Hockey Confidential by Bob Mckenzie

Tavares never imagined that the two Johns—his brother the lacrosse superstar and his son the hockey superstar—would make the impact they have on their respective worlds, so there’s plenty of family pride to go around.
    â€œWe’re all very proud, our whole family,” Joe said. “They’re phenomenal athletes and they’re very proud of each other. You can see that.”
    Proud, and thankful as well, especially to the man who never got the same athletic opportunities as they did, which allowed them to chase their sporting dreams and scale the greatest of heights in their respective games.
    Older John is eternally grateful that Joe sacrificed his own youth to work and support the family so he was able to play lacrosse. Younger John feels the same way about his dad doing everything he did to allow him to play both hockey and lacrosse.
    And maybe, just maybe, this J.T.–John Tavares story could turn out to be a trilogy. Peter Tavares, 18 years Joe’s junior, is the youngest of Manuel’s and Dorotea’s children. On September 14, 2012—six days after Lacrosse John’s 44th birthday and six days before Hockey John’s 22nd birthday—Peter Tavares became a father for the first time. He and his wife Misty had a little boy.
    They named him Jonathan.
    Jonathan Tavares.
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    In an effort to unearth the secrets of goal-scoring success, we didn’t need to go around the world. We needed only to invite two of the greatest natural goal scorers in two sports—the lacrosse J.T. and the hockey John Tavares—to a coffee shop in Mississauga, Ontario. Here’s the transcript of an interview conducted in August 2013:
    BM: First goal you ever scored, do you remember it?
    Uncle John: I was five or six. I zigzagged through the whole Mimico team and scored. It’s funny, I don’t remember the ball actually going in the net. What I remember is what I felt after I scored: confident. I knew I could get through everyone and score.
    Young John: I don’t remember my first goal, but it’s weird, I remember not being able to score. I was at a hockey camp, I was really young and I had six or seven breakaways in a scrimmage at the end, and I didn’t score on any of them. I didn’t start off too well. My mom took video of it. I remember watching it a few years ago—maybe that’s why I remember it.
    BM: From an artistic point of view, what’s the best goal you’ve ever scored?
    Uncle John: Hmmm, I’m like [Young] John: I remember more of my errors than my goals. There was a goal I scored, and my part of it, that was the easy part. It was the most artistic because of the whole play. It was in Brampton. Darris Kilgour won the faceoff and he passed it to Jim Veltman, and Veltman backhanded a beautiful pass to me and I just shot it in the net. It was like
boom-boom-boom.
What I did wasn’t anything special, but the whole play, the flow, the simplicity of it . . . it was just beautiful. But I think you’re looking for something else, more individual.
    Okay, I came down my wrong side, which I did a lot. I would normally bring the ball across myself, cross my arms and dive through the air and just push it in on the far side where I was diving. But goalies would catch on to what I was doing, and the goalie this time—it was Anthony Cosmo—he knew me really well, so I started doing it and then I realized he knew exactly what I was doing. So while I was in the air, diving across the crease, instead of shooting it into the net far side, I somehow wrapped the stick around behind my back and twisted my body while I was in the air and shot it back to the other side and it went in. I don’t think there’s any video of it, it was Buffalo vs. Toronto. I would like to see that one again.
    Young John: I can’t believe you didn’t say the one that was on the ESPN Top 10.
    Uncle John: Oh yeah,