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The Will To Win - June. 27, 2025 - Vol. 78, Issue 12– Ken Campbell

TWO DAYS AFTER HE returned from the World Championship with a gold medal around his neck as part of the first Team USA squad to win the worlds in 92 years, Will Smith knocked in a hole-in-one. No. 4 at the Sacconnesset Golf Club in Cape Cod, 147 yards with a pitching wedge. Smith and his college hockey buddies couldn’t tell he’d aced it until they pulled the pin out, and the ball was in the cup. “I didn’t really keep track of my score after that,” Smith said. “I was three-under after four holes, so I was off to a pretty hot start.”

Wait, what? He stopped keeping track when he was three-under par after four holes? That’s the mark of someone who either endured a biblically disastrous back 14 or who is so annoyingly good that he can stop keeping track when he’s three-under after four holes. We’re betting on that latter. Because, yup, everything is coming up roses these days for Will Smith, who is living that life some consider a myth. (If you know, you know.) Unlike his golf day in Cape Cod, Smith took a little time to get his sea legs at the NHL level, but the rookie right winger for the San Jose Sharks eventually showed the world exactly why he merited being drafted fourth overall by the Sharks in 2023.

After going his first eight games without a point and scoring goals in only two of his first 20, Smith turned out to be a quick study. He finished with 18 goals and 45 points, which put him third on his team in goals behind his running mates Macklin Celebrini and Tyler Toffoli. In March and April, Smith had nine goals and 19 points in 22 games, and he finished the season with 16 primary assists at 5-on-5 – which put him No. 1 among rookies in primary assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 and 16th among all NHLers who played at least 800 five-a-side minutes.

After the season, Smith went off to the World Championship for the second straight year, and he chipped in seven assists in 10 games to help the Americans win their first global title since 1933.

Which got us to thinking. To this point, Smith is putting himself in a good position to be on the Team USA Olympic roster in 2030, but what if he comes out like a house on fire early in 2025-26? We get it; things are really, really crowded with top-end talent for this roster, especially on the flanks. But if you’re looking for a guy who has won on the international level, well, the kid’s got gold medals in the U-18 World Championship (where he was chosen as the MVP in 2023), the World Junior Championship and now the worlds. Cracking the 2026 roster remains a dream of the pipe variety, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Smith could at least insert himself into the conversation with a strong start to the season.

“Playing in the Olympics has been a dream for me ever since I started playing hockey,” Smith said after the worlds. “I obviously know that team is coming up for next year, and it’s everyone’s goal to be on that team and to represent your country. That’s going to be one of my goals my whole career. I knew it was a big year with the Olympics coming up, and, obviously, we got the job done there.”

Playing on the third line for the Americans, with Matty Beniers and Cutter Gauthier early in the tournament and Shane Pinto and Gauthier later, Smith most certainly did his part by being in on seven goals. In Team USA’s 1-0 OT win in the gold-medal game, Smith even got a little out of his comfort zone when he very nearly put Swiss defenseman Christian Marti over the boards after finishing one of his checks. The TikTok app all the kids use referred to it as “Will Smith’s Shocking Moment at IIHF Hockey Championship.” And it was indeed a little shocking since Smith usually appears in highlight reels featuring his puckhandling and creativity, as well as his ability to turn what look like garden-variety plays into spectacular scoring chances, often by setting up linemates rather than scoring himself.

And it has been that way for a long time. Part of it has to do with natural ability, of course. Smith was outstanding at all sports growing up, and it’s pretty clear he can play golf all right. The great-great-grandson of Chicago White Sox founding owner Charles Comiskey, Smith also played baseball until he joined USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program. The other piece comes from his parents, Bill and Colleen, who, despite not having hockey backgrounds at all, were all in on their son’s love of the game. When the family moved to Plymouth for the program, they elected to buy a house there so Will and teammates Will Vote and Ryan Leonard could have constant parental supervision rather than live with billets.

From the Archive: Sharks Bite Back The Hockey News has released its archive to all THN subscribers: 76 years of history, stories, and features.

I THOUGHT WILL WAS THE BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYER THAT I HAD SEEN– KENT HUGHES, MONTREAL CANADIENSGM/SMITH’S FORMER AGENT

Montreal Canadiens GM Kent Hughes noticed something special about both Smith’s talent level and parental support system pretty early, which is primarily why, in addition to being his coach with the U-13, U-14 and U-15 Boston Jr. Eagles, he began representing Smith as his agent. Smith remembers making the revelation himself in early 2018 when the Jr. Eagles went to the world-renowned Quebec International Pee-Wee Tournament and he was named MVP of the event even though he lost in the final. “I thought he was the best offensive player that I had seen,” Hughes said. “Will is a 2005, and I probably started paying more attention at the youth level at the ’99 age group. To me, in that New England-Boston-New Jersey area, he was the best offensive player that I had seen. Matt Boldy, who was another kid who played for the Eagles, was obviously really talented, but he was not as dominant a hockey player at a young age as Will Smith.”

That ability to generate offense continued right through the NTDP, where Smith scored 51 goals and 127 points for the under-18 team, and to Boston College, where he and linemates Gabe Perreault and Leonard were an offensive juggernaut, with Smith leading all NCAA players in assists (46) and points (71). Smith credits much of his fast-twitch ability to the fact that his mother and father always had a supply of tennis balls around that they would throw at him without notice to keep his reflexes honed.

And while Smith is not about to throw hits around the way he did in the World Championship gold-medal game, Hughes recommends not sleeping on Smith’s fire. He said the Jr. Eagles would end practices with small-ice games where results and stats were kept, and Smith was determined to come out on top every game. “People make the mistake of assuming players like Will are not that competitive, and they just like scoring,” Hughes said. “But Will is a very competitive, driven kid who loves hockey. People show it differently. You get guys like Brendan Gallagher who gets cross-checked in the face, and he’s bleeding until he can barely skate again. That’s the competitor in the average hockey fan’s eye. Will’s would be a lot harder to pick off, but he’s really competitive.”

That aspect of Smith’s personality is evident in his relationship with Celebrini, his new best friend. The two of them come from opposing countries and went head-to-head when Celebrini played at Boston University, but they became completely sympatico once they started playing for the Sharks. With Toffoli, they formed a trio the likes of which hockey fans in northern California hadn’t been so excited about since the days of watching Joe Pavelski between Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. Smith lived with Marleau’s family and Celebrini with Thornton’s, and both plan on keeping their living arrangements for one more year before getting places of their own. Toffoli has been another huge veteran influence, and skating with them has made playing for one of the league’s worst teams much more tolerable.

But back to Smith and Celebrini. They get their barbs in on each other constantly because that’s how most guys show their love for one another. “You should see when we play each other in 1-on-1 basketball,” Smith said. “We treat it like it’s the NBA final.”

Smith, along with Celebrini, will have plenty of time to grow with the Sharks, who are still a fair distance from being legitimate playoff contenders. Whether they’ll be able to deliver to San Jose what Thornton and Marleau couldn’t remains to be seen, but the early returns are almost as encouraging as going three-under after four holes.

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