From the beginning: Nick Robertson
This piece was originally published on October 11, 2017, one month after Nick Robertson joined the Petes. It has been updated to include all relevant new information.
Nick Robertson, his family, and his journey to the Petes are worthy of having their own television program. Although the Petes’ Elite Prospects profiles lists Arcadia, California as his hometown, Robertson’s lifestyle has been much more nomadic than the description implies, hopping between the West coast, Michigan and Toronto throughout his childhood.
The Petes’ scoring phenom began his time in minor hockey in Southern California, an area in which his dad laid roots after opening his law firm. Nick then moved to Michigan at eight years old with his mother and two older brothers to create larger opportunities in hockey, before eventually heading to Toronto. Following his bantam years with the Vaughan Kings and minor midget stint with the Toronto Red Wings, Robertson was drafted to the Petes in the 2017 OHL Priority Selection and signed a standard player agreement following the team’s annual development camp.
Along for his North American hockey travels were Robertson’s mother, Mercedes and brother, Jason. His mother home-schooled the boys for a few years until the elite athletes transitioned to online school.
“It made me disciplined; I had to be more responsible with my work and make a schedule,” Robertson commented as a rookie.
The continuous moving and life adjustments were in the name of growing the Robertson boys’ hockey careers.
“They would do a lot. My dad works so hard to get us where we are. I didn’t realize how much they did, until now. It was all in good favour I trained a lot, I became more mature because I was with my mom, I couldn’t goof around.”
Beyond his hockey counterpart Jason, Nick has an impressive roster of siblings. His oldest sister, Alex, works at their father’s law firm; oldest brother Michael attended school in Hong Kong as a student of USC, and is described by Nick as a ‘genius’; sister Brianne stepped away from the opportunity of playing Division 1 lacrosse to pursue her dreams of acting. Atop all this, Nick’s father, Hugh, may have the most outstanding fun fact, having made an appearance in the film the Notebook and having his own IMDB page.
Fans got to enjoy the fruits of Robertson’s inherited work ethic as he became an era-defining player for the club. In his three seasons with the Petes, Robertson put up 174 points, most notably recording 55 goals in the 2019-20 season- a milestone that hadn’t been reached since Jason Dawe and Mike Harding. In 2020, the Petes’ forward won the CHL’s Most Sportsmanlike Player of the Year, in addition to winning the OHL’s William Hanley Trophy recognizing him as being the league’s most sportsmanlike player.
While building a positive reputation for himself with NHL scouts, Robertson always carved out time to connect with Petes fans during warmup and throughout the community, working alongside Steve Dangle to raise money for Autism Ontario throughout the “Nick Robertson is a forward” t-shirt campaign in the fall of 2019.
His first-on, last-off mentality helped to push the Petes to the front of the pack in what would have been one of the club’s best regular season performances in recent history. Nick’s influence on the maroon and white has been profound, and Petes fans look forward to watching him continue and build upon his success with the Leafs’ organization.
