Michael Hage’s triumph: Tragedy, a dream and an NHL future with the Canadiens

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — After one of the happiest moments of her life, which followed the most tragic moment of her life, Rania Saba was looking through some old photos.

Her eldest son, Michael Hage, had just been drafted by the Montreal Canadiens, the team her late husband and high school sweetheart, Alain Hage, had loved for life. The team she loved for life. And one photo hit particularly hard: her, pregnant with Michael, posing next to Alain in a hockey rink. In the photo, Alain is wearing the Canadiens jersey of his favourite player, Chris Chelios.

“It blew my mind when I came across this picture,” Saba said. “It was always just a picture until I saw that picture after the draft and Michael was drafted in 2024. I have those two jerseys, Alain’s and the draft one, and it was one of those shivers. The fact that I’m pregnant with Michael, Alain’s wearing No. 24.”

Saba and Alain Hage had a storybook love. Alain’s cousin was, and is, Saba’s best friend. Saba and Alain met at her birthday party when they were only 13. They went to high school prom together. They got married and started a life together.

Alain’s family immigrated to Montreal in the 1960s from Egypt. Saba’s family immigrated to Montreal from Egypt when she was 5. She grew up in Pierrefonds — she used to take the bus to school with Guy Carbonneau’s daughter — and Alain grew up in Ville St. Laurent. They went downtown when the Canadiens last won the Stanley Cup in 1993 and experienced the madness together.

But in June, when the team the entire family loved drafted Michael in Las Vegas, Alain was not there.

Alain’s tragic death in the summer of 2023 has come to define Michael Hage’s journey, and while his father’s death is an important part of that journey, Hage’s life should not be defined by tragedy. It should be defined by triumph — of fighting through loss and coming out the other side stronger and better prepared to tackle life and his goals.

“I think one of the things I find absolutely beautiful is his view on life,” Saba said. “On valuing the important things, on assigning value to family, to your goals, to being happy every day and moving forward and still finding thankfulness for everything that he had.

“I often told him, yeah, you lost your dad, (but) so many kids didn’t even get that kind of quality time with their dad. You have been more fortunate than most to have such a present dad, that some kids might have their dad for 50 years and not have had that. So you have a lot to be thankful for.”

In the time Alain Hage was alive, his relationship with his two boys, Michael and Alexander, was centred on hockey. Thus, as opposed to a story about tragedy, this is a story about triumph and about Michael the hockey player.

When Hage was a little boy, he was very shy, reserved and lacking confidence. So much so that his mother had to hold his hand on the soccer field.

Then he put on a pair of skates.

“Something happened,” Saba said. “The confidence just … he fell in love, it came with ease. He just fell in love with hockey, I would say, from the age of 4, from that first team. And right away, he always just shined, and he was always that good. It became his passion, and he was comfortable, at ease. He was always better than most at every level and he just loved it, so we didn’t have to push him at all.

“I don’t know that he would be the same child without hockey.”

Hage can’t remember the old version of himself, but once he found his passion for hockey, he had the perfect person in his life to harness it.

“It’s definitely something I felt pretty good at right away — sometimes people are just better at certain things than others, just naturally,” Hage said. “It’s something I had kind of a knack for and really enjoyed. But I think my dad pushing me was just the extra step that helped me to start getting better and better. I mean, anyone can be good at something, but if you don’t pursue it and continue to push — when you’re young, no 7-year-old is going to push themselves to do any extra work. But he saw that I had a knack for it, and he pushed me.

“It really helped.”

Here is an example of that confidence. Hage and his little brother, Alexander, skate and work out in the summer at Shield Athletics in Burlington, Ont., where two other hockey brothers — Arber and Florian Xhekaj — also train.

Arber Xhekaj remembers when Hage first joined his pro group on the ice a couple of years ago.

“I just think he didn’t care,” Xhekaj said. “He was out there, dangling guys. Even when he was younger, he would show up for a three-on-three and just dangle everyone, score a few goals, see ya later. Like, he’s looking you off on a two-on-one and shooting. He’s not scared.”

In other words, Hage is not a very shy boy anymore.

By the time Hage was 10, he was exposed to the rest of the hockey world for the first time at the Brick Tournament in Edmonton. Thirty-five NHL draft picks – with more to come in 2025 – played in that tournament, including 2024 No. 1 pick Macklin Celebrini, No. 3 pick Beckett Sennecke, No. 8 pick Berkley Catton and No. 9 pick Zayne Parekh.

“I did well in that tournament,” Hage said. “We lost in the semifinals to Minnesota, and B.C. wound up winning. They had a good team that year. It was Celebrini, (Tomas) Mrsic, Carson Wetsch, they had a really good team.

“I did well, though. I had a good tournament. It was fun.”

Hage left out the part where he led the tournament in scoring with 11 points in six games. For comparison, one year prior, Connor Bedard had nine points in that tournament. Ryan Leonard had 11.

Yeah, Hage had a “good tournament.”

Hage said the Brick is one of the hockey memories that shaped who he is as a player today. But when Saba was asked the same question, she pointed to The Show, a tournament in Bloomington, Minn., in 2017. That’s where Hage’s clutch gene first emerged.

The tournament didn’t start well for Hage’s team, to the point his father and some of the other dads started looking into early return flights. But his team made the final against Team U.S. West and was down a goal when Team Ontario pulled the goalie with a little over a minute left.

“I buried a rebound, tied it and then got a breakaway pass and scored really late. We won in regulation with six seconds left,” Hage said. “That was a pretty cool memory. I remember my dad was usually super stiff and calm at the rink. But me and my mom would look back at the video and he was jumping up and down.”

After the game, Alain Hage told his son he played a good game. That was significant.

“When he said I played a good game, it usually had to be a really, really good game,” Hage said. “And then if he would say it was fine, that would mean I played a good game. That’s usually how it was — he wasn’t going to tell me everything that was going well. Just stuff that could have been better. That’s usually what my mom was for.”

Michael Hage poses with his MVP plaque at the 2017 The Show hockey tournament. (Courtesy of Rania Saba)

“With Alain, the compliments did not come easily,” Saba confirmed. “You really had to earn them.”

When Hage visited the University of Michigan campus with his father, they both fell in love. The plan to go through the OHL shifted to the USHL with the Chicago Steel, then Ann Arbor. His younger brother will follow that same path; Alexander committed to the Wolverines last summer and currently plays for the Steel.

“I remember when I was deciding where to go to school, he really loved it here (at Michigan),” Hage said of his father. “It would have been cool to have him watch me play here. But at the end of the day, you’ve just got to move on and continue to play like he’s watching. So that’s what I try to do.”

In Hage’s freshman season, he’s surely earned some compliments. He had four goals and three assists in his first five collegiate games and is already a vital component of Michigan’s success.

In the four games Hage went pointless and two he missed with an injury he’s been nursing most of the season, Michigan lost all but one. The Wolverines are 10-1-1 when Hage finds the scoresheet.

“They all say they want it, but he wants the puck on his stick,” Wolverines coach Brandon Naurato said. “Man, he’s a game-breaker. Nothing’s going on, and he breaks it open. He and I, we’ve talked about it. He’s not dominating yet and that’s the next step. That’s what we need him to do, and what a luxury to have that opportunity and that trust. He wants it, even as a young kid.”

Michigan is accustomed to having high-end talent. Last season, the Wolverines had four players taken in the first and second rounds of the NHL draft. The season before, it was seven.

This year, it’s one: Hage.

There’s a lot of pressure on him to perform, and he’s living up to it.

“He’s not a finished product, but I’m really proud of where he’s at this early in the first half of his freshman year,” Naurato said. “We’ve had Adam Fantilli and Gavin Brindley and Matt Beniers and Kent Johnson and all these really good players, but just away from the puck, he’s in better spots. I like his hockey IQ without the puck.

“Obviously we know what he does. He’s an elite distributor through the middle of the ice, impressed with his body position, his puck protection. He’s growing every day. He matures even more every day, and he’s been through a lot as a young man.”

The smooth transition to a higher level bodes well for whenever Hage takes the next step. NCAA hockey is a big step up from the USHL, playing with and against grown men. In his final two games before the holiday break, Hage and the Wolverines played the Wisconsin Badgers. Their captain is Owen Lindmark, the freshman roommate of a certain Cole Caufield back in the day, who is a grown man today.

Hage came into this season wanting to make an impact despite the new challenging environment.

“I’ve gotten comfortable very quickly to a different game because it is a lot more difficult than last year,” Hage said. “I don’t ever plan to come into one season the same player I was last year, so I feel like I got a lot better over the course of the summer, in the gym and on the ice.”

(Source: mgoblue.com)

In his final game before the holiday break on Dec. 14, Michigan was coming off three straight shutout losses. The game one night earlier against Wisconsin had been easily the most frustrating Hage had experienced at this level. He was stifled all night, as were his teammates, in a 4-0 loss. And so, in this game, Hage wanted to make a difference.

With Michigan up 2-1 in the third period, however, Hage made a mistake. With a loose puck near the side boards in the Michigan zone, Hage tried to lift a Wisconsin player’s stick and head up ice with the puck instead of engaging in a puck battle. A few seconds later, the puck was in the Michigan net, and the score was tied.

“Something like that happens, I just try to forget about it. It’s in the past, move on,” Hage said. “I just try to tell myself it’s 2-2, there’s 10 minutes left, someone’s got to step up. That’s the type of player I want to be, so I just have to go out and try to make a play.”

He did.

Overtime game winner from Michael Hage! pic.twitter.com/bCsT8hYOhr

— Michigan Hockey (@umichhockey) December 15, 2024

But what was most interesting was Hage’s assessment on the tying goal. It wasn’t just the mistake in that moment. The real mistake happened long before: He shouldn’t have been on the ice at all.

“I probably should have changed before that, honestly,” he said. “That’s when you make dumb mistakes like that, when you’re tired.”

There’s the hockey IQ Naurato was talking about. In one-on-one video sessions, Naurato enjoys the cerebral nature of how Hage views the game, what he sees on plays, his true observations and not just saying what he thinks Naurato wants to hear.

“He’s a fun one to work with because he’s a hockey nerd, and he listens,” Naurato said. “It’s underappreciated and very rewarding for a coach to work with a young man that when you tell him something, it’s in his game earlier than most. And that’s a huge compliment to him.”

If there’s still any doubt about just how much this family loves the Canadiens, there shouldn’t be. On a recent trip to Montreal, Saba and her parents visited the Canadiens boutique at the team’s practice facility in Brossard. She picked up a couple of hooded sweatshirts, key chains and other merchandise for her sons.

“It was really funny because the guy working in the store recognized us,” Saba recalled, “and my mom was just like, ‘Yeah and we’re the grandparents!’”

The thought of attending Hage’s first game at the Bell Centre one day immediately puts a smile on Saba’s face. She estimates they would need roughly 60 tickets. She’s started putting some money away.

“We’re already planning,” she said. “We would need a whole section to make it work.”

Hage doesn’t know how much time his mother has left for planning. But from the sounds of it, there could be another year.

“It’s one year at a time until I think I’m ready, the team thinks I’m ready. I just feel like there’s not really a rush,” Hage said when asked when he believes he will turn pro. “You see so many guys rush out of juniors and college and then come to realize how hard the NHL is. I feel like you can never be too ready, so I’m just taking it one year at a time, and as soon as I feel ready physically and mentally to go make an impact and the team thinks I can make an impact, that’s probably when I’ll make the jump.”

That day is sure to come one day. When it does, Hage’s friends and family at the Bell Centre will witness the ultimate triumph out of tragedy together.

“That would really be a dream. It’s mind-blowing,” Saba said. “Like, Alain, I’m sure he’s having a hockey party in heaven with his dad. It’s just nuts.

“It really is special.”

(Top photos of Michael Hage as a child and at the University of Michigan: Courtesy of Rania Saba; Zac BonDurant / Getty Images)