GO DEEPER: Inside Max Donoso’s turbulent junior hockey career
A commitment to the Windsor Lancers comes with many emotions for Ottawa 67’s alumnus, Max Donoso.
It signals a new challenge, and a new set of circumstances he hopes to thrive in. His daily focus will become winning a championship in his hometown, while balancing a heavy course load, and continuing to pursue his dream to pilot for one of the major North American airlines.
He’ll join a handful of buddies with whom he played minor hockey in Windsor, and be coached by Kevin Hamlin, the father of his good friend Ray Hamlin, who was Donoso’s coach when he was 13 years old.
The co-recipient of the 2023 Dave Pinkney Trophy accomplished many feats prior to his U SPORTS move, winning 54 career games in three short OHL seasons, but for all of the success the numbers and anecdotal information, Donoso’s time in the league was more turbulent than flying a Cessna in a hurricane.
Drafted by the Ottawa 67’s in the fifth round of the 2019 OHL Priority Selection, Donoso moved to the United States for the following season, playing for Salisbury School, and with the Rochester Coalition, before missing the entirety of the 2020-21 season, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While stateside, the native of Windsor, Ontario posted a save percentage well over .920, and became accustomed to winning. At the time, Donoso felt untouchable, but that changed quickly when he arrived at 67’s training camp in 2021.
“I really wasn’t ready for what the OHL was going to throw at me,” Donoso said. “I thought it was no big deal, I had a really good minor hockey career, and I thought it should be easy to step into. I didn’t think I needed to work out, and I could coast along and continue to play really good hockey. I learned pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to be the case.”
Those lessons manifested themselves immediately in fitness testing, where Donoso performed well below expectations, leading to the Barber Poles opting to move forward with Will Cranley as the starter, with Collin MacKenzie serving the backup role.
In what would have been his third season in the OHL in an alternate timeline, not making the team was a reason for concern for both Donoso and the 67’s, who offered up a different opportunity that could have seen the end of Donoso’s OHL tenure before it even began.
“They told me I could have skipped on preseason games and regained my NCAA eligibility,” he admitted. “They gave me the option to have nothing to do with the 67s, and I came back after talking to my agent and family. I knew I wanted to play in the OHL, so I told James Boyd I was staying full-time. I didn’t care if I got sent down, I wanted to be a 67.”
Donoso still believed that he could crack the roster with a strong preseason, which he turned in, stopping 38 of the 42 shots he faced across three games. Despite the strong performance, the 18-year-old received note that he would be heading to the CCHL’s Hawkesbury Hawks to begin the season.
“I was upset, but I knew it was a good thing for my career,” Donoso said. “As soon as I got to Hawkesbury, everybody was super nice, and welcomed me with open arms. It was definitely the best thing that could have happened to me, because I will admit, I was not ready to play an OHL game, and I wasn’t deserving of having a spot on the 67’s roster.”
In 15 games with the Hawks, Donoso won 11 games, sporting a .935 save percentage, allowing only 1.79 goals per game, being named an honourable mention for the November Goaltender of the Month award. He earned a pair of shutouts, helping the Hawks to a great start to the season.
In late November, Donoso was in attendance as the Barber Poles faced off against the Peterborough Petes, and was witness to an injury to MacKenzie, who was promptly removed from the game. Later that night, the Hawks’ standout texted 67’s Goalie Coach Andrew Mercer to ask about MacKenzie’s status, but didn’t get any clarity in return.
The very next morning, however, Donoso was present at 67’s practice, and as the news came back negatively for MacKenzie, an opportunity presented itself to Donoso.
Only seven days separated MacKenzie’s unfortunate injury and Donoso’s first OHL start. It didn’t take long for him to have his “welcome to the OHL” moment, facing a Petes team who had scored nine goals in a convincing win just a week ago.
Donoso recalled the game’s first goal in vivid detail, before reciting the script for the second soon after. At the time, he believed the game would end in a blowout, having allowed two goals, which he describes as the craziest goals he has ever seen, on three shots, but he settled in, although the 67’s eventually fell 3-2.
In December, Head Coach Dave Cameron began turning to Donoso more frequently. The increase in playing time came with a confidence boost, but it wasn’t until the end of February that he began to feel he was hitting his stride.
“The turning point for me was against Hamilton, and they were the best team in the league,” Donoso said. “We had 12 shots, and they had 46, and the score was tied at three at the end of regulation. I started to think I could do it, I could compete with those guys and show them that cutting me was a mistake.”
As the year wound down, the 67’s needed to earn three points in their final two games to lock themselves into the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference. Stopping 61 shots, Donoso allowed only one goal in the home-and-home series, earning his first-career OHL shutout in the process.
The success in the final weekend confirmed a date with the North Bay Battalion in the first round, which he remembers nearly every detail of. The Barber Poles were swept away, although three of the four games were decided by a single goal.
“There was no puck luck at all,” Donoso recalled. “To end our season in that way was super disheartening, but we all knew that wasn’t meant to be our year, it was all about next year. We were all excited for it, and that’s when we knew we’d be good.”
The 2022-23 season paired Donoso and MacKenzie together for the first time, and the duo immediately cemented themselves as one of the top in the entire CHL. Together, they captured the Dave Pinkney Trophy for having the lowest combined goals-against average, backstopping the 67’s to 51 wins, and the Hamilton Spectator Trophy.
A 30-game-winner in 2022-23, Donoso’s numbers were down slightly, with a save percentage a tick below .900, but was still spectacular throughout the season. A late-season injury forced him to miss the opening three games of the postseason, but he reclaimed the crease for Game 4, before taking down the Oshawa Generals in five games.
In the first four games of the series against Peterborough, Donoso had only allowed seven total goals, yet the Barber Poles found themselves down three games to one. On social media, comments took aim at Donoso, calling for MacKenzie to take the net for the remainder of the postseason. It was nothing new – Donoso had been battling it all season long – but finally, it had taken a toll on the youngster.
“During the playoffs, I had to delete everything,” he said. “I was looking at it, and I saw people going crazy and I just couldn’t take it. It wasn’t healthy, and the people saying those things don’t consider that we’re just young kids. When people are constantly bashing you over and over, it starts to eat away at you, but ultimately, I don’t care now what people think, I’m following my dreams.”
The negative comments didn’t stop after the postseason, and continued well up to his last moments in the nation’s capital, but it became a running joke for Donoso, MacKenzie, and Mercer.
The pair traded the starting role back and forth, sometimes due to performance, others for injury reasons, and in the days leading to the deadline, Donoso’s emotions ran rampant.
“I thought I was safe,” he said. “I didn’t think they would move me with Macker injured, but I started picking up signs the day before I got the call. I was reading online that I was going to Jr. ‘A,’ so I started freaking out, I texted my family and my agent that I was scared, that was the most anxious I’ve ever been in my life because all I could do was wait.”
January 7th was a tough day for Donoso, as the trade details fell into place.
“I went to Shoppers Drug Mart that night, and I bought so much candy and unhealthy snacks, just the worst stuff I could get, but I needed it just to get through that night. I watched three movies, and I couldn’t sleep at all. I knew something was going to happen, I just didn’t know when.”
Ottawa had acquired Jacob Maillet and goaltender Ian Michelone from the Windsor Spitfires in exchange for draft choices. In a subsequent move, the Barber Poles waived Donoso, who was claimed by the Spits, as it had been planned between the two clubs.
At the time, the Spitfires sat in last place in the Western Conference, but Donoso didn’t care, he was happy to not only be home, but still be in the league.
“I was really happy to still be in the OHL,” Donoso said. “It’s a real testament to how good of an organization the 67’s are, and how good the management under James Boyd and Jan Egert is. They could have just dropped me, but worked their hardest to find a spot for me, and I was super grateful for that.”
“To play for my hometown team was a dream come true. I will always have that connection to Windsor now, and it’s really amazing.”
The Spits finished the season, missing the playoffs, signalling the end of Donoso’s junior hockey career. Regardless of what was thrown his way, Donoso always put his head down and looked for ways to overcome the obstacles, setting an example for everyone around him.
