ST. CATHARINES -- Despite helping lead Team Canada to the 2020 World Junior Hockey Championship, Akil Thomas admits that he doesn’t remember the goal that lead his team to victory.
Speaking with CTV News Toronto on Tuesday, the 20-year-old said he has watched the replay of his game-winning goal at least 50 times.
“I don’t remember … every time I watch it, it just kind of looks like someone else who kind of skates like me. It’s crazy, just watching it,” he said at the Niagara Ice Dogs boardroom while wearing his gold medal around his neck.
Akil was accompanied by his mother, Akilah Thomas, a proud mother of five. She said that she always knew her second born was special.
“From day one there was something about him. From day one.”
Akil told CTV News Toronto that he had a feeling the morning of the gold medal game that he was going to score a big goal, but after missing an open net in the second period, he says he thought a lot about it in between periods.
Despite the fact that coach Dale Hunter had shortened the bench in a close game, the fourth liner jumped over the boards with only a few minutes to go.
“I had a feeling we were going to score, and one-by-one we tied the game up. I was thinking now would be a pretty good time to score.”
But he said he didn’t have much time to react.
“I was falling down a bit, kind of crashed into the goalie, but yeah, it was crazy how everything kind of happened.”
Akil’s mother sat beside him while he recounted the winning goal, beaming with pride.
“For him to be that one who got it, and made it like a worldwide thing, was everything to me. It meant so much,” Akilah said.
She said that she was watching the game on a live stream in Atlanta, Georgia, and the feed froze just as he got the puck. She said it took her breath away and she didn’t know he had scored until a friend called her on FaceTime.
Akil credits his mother for much of his success.
“The reason why I was thinking I was going to score is because of my mum. She always taught me to believe in myself.”
He calls her his biggest supporter, but also acknowledged that he also has a lot of supporters in St. Catherine’s, where he is the captain of the OHL’s Niagara Ice Dogs.
Inside the boardroom, the team owners Bill Burke and Denise Burke were among the many stopping by to congratulate Akil on his goal and medal.
Joey Burke, the son and the team’s general manager, said he had a gut feeling on game day that Akil was going to do something big.
“The big time players show up in big time games, and big time moments. And it’s never been truer really than it is with Akil. He’s that kind of guy.”
He’s watched Akil develop as a player for four years, get drafted by the Los Angeles Kings, and become one of the Ice Dogs all-time leading scorers. By far, Burke said, the biggest of Thomas’s career.
“It means the world, you look at all the high-end goals and big moments goals that Akil has scored for us, and they pale in comparison to this.”
The game-winning “golden goal” also has people putting Thomas in the same sentence as hockey legends Paul Henderson and Sydney Crosby—something Akil admits will take a while to sink in.
“It feels weird. It doesn’t feel like I was on the world junior team, it doesn’t feel like we played in the world juniors,” Akil said. “It just kind of feels like we just played another tournament. Just because I kind of grew up idolizing those guys, and idolizing those moments. So I don’t even know what to say.”
Akil was pretty quiet as he sat on the bench Tuesday while the rest of his teammates, who he hadn’t seen in a month, practiced. He said he wants to get back out there for the team’s next home game and wants to lead them to a Memorial Cup Championship before he leaves the league to peruse his NHL dreams.
“I’m glad I made my country proud. But I’m still a person, right here, just living.”
