaks from the game, Comrie became a single-sport athlete.
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“From the time I was 11 years old to the time I was 16, I think I skated 364 days a year,” he says. “And I mean an hour and a half to two hours every day. It’s all I did — it’s all I wanted to do. I was fortunate enough to have access to that ice but a lot of people wouldn’t have gone on the ice. Some of it was just free public skating. I would go out there and skate. I’d work on crease movements. My goalie coach would write me drills and I would go do them by myself because it was free ice. That’s all I did because I just loved doing it.”
Suddenly those extra breakaways and one-timers after Jets practice make sense.
“My dad instilled a really hard work ethic in me,” Comrie says. “And honestly, I wasn’t the most athletic guy growing up. I wasn’t the biggest guy — I’m still not the biggest guy. I’m still not the most athletic guy on the team. I look like an average guy compared to some NHL players where it’s like ‘Wow. That guy’s definitely an athlete.’ I just look like a normal human being, so it’s like how’d you get there? Well … I just outworked everybody.”
Christmas was the one day he took off.
(Daniel Bartel / Icon Sportswire)It is this work ethic that kept Comrie going through the ups and downs of his early years in the NHL. He set Manitoba Moose records but Winnipeg lost him to waivers — twice. He got into limited NHL action despite his AHL success — five games for Winnipeg, three for Detroit and one for New Jersey — but his numbers weren’t particularly good. Comrie’s tour around the NHL via waivers (and one trade, from Arizona to Detroit) became dizzying and, in 2021, he was Winnipeg’s nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy which recognizes perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to the game.
Through it all, Comrie maintained a positive attitude. He never questioned his commitment.
“I have this sense that, whatever happens in my day, I can go and have the best time on the ice because that’s where I’m having the most fun. This is my dream, this is what I love, this is what I want to do every single day.”
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When he followed his Masterton nomination with a one-year, $750,000 contract with Winnipeg for the 2021-22 season, pundits were unsure. Laurent Brossoit was a popular backup. Comrie’s numbers in nine NHL games looked bad: three wins, five losses, a .873 save percentage and a 4.08 goals-against average. The eye test took some poor defending into context but didn’t offer overwhelming evidence that a massive turnaround was on the way.
Suddenly, a player whose identity is deeply intertwined with positivity is aware of a negative perception about his play. He seems torn between focusing on the things he can control and showing fans and media that he understands their point of view.
“I’ve realized in my time playing hockey that people get really offended by media. Which is kind of strange to me — it doesn’t make sense to me,” Comrie says. “I don’t think I’ll ever get offended by media because I understand how important media is. It’s grown the game and it’s the reason why we get paid the way we do. You also have to understand that good stories don’t get as much publicity as bad stories sometimes.”
That’s the positive, upbeat version. Comrie’s introspective follow-up is equally respectful.
“People are allowed to have their opinion,” he says. “And up until that point, I hadn’t proven anything so they were right to have that thought. It was like ‘OK, they can have that thought. It doesn’t bother me.’ I mean, they’re right to have it. Anyone who was on the other side was going against the grain of what had happened.”
Comrie had already gone through a number of phases as he tried to become a full-time NHL goaltender.
He read a lot of self-help books early in his career. Ryan Holiday’s “The Obstacle Is the Way” is still a favourite but Comrie covered plenty of ground. He read multiple Holiday books, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” and other staples of the genre. Comrie is deeply interested in what he reads. In his quest to embrace new ideas as wholeheartedly as he can, he found himself bouncing around from one idea to the next more often than he liked. He decided that he needed more consistency.
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Before the 2021-22 season, he hired a mental performance coach. They established simple, repeatable mantras like “move your feet” and habits like journalling. But the biggest thing they worked on together was establishing confidence in their own game plan.
“You read one book and it’s like ‘this is what I have to do’ but it’s kind of like a shiny object. You read another book and it’s like ‘no, this is what I have to do.’ You’re bouncing around from one book to another book and you’re trying something new all of the time instead of having one philosophy and sticking to your guns. Having your process, sticking to it and trusting it,” he says.
Comrie shifted his goals from external outcomes to his own processes. He developed his ability to focus on things he can control and gets a little bit better at letting go of the things he can’t control. Developing these new mental skills was a process in itself but Comrie learned to take satisfaction from the journey.
What happened next felt like vindication.
He won his first three games of the season, including his first game in Los Angeles with friends and family in the stands. He then ran a .920 save percentage over the course of the year, playing in 19 games and winning 10 of them — career highs on all fronts. There are particularly spectacular nights, like Comrie’s first career shutout — a 35-save win at home against Philadelphia. Comrie’s long hours, his waivers adventures and his time on the taxi squad wash away.
If there is one specific game that illustrates his newfound mental toughness, it’s probably the 4-1 win against St. Louis after more than a month without a start. Comrie can’t control Winnipeg’s dependence on Connor Hellebuyck but he can control how he practices and how he prepares himself for his own starts.
He stands by this — even now, knowing that three more starts would have meant Winnipeg kept Comrie as a restricted free agent instead of risking him on the open market.
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“Here’s the thing. You have an All-Star, elite, top-three goaltender on your team. You’re trying to make the playoffs. You’re going to throw him in every single night if you’re a coach fighting for his job,” he says. “I don’t care who you put in that situation — I think he’s going to do it nine out of 10 times. And it’s not that (Dave Lowry) didn’t trust me. Like, he told me, ‘I trust you, Eric. I have maybe one of the best goalies in the world. I’m fighting for my neck, I’m fighting for our guys, I’m fighting for a playoff spot — I’m going to throw him in every chance I can.’ That’s the way he looked at it and I don’t blame him one bit.”
Comrie stands by his understanding as free agency approaches — and he’s not writing Winnipeg out of his future.
“I love Winnipeg. I’d love to be back there. That’s where I want to be. I’m not sure what’s going to happen — I can’t control what they do — but when it comes down to it, don’t get me wrong, I’d love to be a Winnipeg Jet. My best friends are there. I’ve loved it there. It feels like a second home to me,” he says.
His priorities won’t be to squeeze out an extra few dollars just because he’s an unrestricted free agent. He says he’s focused on opportunity.
Is there any temptation to play in a city where he doesn’t have to play behind a goaltender who’s among the top two or three players in the world?
There’s a long pause before he answers.
“Well, tough question,” he says. “But you have to think that maybe Winnipeg still is the best opportunity because you never know what’s going to happen down the road there. You just don’t know. I have a goalie coach that trusts me, who wants to play me more, so you don’t know. And it’s been a good opportunity for me. They gave me my chance. I respect them and will always respect them for that. A lot of other teams wouldn’t have believed in me but they did. They have always had my back and they might still be the best opportunity for me as well.”
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One enormous item in Winnipeg’s favour?
If ever there were a player who wanted to play for his brothers-in-arms, it is the one whose love of the game was born while hoisted in his big brothers’ arms.
The Jets employ two of the four non-family members who attended Comrie’s wedding this past weekend. Morrissey is one of Comrie’s closest friends. Their dads Bill and Tom were close before Tom’s death. Their families are still close.
And if you think that’s meaningful, consider the person Comrie got to officiate his wedding: Mark Scheifele.
“So Scheifs and I were talking one day. It was myself, Haley, Britt — Scheif’s girlfriend — and Scheif. We were just sitting on the couch one day and Haley said, ‘Holy smokes, it’s hard to find someone to officiate our wedding. It’s hard to get somebody who fits. We might as well get Scheif to do it.’ And it was just a joke sort of thing but he just goes ‘I’ll do it!’”
Scheifele ordained himself online and worked diligently on his speeches. After our interview, Comrie followed up by text to say it was “incredible” how well he performed.
So yes, this is a massive offseason for Comrie as a goaltender. A new coaching staff in Winnipeg and the chance to play with his best friends could see him surpass the 19-game mark and set a new career high. It’s even possible that Hellebuyck moves on someday, making Comrie first in line for the starter’s job — if he signs.
Or he could look for a new “second home,” as Winnipeg has become for him.
His first home is in order. He and Haley have known each other for many years. Their families are close. They bought a house in Irvine, Calif., during the pandemic and installed a gym so Comrie could work out away from the rink. Their German Shepherd, Jango (named after the Star Wars bounty hunter; Comrie is an original trilogy devotee) goes for pack walks with other dogs to make friends.
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The only thing left to do is choose the place he takes the next big steps in his career.
(Photo: Terrence Lee / USA Today)
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