Being the most dominant player on a AAA hockey team is no small feat, especially while skating with a heart as heavy as Daniel Vasic’s.
 
Hockey has been a part of the 15-year-old’s life for as long as he could remember – a tradition among Vasic men. He started watching hockey with his father Danny at the age of two. He put on his first pair of skates a year later. And whenever Daniel needed a sounding board or just wanted to talk NHL hockey, uncle Peter was almost always available for his star nephew.
 
Today, Peter is no longer around to banter about the NHL trade deadline or rip on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ goaltending with him. He died from a mysterious illness that prevented his heart from circulating blood just before the start of the OMHA season.

“I lost my uncle around late August,” said Vasic, a member of the U16 York-Simcoe Express. “That was tough because I was super close to him, and he loved hockey as much as I did. It definitely had an effect on me.”
 
A month later, Vasic’s father suffered a heart attack.
 
“His dad had a pretty serious heart attack due to the stress of losing his brother,” said Brian Perrin, York-Simcoe’s head coach. “He had four blocked arteries. One artery called the widow maker was pretty close to being closed off.”

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Fortunately, he survived, eventually making a full recovery.
 
All the while, Vasic kept his head down and worked on his game as dutifully as any other OHL prospect preparing for what could be his final minor hockey season. The Newmarket product is the de facto leader of the Express, with a team-best 33 points during a 15-8-4 regular season, plus six points across six post-season games.
 
Playing either centre or left wing, he takes great pride in his defence, able to position himself in the right place at the right time to create difficult angles for opponents using his five-foot-11 frame. He has a knack for creating turnovers and possesses a hard, accurate shot to convert on breakaway opportunities.

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He plays to win, but this season, he also plays to simply stay occupied.
 
“When you play hockey, you kind of just forget about everything going on in the outside world,” said Vasic. “Playing with my teammates, they’re like a bunch of brothers to me. Whenever I hung out or played hockey with them, I kind of forgot about everything.”
 
Perrin had never seen such unrelenting commitment to hockey in his 35-year coaching career.

“I think other people would’ve been affected to the point where they didn’t want to go to the rink or participate in hockey,” said Perrin. “I’m not even sure if he missed a practice.”
  
Early each off-season, the Express and their parent group decide on a charity to support for the upcoming season. The team had coincidentally elected to fundraise in February for the Heart & Stroke Foundation – a cause that hit close to home for the Vasics and the broader Express hockey community.
 
The players wore pink-trimmed alternate jerseys for the entire month, and the players’ families did what they could to raise money during home games. Their efforts raised $2,250 for the Heart & Stroke. 

“It definitely meant a lot and it made me realize how important these people are to me,” he said.
 
The OHL hopeful has a lot riding on the remainder of this season. Perrin believes he has seen enough to know No. 91 has what it takes to get to the next level.
 
“I just think with anything in life it’s, ‘How bad do you want it?’ because you’ll always be given obstacles,” he said. “As far as his goals and his attitude, it’s totally up to him how far he goes in hockey, and he has the opportunity to do it.”