BRANDON, Fla. — Gemel Smith remembers the darkness.
He’d stay up most nights in his Providence, R.I., hotel last winter, flicking through channels on TV or scrolling through his iPhone. Smith, 25, had been put on waivers twice in a two-week December period and was doubting himself.
I’m not good enough.
His mind was racing 24/7. When Smith stepped onto the ice for the Bruins’ AHL team, he’d be shaking.
But, like many dealing with the symptoms of depression, he suffered in silence.
“I made myself go to a sunken place,” Smith told The Athletic. “I couldn’t sleep for a month. I felt very alone. I isolated myself from everyone because I’m a guy that keeps to myself.
“That’s where I went wrong — why I should have talked to somebody (who could) help me through it.”
Smith eventually did seek help, and that’s probably what saved his career. It’s why Smith is here now, as the relentless puck-hound is making a strong case to crack the Lightning’s opening-night roster. Before he got sent down by the Bruins on Dec. 18, Smith got a tip from star Patrice Bergeron, who suggested he reach out to renowned sports psychologist Max Offenberger. Offenberger, the Bruins’ team psychologist, has worked with athletes from many sports, including the Maple Leafs’ Jason Spezza and the late Ray Emery.
“This is a real common thing,” Bergeron told Smith.
Smith started chatting with Offenberger twice a week with the hopes of proving himself and “regaining the love for the game.”
With former Islanders goalie Robin Lehner speaking out on his battle with mental illness, not to mention other high-profile athletes like the NBA’s Kevin Love doing the same, it has become more acceptable to seek help for the answers you don’t have yourself.
“No one thinks (they) need help,” Smith said. “I’m really strong mentally, but no one is strong enough, because it affects me in a way, my lifestyle. I wasn’t excited to wake up. I didn’t have anyone.
“No one wants to get help, and then you finally realize it’s too late.”
Smith said part of the reason he didn’t initially seek help is because of how he was raised.
He grew up in Toronto the son of a nurse, Nickie, and steelworker, Gary. Gemel was the second oldest of four brothers, all of whom loved sports. Givani Smith, 21, was drafted in the second round of the 2016 NHL Draft by the Red Wings and played most of last year with Grand Rapids in the AHL.
All four brothers played hockey, but Gemel also excelled in other sports, including basketball and soccer.
“I realized once you got older, you start to realize you’re playing against really tall, bigger guys,” he said. “You have to make a decision. It was between basketball and hockey, and I almost left for soccer when I was young. I’m glad I stuck it out.”
Stuck it out.
It’s a fitting phrase for the Smith household. Derrell Levy, Smith’s long-time trainer, said his family didn’t have a lot of money and recalled how the teenager would wear wrinkled suits to his games in the Ontario Hockey League. He often had to borrow a tie. “He’s had to earn every inch,” Levy said.
When Smith was going through his struggles last winter, he thought back to how he was “raised to not talk about my feelings.”
“It was pretty much, ‘You’re tough. You can get through anything,'” Smith said. “My dad would always say, ‘You’ll live.’
“So I just tried to not make a big deal out of it and figure it out on my own.”
When Smith said he felt isolated during his difficult stretch, I asked if he had talked to his parents about it.
“Not really,” he said. “I still think they don’t even know about it.”
Smith said the problems started when he arrived in Boston in December.
He had spent the first few years of his career with Dallas, which selected him in the fourth round of the 2012 draft. Smith had a solid junior career split between Owen Sound and London of the Ontario Hockey League. It took him almost three full AHL seasons — including a short stint in the ECHL — but Smith finally reached the NHL in the 2016-17 season. Smith played in 77 NHL games over parts of three seasons with the Stars and felt that’s when he played his best hockey.
It wasn’t completely smooth. He’d go through stretches of being a healthy scratch. Russian veteran Alexander Radulov offered his help, telling Smith, “You’re young. You’re a good player.” Everyone goes through it.
Smith felt like he had made it after securing his first one-way deal in August in arbitration, a somewhat curious filing considering he was a fourth-liner coming off a season in which he had played just 46 games. Smith seemed naive to the process.
“I didn’t even know that happens. I swear to God, (I) never knew until the time my agent called to say, ‘Hey, we are going to declare for arbitration.’ I said, ‘What is that? I don’t know what that is,’” Smith told The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro.
Smith’s tenure with the Stars ended in December when the club was in a roster-spot crunch. He was waived and claimed by the Bruins.
When he arrived in Boston, the transition was tough, he said. He only had a limited window to prove to the coaching staff he could push another player off the roster.
“He’s got good foot speed and hands, but I think he has to initiate more when he’s out there,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said of Smith at the time. “Whether it’s on the forecheck or with the puck, we have to kind of identify what he is for us. When you bring in a player like that in the middle of the year, you want to look at them. But I still have a certain loyalty to those players (already with the Bruins) so he’s going to have to outplay those players.”
Smith played just three games for Boston before he was put on waivers again — 12 days after getting placed on waivers by Dallas. None of the 30 other teams made a claim, including the Stars, who could have just picked him back up and put him on their AHL team.
“I had finally got a one-way, a chance to prove myself, and I was excited,” Smith said. “Something wasn’t in my control because there were a lot of players, and I happened to be the odd man out. I felt like I was quit on. It was just a numbers game, but I kept telling myself I wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t sleep.
“Any time I was on the ice, it was tough for me. I felt like there was something weighing on my shoulders. I couldn’t get going. I couldn’t find the motivation I needed to play.”
Offenberger said what happened to Smith is pretty common among not just hockey players, but athletes in general.
He tells them how life is a ladder with 30 rings, and hockey is just three of them. “You’ve got another 27 to go.”
“Guys look at me like I’m crazy,” Offenberger said.
When sports are an athlete’s identity, and they experience failure (like many do), it can be crippling for their confidence. The first step in getting them out of that funk, like the one Smith was in, was providing perspective. Building their self-esteem back up step by step.
“When guys are — for whatever reason — not fitting at the time, they have many misgivings about, ‘Am I really OK?’ ‘Am I good enough for this?'” Offenberger said. “So it refers back to not just the hockey, ‘Am I good enough?’ I always try to approach (questions outside of their sport): ‘How are you as a friend? How are you as a family member? How are you as a guy that follows through?’ They usually say, ‘Well, I’m good at that. I’m good at that. I’m always dependable on that.’
“I say, ‘Then you’ve got no worries. You’re going to be just fine. This is all part of it.'”
Offenberger recalls a conversation with one of his Hall of Fame baseball clients, who was upset about something. “He told me, ‘Max, you don’t realize, I’ve never failed at anything,’ I said, ‘Really? Good for you. Welcome to the real world. Now you’ve got to move ahead.'”
Offenberger said what Smith was going through had an added layer of difficulty because he is one of 20-some black players in the NHL.
“He’s questioning who he is now because he identifies himself as a player,” Offenberger said. “Remember this, he’s a black hockey player and I’ve had experience with a lot of black hockey players: Ray Emery, Grant Fuhr. I told them, ‘You’re a black man in a white world.’ Figuratively speaking, they are still pioneers, right? So being accepted and being not only one of the players on the team, but how about being one of the guys in the room? ‘Do you guys really like me?’ It shouldn’t be a question.”
Smith said what hit home for him was a story Offenberger told about his former Stars teammate, now Leafs veteran Jason Spezza.
Spezza was the No. 2 overall pick in 2001 by the Senators. But during Spezza’s rookie season the next year, he was sent down to Binghamton in the AHL. Offenberger drove with the prized prospect, and the two had a heart-to-heart talk.
“He was completely distraught,” Offenberger said.”He was so upset. How could they do this to him? I told Gemel this story because he played with Spez. I told Jason, ‘You’re good here. You’re going to have fun. You’re going to learn.’ He said, ‘Oh, but I’m a top pick.’
“So I said, ‘You know, when you’re down here, do you need some money? I’ve got $46 on me — I’ll give it to you. Need a girlfriend? I had some 40-50 years ago, but if they’re still alive, I’ll give you the numbers.’ (Spezza) was driving a Dodge Neon, couldn’t even fit his bags and sticks in there. I said, ‘You can borrow this Ferrari if you want to.’ He thought I was crazy.”
Then Offenberger went and saw Spezza three weeks later. Veterans Chris Gratton and Emery were dragging him around, giving him the best time he ever had. It helped.
“He got back to Ottawa and embraced it, he earned it,” Offenberger said. “We all knew he could play. But as a young man? I don’t think so.”
The Spezza story was an eye-opener for Smith.
“To hear that,” Smith said, “it made me feel like it’s normal.”
Smith finished the season strong with Providence, setting career highs in goals, assists and points (16-24, 40) over just 47 games.
“I spent this year proving to myself I still love this game,” Smith said. “I still believe in myself.”
It was a make-or-break period for Smith’s career.
“At this point, you’re either going one way or another,” Levy said. “That was our talk at the beginning of the summer. This is it. Now or never. He understood that. And he took the onus on himself and made the commitment.”
When Smith hit free agency on July 1, several teams showed interest, including the Bruins. Less than a year after going to arbitration for a one-way deal with Dallas, Smith ended up signing a one-year, two-way deal worth the minimum of $700,000.
“Gemel said, ‘Wools, I’ll go to whoever you think is a good fit for me,'” said agent Jason Woolley, a former NHLer himself. “He said, ‘Wherever I go, I feel like I’ll make the team.’
“It’s not arrogance. Just a confident kid.”
Smith is walking the walk in Lightning training camp, making one of the strongest impressions of any candidate for the final couple of roster spots up front. The 5-foot-11 forward has brought the kind of speed and relentlessness coach Jon Cooper has been looking for on the fourth line. Smith has been a key cog on the penalty kill, too, pulling teammates into the fight.
“If you want to elevate (the competition level),” Cooper says, “put Smitty in the middle of that.”
Smith sat at his stall in the middle of the Lightning dressing room Friday afternoon and felt like he belonged. He’s still a quiet guy, no doubt. Most of his teammates don’t know his story.
“I don’t really talk about it,” he said. “I told some guys I work out with, and they were shocked. They had no idea.”
That’s how mental-health issues often surface, in the dark and out of plain sight.
But, for now, Smith can see the light.