When they insist on referring to you as “the city of towers and gates,” you may as well lean into it and call your team the Ravensburg Towerstars. Or Tower Stars, depending on what day it is. A city of 50,000 in the German Alps with a 14th-century tower known as the Blaserturm and a pro hockey team in the German second division isn’t exactly the most likely venue for the incubation of one of the most explosive and dynamic players on the planet. Because, let’s face it, it’s no Leduc.
Nonetheless, Ravensburg is where Leon Draisaitl found himself during the most formative development period of his hockey life. His father, Peter, was coaching the Towerstars, and Leon was entering his teenage years. Scoring 192 points in 29 games – that’s an average of 6.6 points per game for those of you reaching for your device – against German kids in Mannheim clearly wasn’t enough of a hockey challenge for him, so he’d spend all his free time at the Eissporthalle Ravensburg, where his dad worked. He’d be on the ice before and after practice (and sometimes during). He’d sit on the bench and follow drills and listen intently during power-play and penalty-killing sessions. But most of all, he’d try to get on the ice anytime he could with an undersized Canadian guy named Ben Thomson, who wore No. 29 for Ravensburg.
You know that ridiculous shot Draisaitl gets off from the right circle, the one that no goalie in the NHL seems capable of stopping these days? When Thomson isn’t dining out on the fact that Draisaitl worshipped him so much that he took his number, Thomson will tell you that he spent hours feeding a young Draisaitl passes in just that sweet spot. He’s a righty, and Draisaitl is a lefty, but Thomson claims the kid was mimicking him. Thomson is now a rancher in southern Alberta, thereby living out every kid’s fantasy of being both a hockey player and a cowboy. But back in the day, he was a star at the University of Alberta. In the 2005 University Cup, Thomson scored the tying goal with 23 seconds to go and the winner 5:27 into overtime to give the Golden Bears the 11th of their 16 Canadian university titles. At 5-foot-7 and 181 pounds, Thomson might have found a pro hockey job closer to home in this day and age, but in those days, the German second division was where he ended up before he retired to become a cowboy.
"He skated like one of the Hansons when he was a kid. It was like he was pitching hay all the time."- Ben Thomson
Taught the kid everything he knows, Thomson claims. Even badgered him constantly to improve his skating beyond that of Slap Shot ilk. “He skated like one of the Hansons when he was a kid,” Thomson said. “It was like he was pitching hay all the time. We always bugged him about that, so it’s good to see that he’s lengthened his arms a little bit.”
Draisaitl jokes that, “He’s right, I kind of looked like one of the Hanson Brothers. I kind of still do.” But he’s not about to start beating up Coke machines or putting on the foil or berating the referee because “I’m listening to the f---in’ song!” The fact is, Draisaitl’s skating has improved markedly since he came into the league, and especially since he bought a summer place ...
