Two minutes into the Rangers’ nationally televised game Saturday against the Panthers, Matt Rempe swung his legs over the boards and hopped onto the ice. It was his first shift on home ice since serving a four-game suspension, and the Madison Square Garden crowd took notice.
Fans erupted into cheers as if they were at a concert and the headline performer had just taken the stage.
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Before long, a chant began.
“REM-PE! REM-PE! REM-PE!”
The Panthers game was only the 12th of Rempe’s career. He has not put up gaudy numbers, nor is he a top prospect. But with his 6-foot-8 frame, penchant for fighting and physical, sometimes reckless style of play, he has become a household name in New York City — and made a splash around the league.
That ovation was nothing new. During a blowout win against St. Louis earlier this month, fans called for Rangers coach Peter Laviolette to put him on the power play. “We want Rempe!” chants emerged when he was a healthy scratch during last week’s loss to Winnipeg.
RempeMania is in full effect, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. The rookie embodies a vicious element of hockey a chunk of fans will always cling to, whether it’s healthy or not. There’s an us-against-you element among Rangers supporters, too. Multiple opposing coaches, most recently Toronto’s Sheldon Keefe and New Jersey’s Travis Green, have called Rempe out for hits they deemed dangerous.
But the Rangers — and their fans — love him. Forgiveness is much easier when a player is on your side.
The frenzy has become bigger than the ginormous 21-year-old. He’s prompted broader discussions about fighting and physicality. But to reduce him to a circus act or cult hero loses sight of the person. Rempe has worked tirelessly to bridge the gap between himself and those with more natural talent. He’s a person with passions away from the rink, and he has battled grief.
“He’s very multifaceted,” said Matt O’Dette, who coached Rempe in junior hockey with the Seattle Thunderbirds. “There’s a lot more to him than people think.”
With more attention on Rempe now than ever before, he is trying to be more than a fleeting late-season storyline.
Rempe’s hockey journey began with his older twin sisters, Alley and Steph. The Rempe girls decided to play hockey when they were 7, and Matt, four years younger, followed.
“Whatever they did, I wanted to do,” he said.
Rempe laughed remembering how he got along great with Alley but, always competitive, butted heads with Steph when they were young. Both sisters went on to play collegiate hockey at Brown University, and they’re still close with their younger brother.
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Rempe grew up in Calgary and speaks glowingly of his upbringing in Western Canada. With parents Ron and Janice, the three kids enjoyed summer road trips to cities around Canada and the U.S. Their home was full of music; Ron, a civil engineer, played CDs of all different genres and taught his three kids how to play instruments. Matt still plays guitar.
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But his childhood changed dramatically on Feb. 18, 2018. He was playing for Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, B.C. His mom was staying with him and walked into the house that day sobbing.
“Dad died,” she told her son. Ron, 61, had had a heart attack.
“Shattering moment,” said Matt, who was 15 at the time. He and his mom were on a flight back to Calgary within hours.
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Ron, who was 6-foot-6, was born in Calgary to German immigrants. He was full of charisma, Matt said, and loved the arts, collecting paintings and carpets. He spoke English, Spanish, German and some Cantonese and almost always wore cowboy boots, no matter if he was wearing jeans or a suit. Matt remembers him wearing jewelry, too. “Always blinged out,” he said with a smile.
One piece of Ron’s jewelry — a gold cross necklace — now belongs to Matt. He wears it at all times when he’s not playing hockey as a reminder of his larger-than-life father.
Matt, who described himself as an average teenage player, poured himself into hockey while he mourned. The sport served as a distraction.
“I just really fell in love with the game then,” he said.
Rempe wasn’t drafted by a Western Hockey League junior team, but he got an invitation to the Thunderbirds spring camp and signed with the organization, making his major junior debut in 2019.
While in Seattle, Rempe lived with longtime billet mom Dee Klem and her family. Rempe fit in well with Klem’s two kids, making fast friends with Maddy, who is his sisters’ age, and bonding with Kyle over their shared appreciation for Harry Potter books. (Rempe has read the entire series six or seven times. He identifies as a Slytherin.)
O’Dette and Thunderbirds general manager Bill LaForge both credit Rempe with helping change the culture of their team. He and close friend Tyrel Bauer always wanted to go first in drills, and they brought noticeable intensity to practice. Some of Bauer’s favorite memories with Rempe were when they worked on boxouts and net-front techniques.
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“We would always have a smile on our face when we started and were usually at each other’s throats by the time it ended,” Bauer said.
O’Dette called him raw — “kind of like a baby giraffe” — but he noticed Rempe’s skating ability early on. After he posted 31 points in 47 games as a WHL rookie, the Rangers saw enough to take a flier on him with their sixth-round pick in 2020.
Seattle had a losing record Rempe’s first two years with the club, but they had a monster 2021-22 season, winning 44 of 68 games and making it to the WHL Finals. The next year, with Rempe and Bauer both playing in the AHL, they won the league. Rempe wasn’t on the team at that point, but O’Dette said he was part of the championship because of his prior influence.
Islanders star Mathew Barzal lived with Klem when he played for the Thunderbirds, and she always said he had the most prolific work ethic she’d seen in a kid. After watching Rempe’s dedication, she now believes he worked as hard or harder. He grew stir-crazy when the WHL shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic; they had to make him a gym in the garage.
When the WHL canceled the rest of its season that year, Rempe returned to Calgary. Bauer was nearby, so they met regularly at an outdoor rink for evening skates. Sometimes they were the only two people there, and they occasionally stayed on the ice doing drills past midnight.
“He’s willing to do things that other guys don’t want to do or aren’t willing to do,” Bauer said.
He saw the results in 2021-22, his final season with the Thunderbirds. He scored a career-high 17 goals during the regular season and eight more in the playoffs.
One of those came when the Thunderbirds hosted the Spokane Chiefs on Feb. 18, 2022, the fourth anniversary of Ron Rempe’s death. Early in the second period, with the game knotted 1-1, Rempe parked himself in front of the Spokane goaltender. Teammate Nico Myatovic put a shot on net. The puck got caught in a mass of bodies and bounced right to Rempe. He used his long stick to sweep the puck through the crease and into the net for the go-ahead goal.
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“I just remember wanting to be there for him in that moment,” Bauer said. “You can’t help but get emotional.”
Rempe didn’t have a bombastic celebration after the puck went in. He simply paused, raised his right arm and pointed to the sky.
Rempe entered pro hockey 18 months ago as a 6-foot-8, 240 pound ball of energy. He went full speed at all times, and his love of hockey was clear.
Hartford Wolf Pack captain Jonny Brodzinski didn’t want to be on the ice with him at first because the youngster didn’t mind hitting teammates and didn’t always have control of his huge frame.
“There were always a couple of inter-squad fights or skirmishes or incidents out there that would just happen from him being so big,” Brodzinski said.
During the 2022-23 season, Rempe’s first in the AHL, Brodzinski added a section to the whiteboard in the dressing room. “Days without a Rempe incident,” it read. If Rempe went through practice without his enthusiasm and physicality causing any trouble, Brodzinski added a tally to the board.
“I don’t think we made it past three days without an incident,” Rempe laughed.
But Rempe learned to harness his energy a bit more over the course of that first pro season, and the incident counter went away. His work ethic and passion for the sport didn’t. Brodzinski noticed him frequently staying on the ice after practice to go through additional drills with skills coaches. He showed relentlessness during games, too.
“You can tell on the forecheck he’s scaring d-men to touch the puck and is creating a lot of opportunities for his linemates to create offense,” Brodzinski said. “As soon as he gets in the corner, we’re winning the puck 90 percent of the time.”
His big body also allowed him to get in opposing goalies’ eyes, and his AHL production had increased before his call-up this season. After scoring only six goals in 53 games as a rookie, Rempe had eight in 43 games in the minors this year.
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The Rangers, who have cycled through AHL forwards this season because of injuries, called him up in February.
Rempe’s debut was a unique one. After Blake Wheeler went down with a season-ending lower-body injury, the Rangers had him play in their Stadium Series game against the rival Islanders. He was the first player in league history to make his debut outdoors.
During warmups, Rempe and Islanders veteran Matt Martin made eye contact. Then, ahead of a faceoff on Rempe’s first shift, Martin congratulated him and asked if he wanted to fight — a kind (and slightly barbaric) welcome-to-the-league gesture.
Rempe excitedly obliged. As the puck fell to the ice, they threw down their gloves and exchanged blows. When they finished, Rempe waved his arms up and down to the excited crowd.
✅ First NHL game
🥊 First NHL fight6-foot-8 Matt Rempe drops em’ with Matt Martin pic.twitter.com/eLQXfY3vUh
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) February 18, 2024
Back out west, the Thunderbirds were on the team bus en route to Prince George, B.C. The bus TVs showed the game, but the feed cut out as they drove through an area with spotty service. When the stream returned, Rempe was already in the penalty box. His former teammates burst into cheers when they learned he had already had his first fight.
After the game, which the Rangers came back to win in overtime, Rempe excitedly recounted his penalty box conversation with Martin. The veteran told Rempe he had fought 6-foot-9 defenseman Zdeno Chara but that he thought Rempe had longer arms.
“It was awesome,” Rempe said of his debut. “It was a whirlwind of emotions.”
More than most people knew. The date was Feb. 18 — exactly six years after his father’s death.
“I guess he’s smiling down,” he said later, “and the day always turns out good.”
The weeks since Rempe’s debut have been chaotic. In his third game, a Rangers road win against the Devils, he racked up 17 penalty minutes in 13 seconds of ice time after a hit on Nathan Bastian. Rempe’s arm made contact with Bastian’s head, and the referees gave him a major penalty and ejected him from the game.
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Then-Devils coach Lindy Ruff didn’t like the hit, but the Rangers believe Rempe made a clean play. The Department of Player Safety did not fine or suspend Rempe.
Two days later, Rempe and Flyers forward Nicolas Deslauriers fought for nearly a minute, and Rempe scored his first NHL goal when a puck bounced off his leg and into the net.
“Probably the ugliest first goal in NHL history, but I’ll take it,” he said.
Rempe fought again the next night and received a pair of black eyes from Columbus’ Mathieu Olivier. He got in another bout a week later with Ryan Reaves in Toronto after the Leafs were frustrated by Rempe’s hit on Ilya Lyubushkin. At that point, he had four fights in seven games — a far higher rate than he had fought in junior hockey or the AHL.
Rempe catches Lyubushkin with a big hit. 😳 pic.twitter.com/zlAnvaJ5wL
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 3, 2024
“If it was up to him, he’d probably fight every single day,” Brodzinski said.
But that’s not what the Rangers want. Laviolette talked with him about cutting down his staged fighting — the fights just for the sake of fighting — as did his teammates.
“I think we need him as a hockey player more than as a fighter,” Brodzinski said. “And there is the concern that if you just fight every single time, you get knocked out every once in a while. It’s not good for your health.”
Rempe hasn’t fought since the Reaves showdown on March 2, but when the Devils came to Madison Square Garden on March 11, they were still mad about his hit on Bastian. Kurtis MacDermid, one of the toughest players in the league, tried to fight Rempe early, but the Rangers’ forward shrugged him off.
Laviolette and the Rangers staff — who didn’t think Rempe should have to answer for the Bastian play — probably had something to do with that. “I had my instructions before the game,” Rempe said when asked why he didn’t drop the gloves.
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That was not the last drama for Rempe that night. Late in the second period, shortly after a productive shift that helped New York score, he elbowed Jonas Siegenthaler in the head in the neutral zone.
MacDermid — who already believed Rempe was violating the fighting code by not answering for the Bastian play — rushed at Rempe, but the referees split the two up before they reached each other. Rempe, ejected, waved at MacDermid as he left the ice.
“You don’t do things like that your first year in the league especially,” MacDermid said after the game. “Lost quite a bit of respect for him tonight.”
Rempe is assessed a 5 minute major for elbowing and a game misconduct.
MadDermid receives a 10 minute misconduct pic.twitter.com/sktGECCV49
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 12, 2024
The next day, the DOPS suspended him for four games. Rempe apologized when he spoke to reporters for the first time after his suspension, adding that he didn’t realize in real time that he clipped Siegenthaler’s head.
“Obviously I watched back and I did. I made a mistake,” he said. “It was an accident.”
League discipline is not new for Rempe. In his last season with Seattle, the WHL suspended him on four separate occasions.
O’Dette said Rempe was almost in tears at points. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, and he didn’t want to keep getting suspended.
“It was tough for him,” LaForge said. “He had to really rein himself in when it came to any sort of body contact.”
With more eyes than ever on him, Rempe will have to be careful once again. He wants to toe the line of physicality — to be, in his words, “a little bit of a menace” — but not cross into the realm of dirty play.
Rempe, who has two points in 13 games, is still an unpolished player, and his underlying metrics lag behind his teammates, per Dom Luszczyszyn’s net rating model. But the way Laviolette talks about him, it’s entirely possible he’ll appear in playoff games this spring. Linemate Barclay Goodrow praised his skating ability and toughness.
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“Whenever you see a guy that loves coming into the rink, always has a smile on his face, that spreads through the room,” Goodrow said. “It’s just cool to see the impact he’s had in such a little amount of time.”
Rempe’s life has changed dramatically since reaching the NHL. Fans recently stopped him at a Cheesecake Factory for photos, and multiple websites have begun selling “Rempire State Building” shirts. LaForge bought one back in Seattle.
To escape the chaos when he’s away from the rink, Rempe enjoys fantasy novels and is reading “The Name of the Wind,” which teammate Chris Kreider loaned to him. He plays his guitar, chats with his family and goes on walks.
“I’m a quiet guy around my house,” he said.
It helps balance out the noise on the ice. Within a matter of weeks, Rempe has gone from a relatively unknown minor leaguer to something of a phenomenon in the bright lights of Broadway.
Recently, Klem called to ask if he’s taken any time to enjoy the whirlwind. He has, of course, but remains focused.
“Every day is a new day,” he told her. “And I’ve got to earn my spot.”
(Top photo: Jared Silber / NHLI via Getty Images)
