Dominik Shine’s lengthy, winding NHL journey has created ripples of inspiration

The telephone rang at 5:30 a.m. in Hawaii, the place Scott and Marcy Shine have been simply starting a long-planned trip.

On the opposite finish of the road was their son, Dominik, who, once they had departed for the Massive Island simply two days earlier, was serving as an alternate captain for the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins. However on this morning, he was getting a long-awaited change of task. Shine instructed his dad the group needed to increase his contract, with a twist — they needed to make it an NHL deal. And the Crimson Wings needed him to play that evening.

“It was like, ‘holy s—,’ ” Scott Shine recalled, after which: How can we be so far-off proper now?

Dominik Shine had labored for this second for a very long time — and that’s understating it. He had been within the AHL since he first turned professional on the finish of the 2016-17 season, enjoying all 9 of these seasons for the Griffins. He had gone from a hungry, undrafted free agent out of Northern Michigan College to a 31-year-old chief of the locker room in Grand Rapids.

However to that time, he nonetheless hadn’t gotten the decision to the NHL. And he had begun to think he never would.

Now, immediately, it was occurring. The Detroit-area native could be the oldest skater to make his NHL debut in almost a decade, since Evgeny Medvedev (33) in 2015, and the oldest Crimson Wing to debut since Vaclav Nedomansky (33) in 1977.

(Supply: Detroit Crimson Wings)

Straight away, solely in the future into their trip, the Shines started on the lookout for flights again to Detroit. However the flights have been 10 and a half hours lengthy. They’d no likelihood. They’d simply have to look at on TV, however even that proved troublesome.

First, they thought they may be capable of stream the printed from their telephone to their resort TV however shortly discovered they couldn’t. They then went to Goal and acquired one other TV — nevertheless it didn’t have the best app to look at the sport. Lastly, Marcy went right into a Verizon retailer and mentioned “Give me the largest iPad you could have.”

So, from greater than 4,000 miles away, the Shines watched on an iPad as their son grew to become one of the vital inspiring tales of the NHL season.

The Crimson Wings performed Shine in three extra video games as they trekked by western Canada — one of many few locations the Shines couldn’t have gotten with out their passports available — however despatched Shine again to Grand Rapids a couple of days later, their lineup lastly wholesome, after going 4-0 with him within the lineup.

Whether or not it was his mother and father on the iPad or his sister, Cecilia, tuning in from Penn State College, the household watched the video games from afar, texting through the late video games and taking in a particular second for all of them.

However when Shine returned to Grand Rapids, it shortly grew to become clear his story meant one thing extra. His hard-earned payoff reached far past his family.

“Just about each sport I’ve performed to this point, somebody’s come as much as me and mentioned, you realize, ‘Hey man, so pumped for you, that’s superior,’ or little issues like that,” Shine mentioned by telephone final week. “It actually means quite a bit. It was fairly overwhelming, although.”

“Even after we have been in Milwaukee, their head coach came visiting to our locker room, proper outdoors the door, and talked to him and congratulated him,” mentioned Griffins gear supervisor Brad Thompson.

Shine mentioned the response to his long-awaited debut — he acquired roughly 950 texts after his first sport — was “quite a bit greater than I believed it was going to be.”

After a profession outdoors the highlight, possibly that is sensible. Then again, it underscores how extensively Shine’s story resonates.

An ignored, heart-and-soul participant who had spent his whole profession with the identical group lastly getting his shot on the age of 31 is greater than a feel-good story for followers. It is going to ripple all the way down to gamers all through the minor leagues, giving them a cause to imagine that, in the event that they maintain going, in the future their onerous work might repay, too.

“It’s perseverance,” mentioned Griffins assistant coach Brian Lashoff. “You possibly can say all of it you need, I feel, however to see it’s a completely completely different factor.”

Shine first joined the Griffins in March 2017 on the tail finish of the AHL common season. He was coming off of a profitable profession at Northern Michigan however was leaping proper right into a playoff push. He appeared in eight video games by the tip of the season however didn’t make the lineup for the playoffs with the loaded Griffins on their strategy to the Calder Cup.

Rapidly, he bought an training on the challenges undrafted gamers can face in professional hockey. With the Crimson Wings beginning to rebuild and draft picks needing enjoying time in Grand Rapids, he was going to need to work for each minute of ice time.

Again then, present Griffins head coach Dan Watson was behind the bench of the group’s ECHL affiliate in Toledo — one rung down from the AHL on the hierarchy.

“And I feel the primary 4 years, I used to be at all times instructed, ‘Get a nameplate for Shine, he’s a candidate to come back down,’” Watson mentioned.

And but, yr after yr, he by no means did.

“I knew as soon as I bought to coaching camp I had one thing to show,” Shine mentioned, “and I sort of simply had that chip on my shoulder my whole profession.”

Dominik Shine has performed no matter it takes to assist his workforce over 9 seasons. (Nicolas Carrillo / Grand Rapids Griffins)

Shine was determined that he would do no matter it took to make the workforce, and on nights he wasn’t enjoying effectively, that meant discovering different methods to offer worth — typically by combating.

His profession stat strains inform the story of how that performed out: His offensive numbers have been modest, however Shine labored his means into 50 video games his first full season in 2017-18, then 72 the season after that. He was already at 50 video games in 2019-20, the season that will in the end be shortened by COVID.

(Sources: theahl.com, hockeyfights.com)

After the remainder of the league’s season was canceled, Shine skated with Lashoff — then a workforce captain — and a goalie for months on finish, engaged on issues they thought they may enhance. When the league lastly returned, in a shortened season with no playoffs, Shine did actually no matter he might — together with some issues past his regular job description.

“We didn’t have many gamers, so lots of people don’t actually know however I performed a variety of video games at ‘D,’ ” Shine mentioned.

That captures the position Shine was rising into for the Griffins: an organizational staple and glue man who would do regardless of the workforce wanted. He was changing into a frontrunner, somebody Lashoff leaned on when he was the workforce’s captain.

And within the AHL, being a frontrunner means serving to youthful gamers turn out to be professionals and getting ready them for their very own NHL futures.

“You get a variety of satisfaction off of having the ability to assist youthful guys after which them having the ability to transfer up and have alternatives,” Lashoff mentioned. “You play your small half as a teammate and a peer with them.”

That satisfaction is actual. However so is the flip facet: It sometimes means you’re not the one being referred to as up.

By the point the league was again to normalcy, Shine had unlocked extra offense, too. He put up 32 factors in 71 video games in 2021-22 — double his earlier profession excessive. However Shine was in his late 20s at that time and beginning to consider life outdoors of hockey. He was roommates with Lashoff, who was within the strategy of determining when to hold up his personal skates.

Shine puzzled if possibly he ought to, too, weighing the calls for of the AHL and the will for him and his spouse, Taylor, to have children.

“No matter I did, I needed to achieve success in,” Shine mentioned. “So if that meant altering careers and beginning that path, that’s what I needed to do. However (Lashoff and I) talked about it on a regular basis — I imply, we have been roommates for 4 years in all probability. … I feel it’s simply a kind of issues the place he at all times believed in me, even when possibly I wasn’t getting essentially the most ice time, or possibly I used to be simply sort of feeling like I used to be caught.

“He noticed one thing in me. So I feel I owe quite a bit to him. He at all times sort of simply mentioned, ‘Simply play till you (can’t) … you’ll remorse it if you happen to go early. Simply play.’ So I feel he was an enormous a part of me sticking with it.”

Certainly, Lashoff noticed Shine getting “higher and higher.” He would nonetheless stick up for his teammates, however his contact across the web had ticked up as effectively.

“I really feel like now the league’s getting youthful and youthful, however there are guys that hit a stride once they’re that age,” Lashoff mentioned. “And he undoubtedly appears to be a kind of guys.”

Lashoff retired in 2023 and moved into a task as an assistant coach.

Shine saved going. And this season, with almost two months remaining within the common season, he already has a profession excessive in factors (36) — and his long-awaited NHL debut.

The Crimson Wings went 4-0 with Dominik Shine within the lineup this season. (Brett Holmes / USA In the present day Community through Imagn Pictures)

To know the impression of Shine’s story on the subsequent wave of gamers within the AHL, it’s important to see it by their eyes.

Cross Hanas took a special path to the AHL than Shine. Drafted by the Crimson Wings out of the WHL in 2018, he’s nonetheless simply 23 and in his third season within the AHL. He has a variety of hockey, and a variety of time, forward of him.

However regardless of his younger age, he has already seen exceptional turnover in his time with the Griffins. From his rookie season in 2022-23, solely three full-time gamers stay in Grand Rapids: Shine, defenseman Eemil Viro and himself.

Everybody else has both moved as much as the NHL or moved on to someplace (or one thing) else.

So, what did it imply to Hanas, as a teammate, to see Shine’s call-up?

“You don’t have any concept,” Hanas mentioned final week, standing within the foyer of the Griffins observe rink.

“All people talks about how a lot of a grind it’s, rising up and thru hockey,” Hanas mentioned. “And then you definitely don’t actually perceive till you sort of get right here, particularly within the AHL. Simply seeing that man — how lengthy he’s waited and the way a lot he’s labored for that, and simply — it’s not even about that, too. It’s nearly how good of a human he’s, too, and good of a teammate.”

Hanas had come into the league at 20, not realizing a lot about professional hockey. However Shine, he mentioned, was “undoubtedly a kind of guys you sort of look as much as each single day,” choosing his mind on tips on how to play the sport “the best means.”

Hanas remains to be younger, nevertheless it doesn’t take too lengthy to turn out to be one of many veterans in an AHL locker room. It additionally doesn’t take lengthy to begin questioning when — or if — it will likely be your flip.

Hanas and Shine sit subsequent to one another within the locker room. So, when Shine returned earlier this month, Hanas waited out the welcome backs and congratulations Shine acquired, not eager to “bombard him.” However when it settled down, Hanas bought to present Shine a hug and a dap, telling him, “Man, I used to be so fired up for you.”

With the NHL extension Shine signed final month, he might very effectively be again in Detroit once more, both this season or subsequent. Time will inform whether or not Hanas will sometime additionally get to expertise the end result of his onerous work and persistence.

However in Shine, he and so many others now have a transparent story to level to at any time when doubts creep in.

“It was actually good for me,” Hanas mentioned. “Clearly on daily basis I’m working in the direction of to get that call-up too, to play within the NHL, as a result of that’s in the end what everyone desires to do,” he mentioned. “And you realize, yearly that goes by … possibly you sort of get in your head slightly bit … you sort of really feel like possibly the door is shutting slightly bit.

“However I do know it’s not, and it’s similar to seeing that and realizing that you would be able to maintain working, simply maintain going, maintain enjoying your sport, and … it could possibly occur similar to that.”

(High picture: Allison Farrand / Detroit Crimson Wings)