NHL99: Paul Kariya, dog on his chest, feet in water, is content away from hockey

Welcome to NHL99, The Athletic’s countdown of the best 100 players in modern NHL history. We’re ranking 100 players but calling it 99 because we all know who’s No. 1 — it’s the 99 spots behind No. 99 we have to figure out. Every Monday through Saturday until February we’ll unveil new members of the list.

TUSTIN, Calif. — Wyatt is a 10-year-old Maltese and at the moment, he is cradled in Paul Kariya’s lap and Kariya is feeding him snacks from a small bowl on the dinner table. We are sitting outdoors at Barolo’s, an Italian restaurant, popular with current and former Anaheim Ducks players — a one-stop destination for pregame meals because chicken parmigiana is always on the menu and portions are massive. Hockey players, even ones with Kariya’s dietary specificities, like enormous portions.

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Sitting beside Kariya is his longtime partner, Valerie Dawson, and the three of them — Paul, Val and Wyatt, the dog — are a tight-knit family unit.

To really understand the current life and times of Kariya, a Hall of Fame player and No. 58 on The Athletic’s list of the 100 greatest players of the post-expansion era, you need to understand the role that Wyatt plays in his life, and in Val’s.

The couple has a long list of dog-friendly hotels and restaurants that they patronize. When Wyatt attended Hall of Fame ceremonies in Toronto a few years back, he had his own seat on the plane that Kariya and Teemu Selanne chartered. Wyatt travels with Paul and Val wherever they go.

“We’ve never left him with anyone else,” said Kariya. “He’s just part of our lives. He sleeps on my chest at night. When I go on a ski trip alone or visit my family in Vancouver and he’s not around, it’s difficult to sleep because I’m so used to having him around.”

When Paul is away, who misses him more: Val or Wyatt?

“Wyatt, unquestionably,” answers Kariya, with a laugh. “Val enjoys time away from me, but Wyatt doesn’t. We couldn’t imagine our lives now without Wyatt. We don’t have kids, so he’s our son. We don’t even consider him a dog. He’s part of the family.”

Slim and fit, and today wearing jeans and a hoodie, Kariya is 48 but he could pass for a 25-year-old and naturally blends in with the lunchtime crowd. On this day, a young fan recognizes him and asks — not for an autograph — but for a selfie because it is 2022, after all. Kariya poses, exchanges a few pleasantries and then returns to the table. Does that happen much anymore? No, answers Kariya, not around here. One of the things Kariya likes about life in Southern California is how he can mostly live his life in virtual anonymity.

Never mind that he or long-time teammate Selanne are arguably the two most popular players in Ducks history, the only two to enter the Hockey Hall of Fame primarily because of their time spent playing together in Anaheim.

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Kariya played 15 seasons for four NHL teams — Anaheim, Colorado, Nashville and St. Louis — and scored 989 points in 989 regular-season games. He won the Lady Byng Trophy twice for sportsmanship, skill and gentlemanly conduct. He made three end-of-season first All-Star teams and two end-of-season second All-Star teams. He won a world hockey championship for Canada in 1994 and an Olympic gold medal in 2002.

Much of his backstory is well-documented: How he was drafted by the Ducks in 1993 with the No. 4 pick. How the team slowly got better and, in 2003, made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, only to lose to the New Jersey Devils in seven games. That was the year Scott Stevens leveled Kariya with a hit to the head so vicious that it knocked him unconscious. From that point on, Kariya endured his share of concussions and ultimately retired because of their lingering, enduring effects.

It took two years for the fog to lift and for life to get back to normal, and Kariya put as much effort, research and diligence into his recovery as he did into his NHL career. He practiced yoga. He took up ballroom dancing because learning the intricate sequence of steps challenged his brain in ways that other more traditional activities didn’t. In his playing days, he juggled to improve eye-to-hand coordination. He became an avid surfer and gets out on the water, he estimates, about three times a week.

According to longtime Ducks executive David McNab, Kariya was the perfect player at the perfect time for a new franchise — back when they were the Mighty Ducks and were named after a Disney movie.

“Right away, he brought respect and credibility to the franchise,” said McNab. “Remember, this was the Gretzky era in Los Angeles. In a place — Southern California — where there’s a star system, Paul was a star right off the bat, a star that everybody could relate to.

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“Teemu came later, and they complemented each other so well. But Paul, by then, was already established. For the Anaheim Mighty Ducks to get someone like Paul was a phenomenal break. He brought speed and talent in an era when people mostly respected size and toughness. Everybody loved Paul because of what he was. His personality, his professionalism. His dedication. He was great with young players. He gave the franchise a hero, someone the fans could relate to and love. I don’t know if this franchise succeeds the way it did without that perfect player.”

Kariya is private and lives a low-key life, occasionally dabbling in hockey matters when asked by Ducks owner Henry Samueli. That happened last spring, with Kariya joining the Ducks’ search committee for a new general manager. Kariya invested two months into the project and made it a priority.

Many of Kariya’s surfing buddies and friends — from Rob Blake to Joe Sakic — run NHL teams, but that job has no specific appeal to Kariya. Nor does joining the NHL in what a lot of people believe would be the perfect role for him — director of player safety. The possibility that Kariya would have the perfect blend of smarts and experience to run player safety gets raised constantly on social media and website threads.

The only problem is …

“That’s not something I’d be interested in,” said Kariya. “That’s a very difficult job. Fifty percent of the people are going to disagree with you strongly every single time. In order to do something like that, you’re in a controversial position every time you act — and that’s not me. It’s not something I want to be doing. Whether I get more or less involved in hockey is a different issue than that.”

And when I raised the possibility of helping the team in a consulting capacity, if making a full-time commitment doesn’t work in his life, Kariya said, “If I were doing something, I would want to do it 100 percent. So, for me, that is why I’m not involved directly. Because it has to be 100 percent — and then Wyatt and Val wouldn’t be happy with me. It’s a big commitment. A lot of players, when they retire, want to get into scouting, or coaching. To me, whatever the job is — manager, coach, director of player personnel — you have to invest more time in it than you did as a player to do that job properly.

“Players have the easiest job — by far — and the most enjoyable. You’re playing a game. I consider that I never worked a day in my life. I enjoyed all the things that some guys didn’t enjoy — like the off-ice training, the working out in the summer. The playing? Obviously, I loved it. Everything about it, it didn’t feel like a job. But if you’re going to be a coach and watch six or seven hours of video after a game, that would be work. I don’t know if I would enjoy that.”

Kariya grew up in a household of five children, the son of Sharon and Tetsuhiko, and there were no family pets. Kariya remembers once, the family getting a chance to dog-sit for a neighbor, and everyone was enchanted by the experience. Sharon Kariya took caring to a new level — buying and then frying up chicken livers for their temporary pet.

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But when the kids gently asked if there was any chance that they could get a dog of their own, the answer was a firm no.

It wasn’t until Paul met Val, who grew up in a family with pets, that adopting a dog of their own was a real possibility.

“When I turned pro and you’re living by yourself, it’s impossible to look after a dog,” said Kariya. “But Val’s sister had a Maltese and whenever Val walked in the room, it was like it was her dog. Every time we left, the dog would follow Val out the door and didn’t want anything to do with anyone else. That went on for a couple of years.

“Val’s sister had two small children. Malteses, in general, don’t want to be around children. They are kind of bred to be a single person’s dog, or two people in a household. So, the dog basically adopted Val and eventually we adopted the dog. This was when I was in St. Louis — and we only had her one year, and she passed away because of some health issues. We waited another year and then we got Wyatt.”

As a child, Kariya took Japanese lessons but eventually convinced his parents to let him drop out of classes, since they took place on weekends when he was otherwise occupied with sports.

“But if I could go back now, I wish I’d stuck with it,” said Kariya. “I learn Japanese on my phone now. It would have been important to learn a second language, and your parents are doing the right thing there, but as a child, that’s the last thing you want to be doing on a Saturday morning.”

But while his parents let the Japanese lessons slide, they mostly ran a strict household — and Kariya says he wouldn’t have had it any other way. He learned a lot of life lessons from the disciplined way in which he was raised.

“Warren Buffett says, ‘No is the most underused and important word in the English language.’ I like no,’” said Kariya, smiling again. “We never had any junk food or desserts in the house. Remember Fruit Roll-ups? When those came out and my friends would have them for snacks, oh, my God, they looked so enticing. But now, as an adult, when you go grocery shopping, all the stuff that as a kid, you think, I’ve gotta have it, I don’t want it now.

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“Except maybe Fruity Pebbles. Sometimes, we’ll go on a streak where we have cereal and buy Fruity Pebbles.”

A typical day for Kariya begins with breakfast and an early morning workout six out of every seven days. In retirement, he’s spent a lot of time studying investment and handles the finances for family members. So, he’ll spend an hour or two looking at investment papers and stock apps, break for lunch, take Wyatt for a walk, stretch, do some yoga and then have dinner.

Three of those six mornings, weather permitting, he likes to get out on the water and surf, something that he started learning during the 2004-05 NHL lockout. The NHL eventually lost that entire season because of the labor dispute.

“But in the beginning, we were still hoping to play,” said Kariya, “so we’d rent ice for maybe three days a week and on the off days, we’d surf. There were probably 15 or 16 NHL players doing it. The L.A. guys would come up, and we’d meet. Joe Sakic. Keith Carney. Mike LeClerc. Rob Niedermeyer. We had a huge crew of guys.

“Surfing’s a difficult sport to master. It’s one of those sports you could do for the rest of your life and never call yourself a master. I love the physicality of it. There’s a lot of paddling involved. I swam competitively as a child. Reading the ocean, understanding the waves, it’s a science. Some guys can do it blindfolded but when you’re beginning, it’s a whole different challenge. The ocean’s constantly moving and constantly changing. It’s never the same. And so, it was just a very appealing sport to try.”

Kariya learned to surf mostly by trial and error.

“Random guys would help out,” he said. “There was nothing formal. Surfing’s not like golf or a sport where you get an instructor and you work on your swing. There are hockey players who surf, and it was just their time to chill. They wouldn’t even catch a wave. It’s an amazing experience to be sitting in the ocean and have dolphins swim by you that you can touch — or see a shark.

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“Less amazing. But you’re in nature. Seals come by. It’s a very peaceful, serene atmosphere — and different from a sport where you’re trying to reach a goal, like getting a lower golf handicap. Surfing’s not like that. We’d have as much fun going out for breakfast after, as we did surfing.”

Kariya is careful to stipulate that he is not “Riding Giants” or otherwise trying to catch the forbidding waves you see in some surfing documentaries.

“California’s waves are much smaller than what you’re thinking about,” he said. “Where we learned and where we surf would be like a beginner’s surf. We all learned on longboards. Then we started doing stand-up surfing, which as a training exercise for hockey, is incredible. You’re basically on a bosu ball, for two hours, with a paddle in your hand. Your forearms and your shoulders and your core get really strong.

“Even now, when I’m retired, and I don’t have to worry about getting injured, I still surf small waves. It’s not about trying to get the biggest wave. It’s about being in nature and getting good exercise. There’s a spiritual element to it. It’s very addictive. It’s like running and getting that runner’s high. Most surfers will tell you they’re a better person coming out of the water than they were before going in.”

In reflecting back on his playing career, Kariya calls the 2002 Olympic gold medal in Salt Lake City, “one of the greatest experiences of my life. My mom was there. Val was there. As a kid, if someone had said, ‘You’re going to play on a line with Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman,’ I’d be like, ‘No chance.’ It was just an incredible experience to be part of that team.”

What else about his hockey career does he remember fondly?

“I don’t often think about things in my past unless I’m asked about them,” he answered. “But with every year that goes by, I’m more grateful for all the experiences I had — what I’ve been able to see and do. To see the world. To represent my country. To make a great living playing a game I loved.

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“If I could go back to when I was 6 or 7 years old and someone had told me, ‘This is going to be your life,’ there’s no way I would have believed it.”

(Top photo: Glenn Cratty / Getty Images)

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