How Smith’s early hockey memories shaped the Sharks rookie’s love of the game

On January 21, 2025By Littum

How Smith’s early hockey memories shaped the Sharks rookie’s love of the game originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

BOSTON — It was the uniform that did it?

Will Smith told San Jose Hockey Now that was the moment that got him really excited about hockey as a kid.

“My dad, one of his best friends, Pat Hunt, actually came by the house with a jersey. So that’s how I got into it,” Smith said. “I just remember playing in the house, and I was probably six years old, and that’s when I fell in love.”

That’s also how his father, Bill Smith, remembered it: “He just turned five and Pat asked him (to play) and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’

“But then he waited for his uniform. He says when will I get my uniform? He kept walking up to him and bothering him. And then Pat showed up at the house in his uniform, and that was like the start of it all.”

Before the Lexington native’s first NHL game in Boston, when his San Jose Sharks took on the Bruins at TD Garden on Monday afternoon, Smith and his father talked about some of the defining moments that shaped the 19-year-old rookie’s youth.

What was Smith’s second sport? What was Bill’s role in Will Wearing No. 2?

How it started

Bill Smith: “When he was young, he just had a lot of energy. My wife (Colleen) would take him to the local rink at four o’clock, just for regular skating lessons, and didn’t really think anything of it.

“And when he was five, we had a neighbor (Pat Hunt), had an in-house team for young families in the city.”

The uniform

Will Smith: “My dad, one of his best friends, Pat Hunt, actually came by the house with a jersey. So that’s how I got into it.”

Bill Smith: “He just turned five and Pat asked him and he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ But then he was waiting for his uniform. He says, ‘When will I get my uniform?’ He kept going up to him and bothering him, and then Pat showed up in the house in his uniform, and that was like the start of it all.

“The day he came on the ice, between the speed of the game, they kept the goals from day one, there were penalties, everything.”

“He loved the fast pace of hockey and everything.”

“It was just non-stop”

Bill Smith: “(Pat Hunt) had an outdoor skating rink in his backyard.

“Even at five o’clock, Will walked over his rink every day and skated in his backyard rink.”

“He’d skate because they’d stay there five or six hours. Until they got kicked off, basically.”

“If he wasn’t at the (local) rink, or if it wasn’t at Pat’s house, it would be at a local pond. If I wasn’t home, he would pick up my wife Colleen, drag her to some, he would say go down this street, go down this street, and there would be some woods and there would be a little path through the woods, and there would be a little pond inside where he and his cousin would get shovels, and they would go and skate in the pond.

“He was down in the basement shooting pucks all night. He just turns up the music and shoots pucks into the basement. It was just non-stop.”

no. 2

Bill Smith: “So when Will started playing for the Boston Junior Eagles, which is a big club team around here, he went there like a mite and he had to pick a uniform number. I say, ‘You know what? The best player I ever seen at BC, was Brian Leetch So let’s go with No. 2.’

Will Smith: “Other than that, I liked No. 2. It’s kind of a QB number.”