After a trying road back, Alex Turcotte is feeling good after a long-awaited return to Ontario Reign lineup

Last updated Nov 13, 2022 Edit Source

• News post

• Jared Shafran

Alex Turcotte was back on the ice Thursday night, dressed in black and white and in the lineup for the Ontario Reign for the first time in six months. It was a long time coming for the 21-year-old, who is now beginning his third pro season after being chosen by the LA Kings with the fifth overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft.

• Alex Turcotte

# Alex Turcotte

This was a pretty crazy protocol. I’ve never been through something like this before. There were different protocols and I had to go through and each individual one, there was like three or four [in total].

“That went really well. I found help and got a lot better really fast. That was the biggest thing for me, going to those guys because they’re obviously very intelligent about what I was going through. They really helped with the rehab and once you get the green light through them then you go through the team again and see how that goes and do the regular protocol.

It was honestly a really weird summer. It basically didn’t even feel like I had a summer. There are times where I got to kick back, relax and spend a lot of time with my family and friends and that sort of thing, but there was also times when I wasn’t feeling good. I felt symptoms and it limited my training and participation.

I tried to get in the gym as much as possible and I felt like I was in there a good amount, but still, I wasn’t feeling how I wanted to feel. I didn’t feel 100% yet and I was still getting better each day I guess, but it just took a little bit more time than I was hoping. I couldn’t really get into the swing of things like normal and mentally that’s tough. You want to unwind, relax, enjoy your summer and get your mind off hockey and it was difficult for me because I still had some problems.

It was a different era when my dad played. They took it a little less seriously, but he understood kind of what I was feeling.

We went through the same draft, so I knew him a little bit through that and spent some time with him a couple years ago. At one point he thought he wasn’t going to play hockey anymore which is pretty scary to see, but he turned a corner and obviously he’s doing amazing in Colorado. I just asked him about what he was feeling and the steps he took to get better.

It’s not a situation anyone wants to be in, especially at this point in our career where we’re really young and we want to be effective players for a long time. He’s been pretty helpful just checking in every once in a while.

I think it might have been like in the middle of training camp was when I first skated, and I felt unreal. The timing and the conditioning part, that was tough. I had to work and take a month and a half to get that back and get back into shape and feel great that way, but I felt instantly really good.

I felt pretty good. Obviously rusty at times, but my conditioning and everything felt really good. I just think it’s been so long since I’ve played so just getting that first game over with is nice.

Fortunately, this is my third year, so I know the systems and it was easy to get back into the right spots on the ice, knowing where to be. I was trying not to do too much in the beginning because I want to be a difference maker, but I’ve been out for a while so I wanted to keep it a little bit simple and then kind of build from there. My conditioning felt better as I went along, the more I played. I wasn’t trying to be too hard on myself and just take it a period at a time, a shift at a time, and just have fun.

I feel good now, I’m happy to be back. This taught me a lot about life and dealing with adversity and I think I’ll be better for it.