TAMPA, Fla. — Kyle Konin was just getting off the ice Thursday following his weekly morning skate with the Lightning alumni when he saw he had three missed calls from general manager Julien BriseBois.
“I was like, ‘Oh boy, I either did something really bad or something really good,’ ” said Konin, a St. Petersburg resident and former college goaltender who paints goalie masks for a living.
About seven hours later, Konin, 23, was suited up for the St. Louis Blues for their game against the Lightning at Amalie Arena. Though he didn’t play in the game, Konin led the team on to the ice for pregame warmups and sat on the visitor’s bench.
“I didn’t expect any of that,” Konin said. “I’d say everything just surpassed my expectations. I guess my expectation was that I was going to get a jersey and get to sit on the bench.”
It might be the rarest — and most interesting — opportunity in professional sports, when a normal person can go from spectator to participant, if only for a day.
Konin is the Lightning’s emergency backup goaltender. Each NHL team has to have one available at home games who can dress should either team need a goaltender in the 11th hour. Most times, it never comes to fruition.
But when Blues starter Jordan Binnington went into COVID-19 protocol Thursday morning and the team was unable to call up a backup from their AHL affiliate due to salary-cap issues, Konin was called into duty.
Leading the boys
For Konin — who spent most of his childhood in Clearwater, whose first time on skates was at a Lightning youth camp in Brandon and who skated at the then-St. Pete Times Forum as the Thunder Kid before a Lightning game — it was a dream come true.
His parents, Jeff and Gina, are Clearwater residents and Lightning season ticket holders, but Thursday’s game wasn’t on their plan. So Jeff jumped online to buy seats behind the visitors bench at Amalie Arena, close enough to have a good view of the stool where the backup goaltender sits and far enough away where the family wouldn’t be a distraction. Kyle’s wife, Hannah, and her family also were in attendance.
Hours earlier, Konin walked into a dressing room full of strangers who became his teammates for the night. The Blues outfitted him with a jersey, but the rest of the gear was from the equipment bag he lugs to each home game, including the pants he wore with lightning bolts on the side.
For pregame warmups, Konin was prompted to the front of the visiting team tunnel by captain Ryan O’Reilly to take his rookie lap, an unofficial indoctrination before a player’s first NHL game. Vladimir Tarasenko tapped him with his stick, sending him out. Brayden Schenn shouted, “Let’s lead the boys, Konzy. No bucket (helmet).”
“I was kind of against it for a while,” Konin said. “I was just like, ‘I don’t know if it’s more of, like, a thing you have to earn or whatever. I just was kind of like, I don’t know if I should. But all the boys were like, ‘Oh, no, you’re going, you’re going. So at that point, it was kind of like they decided that for me.
“It was a good time, and it’s pretty cool to kind of get the full NHL experience.”
A few rows above the bench, Konin’s parents watched with pride. Like his son skating without a helmet, Jeff told himself not to take video with his phone because he wanted to completely take in the moment.
“It was the coolest thing ever,” Konin’s father said. “It’s everybody’s dream to have that opportunity. Just to see out of my own eyes was just, when you’re a dad, you want to see success for your kids, right? That was a moment for him that he could soak in. And he knew when he came out of that, building up to it, during it, afterwards, that we were all there supporting him.”
Part-time goaltender, full-time entrepreneur
As the local emergency backup goaltender, Kyle attends every Lightning home game. He sits behind the home bench in Section 130 ready to grab his equipment bag and help immediately if either team loses a goaltender due to injury during the game.
But the timing of this opportunity — the Blues knew early in the day they’d need Konin’s help — allowed him the rare chance to be an NHL player for an entire day.
“I got the full experience for that,” Konin said. “Normally, you’re going to the game and just trying to stay mentally ready, but you can’t really do anything physically until something happens.”
Konin’s path to the game was as winding as that which took him from Tampa Bay and back. His hockey ambitions, and those of younger brother Chris, took him north to a prep school in New Hampshire. After a stint in juniors, he played college hockey at Grand Valley State.
Along the way, he also became an entrepreneur.
After he started painting his own mask, Konin’s parents got him an airbrush kit as a Christmas gift. At age 12, he started his own painting business. During prep school days, Konin painted about 20-30 masks for college programs. Now, he operates his own custom airbrushing and goaltender mask design business, Nujax Airbrush, out of his home in St. Pete. He’s painted about 50 masks this year.
“I’ve always been a goalie and I’ve always loved art,” he said, “so they were two things that kind of went together.”
Konin currently plays for the Proformance Therapy A-League team in the Tuesday night beer league at Brandon Ice Plex. But his commitment to the Lightning has forced him to miss some games, including the league’s championship game last Tuesday. He also coaches goaltending at Xtra Ice in Tampa and plays in local roller hockey leagues.
When Lightning players were returning to Tampa to begin training and skating in the offseason, starting goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy was still in Russia and the team hadn’t yet finalized its deal with backup Brian Elliott. A couple of Lightning alumni, Mathieu Garon and Dwayne Roloson, told the team about Konin, and he started filling the net for the team during informal workouts.
That opportunity led to an invitation from BriseBois to serve as the Lightning’s emergency backup goaltender this season.
And an eventual NHL call-up from an opposing team.
“It’s kind of an interesting scenario in sports,” Konin said. “I don’t think there’s really any other sport where someone can just hop right in there.”
