If you were looking for Ottawa Senators to cheer on at the Olympics in Milan, look no further.
Head Athletic Therapist Dom Nicoletta and Head Equipment Manager John Forget will represent Team Canada at the Olympic Winter Games in Milan. Canada begins play on Thursday morning at 10:40 a.m. EST against Czechia.
The men have been regulars on the staff of Team Canada for international events over the last several years, donning — and distributing, in Forget’s case — Canadian gear a combined 12 times at IIHF World Championships and last year’s 4 Nations Faceoff.
The trip will serve as a homecoming of sorts for Nicoletta, whose parents were born in Calabria, about 11 hours south of Milan. This is the first time in Italy for the 52-year-old since his honeymoon with his wife, Jenny, who is coincidentally the daughter of late Senators general manager John Muckler.
For Forget, he’d long wanted to see Italy, and will now get his chance — well, sort of. “First go-round, [but] I don’t think this trip’s going to be quite for sightseeing,” laughed the 45-year-old Forget. Both men will be bringing their families with them to the games.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, right?” said Forget. “Like, you kind of have to do it. It’s going to be a shift for my wife, flying eight hours with three kids, but she said from the beginning that [I] had to go.”
Forget was initially set to go to the Beijing Olympics in 2022 with Team Canada, but NHL participation was halted due to concerns and difficulties with COVID just under two months before the tournament.
“Yeah, it was weird, that one, because we did all the background work on it, we met in Banff with all the coaches. At that time, they didn’t know really what was happening, because we were just coming out of COVID, and what they were basing it on was the summer Olympics in Tokyo, so they were referencing their experience to what ours would and all of a sudden it got cancelled and that all stopped,” recalled Forget.
“But after hearing about the experiences from them, I don’t think it would have been a true Olympic games. It was very segregated and there were a lot of rules. I think everybody has that vision of what the Olympics are all about, meeting people, seeing other events, kind of that kind of atmosphere, and it was just really to me, going to be at the rink and the bubble, and god forbid you got sick.”
This time around, the prep work has been done for a tournament that has been 12 years in the making. Last year’s 4 Nations Faceoff served as a tuneup, and the first best-on-best hockey since the 2016 World Cup of Hockey — though even that came with an major asterisk, as there was a limited field and gimmick teams like North America and Europe.
Forget and Nicoletta are essential parts of what will be a small, versatile team in Milan. Darren Granger, Forget’s counterpart with the Kings, is the team’s other equipment manager, also returning from 4 Nations.
The equipment managers worked off the team’s big roster list from the offseason to source gear for anyone who could be named to the team. Once the team was finalized, the two worked to distribute that gear to their NHL teams so they could work it in before leaving for Italy.
“I think we have a great staff because literally the whole staff that we have going over there has all worked international events together, so it’s really nice because we know what to expect,” said Forget.
“At tournaments like this, everybody is needed to help out a little bit. It’s not like here [in Ottawa] where you’ve got a million different people who help out in all different areas. You’re looking after your own stuff over there. Just not letting something fall through the cracks, is always what we think about.”
Nicoletta agreed that factor makes them play a more important role for the hockey team. “100 per cent, there’s five or six of us, and whatever it takes to set up and break down and get the room ready for the fellows before they show up, we’re all on board. We don’t stick to just medical, or just equipment, we’re all helping each other out on a daily basis,” he laughed.
“You try to stay on top of everything, because let’s remember, you’re going to a different country, and things don’t work the same,” said Forget.
“Whether it’s power related — that’s always a major one, because a lot of the European countries are 220 volt, where we’re 110 volt — there’s all sorts of stuff that comes into play. We’ve met a bunch of times and gone over our trunks, everyone that’s had international experience knows that things along those lines are going to come up.”
For Nicoletta, he says the goal for the athletic therapy staff is providing everything the players need, alongside Kent Kobelka, the Flames’ Head Therapist & Sports Physiotherapist, also returns as Sport Physiologist.
“As far as medically successful, [the goal] is to give guys everything they need, whether it be medically, or soft- tissue-wise, warm-up-wise, treatment-wise, we give them everything they need when they need it and then sit back and watch the show,” said Nicoletta.
Nicoletta agreed that the tournaments the group has worked together — in addition to the 4 Nations gold, he captured IIHF gold alongside Forget in both 2019 and 2021 — have prepared them well logistically for Milan.
“I think we’re more prepared for what our surroundings are going to be like, what our room’s going to be like, what kind of sizes and different things we’re going to be dealing with. I think if you haven’t done a World Championships or an international tournament, it [would] be a little shocking,” said Nicoletta.
“It’s not what we’re used to here, definitely. It’s a lot more moving, a lot more logistic, timing things that you have to be concerned with just because of the sizes of the facilities that you’re dealing with.”