It’s the semifinal game against the Russians in the World Junior championship in Ottawa, and Barb Tavares is one of 20,000 fans in the stands. The Mississauga hockey mom has been here before, with the clock ticking down, the crowd’s favourite team short a goal and all eyes on her son, John. The suspense is excruciating; she sits so close to the edge of her seat she’s about to fall to her knees. Eight years ago, she was in this same arena watching a 10‑year-old John score the winning goal—with one second left—to nab the Bell Canada Cup for Mississauga’s minor atom triple-A Senators. Tonight, with his team about to be eliminated, Tavares brings his A game, hacking away like a madman until he claws the puck out from under Russian skates to get a backhand shot on net. It ricochets, but his teammate, centre Jordan Eberle, scoops up the deflection and delivers it home, sending the game to sudden-death overtime and, eventually, a 6-5 shootout victory for Canada. The team would go on to defeat the lacklustre Swedes in the finals, and Tavares would be named tournament MVP, his face plastered on the front pages of the dailies.

People have been talking about John Tavares since he took to the ice as a six-year-old in Oakville’s paperweight league. Straight out of the gate he was bigger, stronger and more focused than the other kids. By the time he made it to the Ontario Hockey League, he was known as a goal hog. In his second season, he scored 72, breaking Wayne Gretzky’s record of most goals scored by a 16‑year-old. Gretzky’s stats are the gold standard for hockey wunderkinds, and his records don’t fall easily. Sports commentators crowned Tavares the next Great One. But he didn’t celebrate the big victory like a typical 16-year-old. “After I broke the record, I went out to eat with my family, my roommates and my billet parents. We couldn’t go for long because I had a game the next day. I was proud of what I did, but I mostly remember being exhausted.”

This spring, Tavares is poised to join the elite club of players who went first in the draft—players like Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane and, back in the day, Eric Lindros. In a country knee-deep in hockey talent, making it from triple-A hockey to the OHL is remarkable. To jump from the OHL to the NHL is miraculous. Even then, most draft picks will spend another two years back in the OHL, honing their skills, building their fitness and maturity before they’re called up to play. Tavares will head straight for the NHL arena.

The draft is a convoluted lottery system that throws the last five teams in the league together in a pot and pulls out a winner for the first-round pick (there are more than a few Maple Leafs fans hoping their team will tank so Toronto has a shot at landing their hometown boy). After signing with Pittsburgh in 2005, Crosby earned $12 million for his first three years—that’s not counting what Tim Hortons pays him to promote Timbits hockey. Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, also represents Tavares, and it’s expected he’ll negotiate lucrative endorsements for him, too.

For the past four years, Tavares has made the same $55 a week as other players in the OHL. In just a few months, he could be a multimillionaire, hawking everything from sport drinks to breakfast cereals. Today the only thing he’s worried about is bringing his homemaking skills up to speed before living on his own for the first time. He knows how to do his own laundry but would like to learn how to cook something other than eggs. His plan for this summer, before he steps onto NHL ice, is to have his mom teach him how to use the oven.

Behind every hockey superstar is a determined parent. At six feet and 198 pounds, Tavares has the hulking frame of his dad, who moved to Canada from the Azores when he was eight. Joe Tavares taught his son the basics of hockey, but it was Barb Tavares who ferried him everywhere and pushed him forward. John has his mother’s broad cheekbones, strong nose and close-set, unexpectedly soft eyes. Ask him what sets him apart from other players, and you can hear his mother in his answer. He doesn’t talk about his wrist shot or his playmaking. “I want it more,” he says with a quiet shrug.

Barb was one of 10 kids born to Polish immigrants Boleslaw and Jozefa Kowal. Her father worked in the Sudbury nickel mines, and her mother was a janitor at the local school. They were always just scraping by—even before Barb’s father died when she was 14. The family had no car and walked everywhere. It was different back then, she says. Children were expected to do everything for themselves. You didn’t ask for anything, and you didn’t bring your parents any more trouble than they already had.

When she was 18, Barb left Sudbury by bus to find work in Toronto. She could feel the excitement shoot through her body when she saw the city’s lights—she’d arrived.