When Luke Evangelista heard the news this summer, he called his parents.
Luke Schenn had just signed as a free agent with the Nashville Predators — the same Nashville Predators for whom Evangelista plays.
The first hockey jersey in Evangelista’s collection, you see, had Schenn’s name on the back and his favorite team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, on the front.
“I told my parents to look for it in the basement,” Evangelista said recently at training camp. “I don’t know if we tracked it down yet.”
And if it’s found?
“Get him to sign it, show him some pictures,” he said. “For sure.”
Luke Evangelista’s life, so far, has been an album filled with Kodak moments.
Family ties from Brendan Shanahan to Linda Evangelista
His second cousin, Brendan Shanahan, is in the Hockey Hall of Fame and is the general manager of the Maple Leafs.
Another second cousin, Linda Evangelista, has appeared on more than 700 magazine covers and is considered one of the most influential supermodels of all time.
His parents, Margaret and Andrew, run Evangelista Barrister & Solicitors, a firm Andrew, an attorney, founded in 2001 in Toronto that deals in litigation, advocacy and risk management.
Then there’s Luke Evangelista, the 21-year-old forward. The kid with wavy black hair that has taken on a celebrity of its own. The kid who leveled Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Evgeni Malkin in his NHL debut on March 30, then was flattered when Sidney Crosby chirped him about it. He called it “a pretty cool welcome-to-the-NHL moment.”
Those pinch-me moments have been aplenty.
An encounter years earlier with another Penguins legend named Jaromir Jagr — who also happened to have a memorable hairdo — was another. Evangelista estimates he was 5 or 6 when Uncle Brendan, the three-time Stanley Cup champion, began bringing him into NHL locker rooms, to morning skates.
One of those skates led to a meeting with Jagr. And a picture with him and Uncle Brendan.
“Just seeing some legends like that was cool at a young age,” Evangelista said. “It kind of inspired me, kind of made me realize the dream of being a pro hockey player is achievable. Someone in the family did it.”
Evangelista has done it, too. His journey, which includes seven goals and eight assists in 24 games, has just begun. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t sometimes stop and smell the roses, like when he ran into his favorite player, Toronto’s Mitch Marner, at a restaurant this summer in Toronto and snuck in a shy hello.
I am your fan, Luke Schenn
Evangelista was one of the biggest 6-year-old Maple Leafs fans around when the team drafted Schenn fifth overall in 2008. He said the reason he chose Schenn as his first jersey was simple: They share the same first name.
“When you’re that young, that’s the kind of thing, that’s all it takes,” Evangelista said. “I still haven’t told him.”
He didn’t have to.
Schenn’s eyes grew wide and his facial expression whispered cautious curiosity 24 hours later, when a reporter spoiled the secret: A current teammate wore his jersey when he was 6 years old.
Asked what he felt, Schenn’s hunt for a response turned up one word.
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“Old.”
Schenn paused, then exhaled his thoughts.
“I went through it as a young guy,” the soon-to-be 34-year-old said. “When I first got into the league I remember one of our goalies, Curtis Joseph, and he had kids the same age as me at the time. . . . I couldn’t ever imagine doing that myself down the road and here I am the older guy with three kids.
“I didn’t know that story. I’m the old guy and he’s not afraid to joke around.”
Friday Night Lights, cold tubs and training camp
These days Luke Evangelista considers himself another prospect trying to prove himself at an NHL training camp. That’s because the idea of Luke Evangelista, attorney at law, never appealed to him.
He lived with teammate Kiefer Sherwood and his girlfriend during his short stint at the end of last season. He’s bunking now with Tommy Novak, Cole Smith and Marc Del Gaizo. They often retreat to the house after long days at the rink and sit in the new cold tub Smith had installed in the backyard.
They’ve been reeled into watching “Friday Night Lights” on Netflix, catching some football on Saturdays and Sundays.
If things go as planned, Evangelista, who said he’d likely be pursuing a career in sports management if it weren’t for hockey, will find a more permanent home here. Stick to the franchise’s plan of having him be part of the youth movement new general manager Barry Trotz has embraced.
“Hopefully I can stick around for the whole year and look at options,” he said. “But it’s been awesome. I love living in Nashville. I love playing here. The buzz on downtown Broadway.”
Evangelista still walks into the locker room and does a double take when he realizes he’s playing with guys such as Roman Josi, Filip Forsberg, Juuse Saros — and Luke Schenn, of course.
He insists he doesn’t do anything more than throw on a hat to take care of that hair, a point Novak disputed about the roommate he called “a goofball.”
“That’s not true,” Novak said. “His hat routine is one of them. He has to have his hat on for a certain amount of time after he steps out of the shower. He’s a different guy like that. It’s a little too pretty. Maybe he’ll get a hair deal in the future.”
For now, though, the man Novak referred to as a “goofball” and “a really smart hockey player” is thinking today.
“A lot of guys appreciate that,” Novak said. “Just kind of lift your day up a little bit. Maybe a little immaturity in our lives. He’s way younger than us, so it’s good to have kind of a little kid around being funny.”
He’s proving himself to be a pretty good hockey player, too.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Predators’ Luke Evangelista’s journey, from Hall of Famers to supermodels
