The underdog becomes the captain: Jared Spurgeons journey to the Wild C

Danielle Spurgeon keeps up with all the Wild fodder, so she knew her husband was one of the leading candidates to be named team captain.

So, on Saturday, Jan. 2., Danielle was anxious as Jared Spurgeon left that morning for his final tune-up before the opening of training camp the following day. After all, if the Wild really planned to name a captain before camp, the player bestowed that honor would have to find out that day, she figured.

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“As it was getting closer and closer to camp and we hadn’t heard anything, I’d say, ‘You know, maybe it’s not you, and that’s OK,’” Danielle said, reassuringly, to her once high-school sweetheart at St. Francis Xavier in Edmonton.

So, that Saturday, Danielle’s heart skipped when Jared gave her a quick call after practice. He sounded really happy on the phone but didn’t mention the captaincy, so she thought maybe he didn’t want to say anything while at the rink.

Turns out, Jared was just his typical happy self.

He got home, Danielle said, “Welllll?” and Jared, nonchalantly, told her, “Oh, no, no, no, I haven’t talked to anybody.”

At that moment, Jared’s phone rang and it was … Bill Guerin.

Jared answered, said a couple words, hung up and told Danielle that Guerin asked if he could stop by their house at 5 o’clock with coach Dean Evason.

“I told Jared, ‘I can’t imagine they’d be coming over to personally tell you to your face it’s not going to be you, could they?’” Danielle recalled, laughing. “Then I was like, ‘But maybe they would, I don’t know.’”

Danielle began tidying up, then quickly got ready. After all, Jared told Danielle, “Billy’s thing,” was to always be early.

Sure enough, 10 minutes before 5 p.m., Guerin texted Jared that he was running early.

Guerin and Evason rang the doorbell and were greeted by the entire family — the Spurgeons have two boys, Zach and Jayce, and two girls, Colbie and Myer, ranging from ages 11 to 2 — welcoming Jared’s bosses into their pristine home.

“I’ve been in their position,” Guerin said, laughing, referring to the nerves and hasty, panicked clean that happens right before a GM shows up to a player’s home. “Most players and families have stuff everywhere. This place was spotless. You know … M&Ms in the bowl, mixed nuts in the other bowl. Nice, little touches.”

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Danielle noticed immediately how happy Guerin and Evason were. She also noticed that they were carrying a Wild bag, a bag they casually placed on a chair like it was nothing.

“So I thought, ‘Well, they can’t possibly be here to crush Jared’s dream,’” Danielle said, laughing. “But you don’t know, you didn’t want to assume. And Jared is not that guy. He was like, ‘I’m not getting ahead of myself. I’ll just see what they have to say.’”

The Spurgeons offered Guerin and Evason drinks … then the small talk began. They talked about how beautiful the Spurgeons’ house was — the couple moved in last year. They talked about their Canadian kids — Guerin has a daughter that was born in the couple’s hometown of Edmonton; Evason has three children, including two daughters living in western Canada.

Guerin asked 6-year-old Colbie why she thought the two men were inside her home. She asked if Dad was getting fired.

Laughter erupted, and the ice was broken.

“That one, she’s pretty sassy, so we talked to her before, we were like, ‘You know, it’s OK to talk and you can be funny, but … no attitude, please,’” Danielle said. “Colbie’s witty and clever, and she’s very charismatic and can be sweet, too. But it sometimes comes with attitude and sass. It’s just a whole array of things for her.”

Everybody sat down at the kitchen island and they got down to business. Guerin and Evason revealed the contents of the bag: a No. 46 Spurgeon sweater with a Captain’s ‘C’ sewn above the heart and the book, “Wearing the ‘C’: Leadership Secrets from Hockey’s Greatest Captains,” which was autographed by local author Ross Bernstein and given to Guerin as a present. He thought it would be a sweet gesture to pay it forward to the Wild’s newly-anointed second full-time captain in franchise history.

“Yeah, lots of emotions, tears and smiles,” said Danielle.

Jared’s life and career almost flashed before his eyes.

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Growing up, Jared was an Oilers’ diehard and especially a big fan of Guerin, whose 429 career goals is sixth-most in NHL history among U.S.-born players, after he was traded to Edmonton from the New Jersey Devils in 1998.

As a little kid, Jared used to battle it out with older brother, Tyler, especially when the good teams came to town, as to which lucky grandson would get to accompany their grandfather, Paul, to Skyreach Centre to watch the likes of Guerin and Doug Weight.

Paul had season tickets to the Oilers since before Jared and Tyler were even born.

Guerin would spend parts of four seasons with the Oilers, scoring 30 goals his first full season there. So, imagine Jared’s shock 10 years later when at age 18 he was attending his first camp with the New York Islanders, waiting patiently to take his VO2 treadmill test, and in comes Guerin, the Islanders’ captain, and Weight to skip the line.

“Billy looks at us four first-year young guys in the corner and goes, ‘Don’t worry, boys, this will only take a few minutes,’” Jared said, laughing loudly. “Billy did his little thing, then got off and walked out. The funny thing is it didn’t take a few minutes. I watched him for 15 or 20 minutes and couldn’t believe it was him. That’s the only time I met him before he got to Minnesota.

“It was just a funny memory from my first camp that popped in my head. When you’re 10 years old, you never think you’re ever going to get to even meet one of your idols. And then, here he is, he’s your GM, and …”

… And, in your living room making you captain 16 months after signing you to a contract extension that would be the largest average value in team history ($7.575 million a year through 2026-27).

“It’s crazy how it all worked out,” said Jared.

Does Guerin even remember meeting Jared, albeit briefly, once upon a time at Islanders camp?

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“No,” Guerin said, snickering.

But that moment in Jared’s house when Guerin presented the now-31-year-old and one of the smoothest, most efficient defensemen in Wild history with the “Captain’s jersey” was undoubtedly one of the biggest points of pride of Guerin’s managerial career, a career that has already included two Stanley Cups from his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“I know what big thrill it was for me when (former Islanders GM) Garth (Snow) gave me the captaincy,” Guerin said. “It’s a big deal. It’s a big honor. It’s different in hockey. It just is.”

After Guerin and Evason parted ways about a half-hour after they arrived at the Spurgeon home, Jared held up the jersey and posed for a picture with a wide smile on his face.

He broke the news to his family by texting that picture to his parents, Barry and Debi, brother, Tyler, and sister, Breanne, with the caveat to keep things secret until the next morning. Of course, Debi couldn’t help herself and shared it with some aunts, uncles and grandmas with the same warning.

Debi’s 96-year-old mother, Joyce, who still lives on her own and never, ever misses one of Jared’s games, was “tickled pink.” When Jared and Tyler were kids, there’d be times Grandma Joyce would strap on the goalie gear to fend off shots from the boys in their basement.

Barry, quiet and unassuming like Jared, really had to digest the news.

He began flipping through this book of keepsake articles and pictures from Jared’s first year in the NHL. Danielle once made the book for the family and Barry was instantly reminded of how far his youngest child, who at 14 years old was drafted in the 10th round in the Western Hockey League while weighing a whopping 145 pounds, had come.

“It’s incredible,” Barry Spurgeon said from his home in Edmonton. “Who would have thought that when he got his walk-on with the Wild at their rookie training camp in 2010 that 11 seasons later he would be named captain? It was quite the journey he’s had over the last little while, but it’s something that the whole family is very, very proud of.”

It really has been an unbelievable journey for Jared, a story Wild fans should be well familiar with by now.

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Drafted in 2008, Jared was not signed by the Islanders two years later.

He re-entered the 2010 draft, 210 players heard their names, and Jared, a star defenseman and Memorial Cup champ for the Spokane Chiefs, was not one of them.

He was invited to the Wild’s development camp a few weeks later. So disappointed that his NHL dreams seemed to be dashed, Jared had to be talked into coming by his agent, Eustace King.

“It was quite close that he was coming to join me in Austria,” said Tyler Spurgeon, 34, a forward who has played overseas since 2010 and now plays for Kaufbeuren in Germany.

So good at development camp, Jared was invited back to the Wild’s rookie tournament in Traverse City. So good there for Mike Yeo, the Wild signed Jared to an NHL contract and assigned him to Yeo’s Houston Aeros.

Two months later, on his 21st birthday Nov. 29, 2010, Jared was shockingly brought up to Calgary to make his NHL debut.

Former GM Chuck Fletcher called Yeo in Houston because the Wild desperately needed a defenseman.

“Chuck said, ‘Can Spurge play in the NHL?'” Yeo said. “We had a lot of different guys maybe worthy of a call-up, but I just remember saying, ‘You’re never going to know unless you try.’ I mean, he was our best player every single night, so how can you not root for a guy like that?”

How unprepared were the Wild’s equipment trainers?

Equipment manager Tony DaCosta didn’t even bring Jared’s training camp sweater, which was No. 78, on the trip.

Assistant equipment manager Rick Bronwell grabbed a No. 46 jersey from the trunk, pulled out his lettering kit and sewed SPURGEON above the number.

Why 46?

It was the only unassigned jersey in the trunk that was Jared’s size of 54. The Spurgeon callup, to this day, has made the Wild equipment guys change how they operate. They now carry every sweater for every minor-leaguer with them on the road.

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Jared never changed his number. Let’s be honest, No. 46 is the perfect reminder of the unique path Jared has taken to the NHL and now to NHL captaincy.

A little more than 10 years later, he ranks first among defensemen in Wild history with 82 goals, 29 power-play goals and 15 game-winning goals and second with 653 games, 198 assists, 280 points, a plus-50 rating, 93 power-play points, 1,056 shots and 14,610 minutes. Last season, he even became the 12th defenseman in NHL history to notch a natural hat trick, and that came in front of his family in Edmonton.

Over the past three seasons, the Wild have had a 58, 56, and 60 percent expected goals percentage with Jared on the ice. In that span, only one other defenseman has a higher percentage: Carolina’s Dougie Hamilton.

Defensively, Jared is elite as they get in the NHL. Over his 10-year career, only once has he had an expected goals against rate above two and that was nine years ago. He’s thankful everyday that Bruce Ennis, the father of his best friend Tyler Ennis, moved him from forward to defenseman after peewees.

“Pretty good for a kid that’s listed as 5-9 and 175 pounds, … and we know that’s a little bit nice,” Tyler, said, laughing. “Not bad for a kid that you can count his mustache hairs on TV. Sometimes it fluctuates from 27 to 34.”

One of Jared’s first calls the night he was named captain was to Tyler in Germany.

Jared and Tyler are best of pals. They speak every single day at odd times, too, because of the time change. Not only does Tyler captain Kaufbeuren, he captained Innsbruck the past four years and has always worn a letter on his chest dating back to when he was the Kelowna Rockets’ captain his last year of junior in 2005-06.

You can bet Jared will lean on his brother and use him as a sounding board because despite them playing in different levels, the dilemmas, stresses and team dynamics are often similar wherever you’re captaining a team.

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“I’m definitely a more vocal guy, but I think that’s something that Jared over the past few years has gotten stronger,” Tyler said. “He’s told me about certain situations where he felt like he could speak up. Just shows his evolution as a player, and a pro, and a National Hockey League player, and how he’s got that confidence about him.

“The most important thing is to be yourself, to be authentic. It’s a social experiment in a way, all the different personalities you meet. And you can’t fake anybody out in the game of hockey. So I think first off, if you’re yourself, you come to work every day and you do the right things, then it just kind of bleeds into everybody else’s personality, and the way they approach the game.”

Soon after the news became public on Jan. 3, Jared was inundated with congratulatory texts. He heard from friends growing up, old junior teammates and staff, former Wild coaches and executives and lots of former Wild teammates like Matt Cullen, Mike Rupp, Jason Zucker, Marco Scandella and Matt Cooke. One of the more touching texts came from his predecessor, Mikko Koivu, who told him how well-deserved it was and how proud he should be to wear that ‘C’ for such a great organization.

“Pretty humbling day,” Jared said.

Danielle didn’t move to Minnesota full-time until the two got married in 2012. Before that, she would visit a few times a season. She would come to games and afterward stand behind a railing waiting for Jared. She could never understand why she’d watch all these players walk by her with their significant others after games.

She didn’t really know anybody, so she was too afraid to ask until one day when former Wild defenseman Justin Falk and wife, Karissa, told Danielle that there was actually a family room adjacent to the Wild locker room that she was welcome to be in.

“Jared didn’t even know there was like a room for the wives and girlfriends!” Danielle said. “I’d just be standing by this fence, I’d wait for him, he’d come out, he’d grab me and we’d go to the car.”

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Jared defends himself, saying, “My first year or two, I just kept my mouth shut and tried to stay under the radar. One day, Dani goes, ‘Did you know there’s a family and wives’ room?’ I said, ‘Honestly, I had no idea. I haven’t said a word since I’ve been here.’”

He was just excited to be in the NHL making a living and getting his own per diem like his brother once did from the Oilers.

Now, Jared and Danielle have four kids, which still boggles the mind of Danielle, who conducted this interview as Jared home-schooled the kids in another room.

“He’s got so much energy, so he’s always going and he’s always wanting to spend time with them,” Danielle said. “He’s a big morning guy, which is great, because I am absolutely not. And so he gets up with them, he makes them breakfast, he makes them lunch.

“I mean, he doesn’t need me. He really doesn’t. He’d be totally fine. He is very, very hands-on. I mean, we both cook dinner, cook lunch. He has no problem folding a load of laundry. It makes it very easy. It’s a good little team.”

Nearly a decade after that unexpected NHL debut in Calgary, with a new contract and a “C” on his jersey, everybody thinks of Jared as this cool as a cucumber, calm, poised, calming man that never gets ticked or rattled.

Not so fast, Jared’s brother, father and wife say.

“I would say he’s more like my dad in his demeanor. Silent but strong personality, but he’s got my mom’s fire and fight,” Tyler said. “Being the older brother, I took a few hockey sticks to the shins.”

“Yeah, at 9, 10, 11, 12, like most kids, if he didn’t get his way, he’d get, let’s say, a little excited,” Barry said. “We set up half the basement with plywood on the walls and tarp behind the net, and I’d have to be ref to keep the peace.”

“He is very composed. I wouldn’t say he’s always calming,” Danielle said, laughing. “There are times where I have to be like, ‘Hey, it’s OK.’ Every single year. I always laugh at him, I’m like, ‘I need to be recording this,’ because he’ll come in from a skate or training camp, like two days ago, he goes, ‘I was just not feeling good. I’m making plays, but nothing’s working. I’m feeling kinda slow.’ And he’s laughing at me because he knows what I’m going to say because it’s every year. Then, he’ll go, ‘No, no, this time’s different.’ So I often have to talk him off the cliff, saying, ‘You haven’t played a game in eight months. Give yourself a break. You’ll be fine. You always are.’

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“He does this every year, for the last 10 years. He can get in his own head a little bit. He’s his own worst critic, for sure. But he doesn’t like to show it very much.”

As captain, the mild-mannered, quiet Jared will have to be much more of a spokesman for the team, especially after games. He’s already doing a lot more social media, a lot more in-front-of-the-camera stuff. And he really started to show his voice and personality during the pandemic by doing podcasts, radio shows and creating a public Instagram account.

“He’s very, very funny and very witty,” Danielle said. “If you know him, he’ll just give it to you. It’s hilarious. I also always tell him, ‘You don’t always have to say the right stuff, to be so politically correct after games. Just be you. People want to see that and they want to relate to you.’ But he’s so likable and also never likes to talk about himself. It’s always about the team. It still is amazing to me that there’s not a single person that I personally know that doesn’t genuinely like him.”

One of those people is former Wild coach Bruce Boudreau, who calls Jared the “perfect” person and player.

“Nothing was ever about him, which is why I think he’ll be a really good captain,” Boudreau said. “For four years, I thought he was one of the best players, both off the ice and on the ice, that I’ve ever coached, and one of your favorite guys that you’d like to have on your team at any time.

“He comes to work every day, whether he’s hurt or whether he’s not hurt, never says a word, puts on his stuff, and works. He’s the perfect person and player for anybody to follow and look up to.”

Jared’s got good support from alternate captains Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. He said both teammates handled the disappointment of not being named captain well when Guerin pulled the three of them into a room before announcing the Spurgeon captaincy to the team.

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“They’re huge leaders on this team, and nothing has changed,” Jared said. “I’m not going to change and either are they. We’re going to work together to try and bring this team to where we all want it to be and try to win as many games as we can off the bat here and get the group bonded together.”

Jared is already daydreaming about what it would be like if, as captain, he can one day accept the Stanley Cup from commissioner Gary Bettman, hoist it high above his head and hand it off to his teammates.

“We have a lot of work to get there,” he said. “When that happens, when we hopefully get there, it will be pretty awesome, that’s for sure.”

(Top photo: Courtesy of the Spurgeon family)

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