It’s a seemingly normal June day in Salt Lake City, Utah and Trevor Lewis is back in his hometown after spending two seasons playing for the Calgary Flames, exhausting his most recent contract. Lewis has just pulled into his driveway, having arrived home from a workout, and the phone rings before he can even get into the house. It’s his agent.
“L.A. wants to know if you’d be interested,” his agent says.
“Well, what did you tell them?” Lewis asks.
“I didn’t tell them anything, I wanted to check with you first.”
“Definitely yes,” Lewis says.
“What about your wife?”
“I’m sure she’ll say yes,” says Lewis, whose wife, Kara, isn’t home at the moment.
“Check with her and get back to me.”
Lewis was drafted by the LA Kings in the first round, 17th overall, in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. He was only 19 years old when he first arrived in Los Angeles, and by his own account, just a young kid.
“It was kind of eye-opening being around some guys I’ve watched my whole life play, and then I went to Manchester for a couple years and kind of had to learn what I had to do to be successful and to play in LA,” Lewis rcounted. “I came here and luckily I had some young guys with me like Drew [Doughty] and Wayne Simmonds, and [Alec] Martinez, and [Kyle] Clifford, and we kind of grew up together. We were fortunate to have each other at the time and have those guys to hang out with.”
The Kings won their Stanley Cup Championships in 2012 and 2014, no doubt an era that die-hards will remember for the rest of their lives.
The core group of players who were together for both Cups will likely forever have a place in the hearts of those fortunate enough to have experienced that part of Los Angeles history. But, what people may not remember, is that so many of those players whose names appear twice for the Kings on Lord Stanley’s cup were just growing up and learning to live on their own during that time period. They were just starting to experience life.
“Cooking was a big one,” recalls Lewis, whose first full season with the Kings was the 2010-11 campaign. “My first few years, Kyle Clifford and I lived together and he only eats steak and potatoes and we both kind of had to learn how to cook potatoes. We knew how to cook steak, but yeah, it was very new. We were going out to eat a lot and we didn’t really know what to do at the grocery store. Luckily we had his girlfriend, Paige, that would come down and stock our fridge from time to time, and put some lasagnas in the freezer, stuff like that. That was definitely one of the biggest learning experiences.”
Figuring out how to be an adult was made easier by having a solid group of veterans around, from whom Lewis would benefit. Not only did he learn how to be a professional at the rink, but he was never left alone on holidays.
“Whether it was Jarret Stoll or Matt Greene, they always offered for us to come over and have dinners,” Lewis remembers, fondly. “I think Jackie Quick was our main stop for Thanksgiving dinner and I think I had the record at the Quicks’ house for Thanksgiving just because we did it in Manchester too.”
Over the course of his first 12 seasons with the Kings, Lewis amassed 674 regular season games played, 163 points, including 70 goals, and played every single playoff game during both championship runs in 2012 and 2014. Lewis tallied two goals in the Cup-clinching Game 6 against the New Jersey Devils in 2012.
During his time in Los Angeles, Lewis ended up meeting his wife, Kara. In 2020 when Lewis left the Kings, the fact that they all had kids was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to explaining how much he had grown up since that first training camp in LA.
“A couple kids and I became a dad, and that’ll make you grow up real fast,” admits Lewis, whose twins, Boone and Brix were born in April of 2018. “I think I knew a lot more about myself and obviously my family is everything to me and I had them for my support. Coming home from the rink now compared to back then when you only think about hockey and now you come home to your kids and you get your mind away from [the rink] a little bit which is nice and those hours you get to just be a dad, it’s pretty awesome.”
2023-10-26 06:17:58
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