Joe Thornton and Davos: How an NHL Legend Found a Second Home in Switzerland

In February 2025, Joe Thornton stood behind the bench at a youth hockey tournament in Québec City. He was wearing an HC Davos jacket. When Mirco Christoffel converted a penalty shot for the Swiss under-13 selection, Thornton broke into applause. Alongside head coach Michel Riesen, the former NHL captain was helping a group of young players from Switzerland experience Canadian hockey for themselves. Among them was his son River.

Getting to Québec had taken more than assembling a roster. Davos needed an entry to the Québec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament, and Thornton had used his connections to help the club secure one. For the young players, it meant crossing the Atlantic to compete. For Thornton, it was a journey in the opposite direction from the one that had changed his own life.

Twenty years earlier, an NHL labour dispute had brought him to Davos. At 25, he already knew what it meant to captain the Boston Bruins. In Switzerland, he joined Arno Del Curto’s team, won the Spengler Cup and became Swiss champion in the same winter. He also met Tabea Pfendsack, the woman he would marry. The connection survived his return to the NHL, two more spells with HC Davos and, eventually, his retirement as a player.

North American fans knew him as Jumbo Joe, the centre who recorded 1,109 NHL assists and won the Hart and Art Ross trophies in a season split between two teams. Davos knew him in several other roles: a championship teammate, a familiar face who kept returning, and eventually the man helping Team Canada build its Spengler Cup roster. In Québec, he had another role again. He was a father at the rink and a former Davos player helping the next generation get its chance.

Before Davos: The Boy from St. Thomas Who Became Boston’s Captain

The hockey Joe Thornton remembered most vividly from his childhood did not require a rink. In his Hall of Fame speech, he went back to the basement of his parents’ house on Crescent Avenue in St. Thomas, Ontario. He and his brothers played knee hockey there, taking turns imagining themselves as the stars they watched. Thornton recalled a whole cast of heroes, from Johnny Bower and Bobby Orr to Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. He also spoke about the friendships the game had given him, a subject he returned to throughout the speech.

His route to the NHL ran through the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the Ontario Hockey League. Thornton earned Canadian Hockey League Rookie of the Year honours in 1995/96. Two years into his junior career, the Boston Bruins made him the first overall pick in the 1997 NHL Draft. He was 18 when he played his first NHL game that October.

Thornton later singled out Johnny Bucyk, the longtime Bruin known as “Chief”, for helping him through those early years. At his induction, he remembered how former Bruins made time for him away from the rink, inviting him to lunch or to play golf. For a teenager arriving in Boston with the expectations of a first overall pick, those relationships gave him people to turn to as he settled into the league.

By 1999/2000, Thornton led Boston in goals, assists and points. He eventually took on the captaincy and reached 101 points in 2002/03, scoring 36 goals and setting up 65 more. That was the player Davos would get in 2004: a centre already trusted to lead an Original Six franchise, with enough scoring power to change a game himself and the passing to make the players around him more dangerous.

In September 2004, Thornton helped Canada win the World Cup of Hockey. The NHL season that should have followed was lost to the lockout. He had already signed with HC Davos that July, opening a route to competitive hockey in Switzerland. At the time, there was every reason to think of it as a temporary move. The first winter would give him reasons to come back for the rest of his career.

2004/05: The Lockout Winter That Made Joe Thornton a Swiss Champion

In July 2004, Joe Thornton signed with HC Davos. He was 25, already captain of the Boston Bruins, and still had his best NHL seasons ahead of him. When the lockout wiped out the entire 2004/05 NHL season, what might have been a brief stay in Switzerland became a full winter of competitive hockey.

Thornton was one of three NHL forwards to join Davos that season. Rick Nash arrived from the Columbus Blue Jackets and Niklas Hagman from the Florida Panthers. Coach Arno Del Curto could add their skills to a team that already included players such as Josef Marha and a young Andres Ambühl. By the end of the season, all three newcomers had helped Davos win a Swiss championship. The decisive goal, though, would come from a player who had been there before any of them arrived.

The first trophy came in December. At the 2004 Spengler Cup, Davos reached the final against Sparta Prague and won 2–0. For Thornton, it was a first experience of winning the tournament with the host club. He would return to the Spengler Cup in other roles over the following two decades, but his first title there came in Davos colours.

In the spring, Davos met the ZSC Lions in the Swiss championship final. Thornton led the playoffs in scoring, with four goals and 20 assists in 14 games. That balance captures what he brought to the team. He could finish chances himself, and his passing made him an even greater threat.

Davos took a 3–1 series lead into Game 5. Zurich pushed the game into overtime, where Marha scored to give Davos a 3–2 win and seal the championship. Thornton had crossed the Atlantic because there was no NHL season to play. He finished the winter with two trophies and a place in the history of a club he had joined only months earlier.

That winter also changed his life away from hockey. In Davos, Thornton met Tabea Pfendsack, the woman he would marry. When his NHL career resumed, he had a reason to return to the Swiss mountains that had nothing to do with the league schedule.

Tabea and the Swiss Home Joe Thornton Kept Coming Back To

Joe Thornton’s first winter in Davos had a clear sporting purpose. With the NHL shut down, he wanted somewhere to play. Then he met Tabea Pfendsack. They married in 2009, four years after he had won the Swiss championship, and went on to raise a family. What began as a temporary move for hockey became a connection that lasted through the rest of his NHL career.

For most of those years, Thornton’s working life was in North America. He spent fifteen seasons with the San Jose Sharks before finishing his NHL career with Toronto and Florida. Yet Davos remained part of the family’s year. They regularly spent part of the summer there, even in years when Joe had no games to play for HC Davos. The visits helped keep his relationship with the town and the club alive between his three spells as a player.

By the time he signed for Davos again in 2020, Thornton held a Swiss passport. That had a practical consequence for the club: he could play without using a foreign-player licence. Sixteen years earlier, he had arrived as one of the NHL stars who came to Switzerland during the lockout. At 41, he was returning to a place where his family already spent time and where he still trained with the team.

Thornton spoke about Tabea in public when the Hockey Hall of Fame inducted him in 2025. He had told stories about growing up in Ontario, breaking into the NHL with Boston and winning Olympic gold for Canada. When he turned to his wife and children, he became visibly emotional. He thanked Tabea for sharing the journey with him. On an evening devoted to his hockey career, it was one of the most personal moments of his speech.

By then, the family’s connection to Davos was visible in another generation. Their son River had played for the club’s under-13 selection at the 2025 Québec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament. Joe was there in an HC Davos jacket, helping behind the bench. The Canadian who had once travelled to Switzerland to keep playing hockey was now back in Canada, watching his son take the ice for Davos.

2005/06: The Trade That Made Joe Thornton NHL MVP

Months after winning the Swiss championship with HC Davos, Joe Thornton was back in the NHL as captain of the Boston Bruins. On 30 November 2005, Boston traded him to the San Jose Sharks for Brad Stuart, Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau. Thornton was 26 and had played his entire NHL career in Boston. He now had to settle into a new team with the season already underway.

At his Hall of Fame induction two decades later, Thornton recalled how difficult those first hours were. Then he began to see the move differently. He was in his prime and had a chance to start again on the West Coast. Once he arrived in San Jose, he remembered how quickly the game started to feel natural again.

The numbers showed how well he adapted. Thornton finished the season with 29 goals and 96 assists for 125 points across Boston and San Jose. He became the first player to win the Art Ross Trophy as the NHL’s leading scorer after being traded during the same season. He also won the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player. In the space of two seasons, he had led the Swiss playoffs in scoring and then led the NHL in regular-season points.

The following season, Thornton recorded 92 assists. Only Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux had previously reached 90 assists in consecutive NHL seasons. Thornton also led the league in assists for three straight years, a run that showed how reliably he could create chances for teammates.

The trade began a fifteen-season spell with the Sharks. Thornton went on to register 804 regular-season assists for San Jose, a franchise record, and helped the club reach its first Stanley Cup Final in 2016. He would eventually finish his NHL career with 1,109 assists. More than seven hundred of them came after the season in which Boston traded him.

San Jose became the centre of Thornton’s NHL career, while Davos remained part of his family’s life. When the next NHL lockout arrived in 2012, he knew exactly where he could play. This time, he was returning to a club and a town he already knew well.

2012: Back in Davos and Facing Canada in the Spengler Cup Final

When another NHL lockout began in September 2012, Joe Thornton signed with HC Davos for a second time. Eight years had passed since his first arrival. He was now an NHL scoring champion and an Olympic gold medallist, and Davos had become a place his family returned to even when he had no games to play there. Rick Nash, his teammate during the championship winter of 2004/05, also came back.

The timing gave the Spengler Cup an unusual line-up. With NHL players available in December, Team Canada could bring a particularly strong roster to Switzerland. Thornton, meanwhile, entered the tournament with the host club. He had represented Canada at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics and won gold in Vancouver. In Davos that Christmas, the Canadian team stood between him and a second Spengler Cup title.

Both teams reached the final on 31 December. Canada beat Davos 7–2, earning its twelfth tournament victory. Thornton had helped Davos beat Sparta Prague in the 2004 final. Eight years later, he experienced the other side of a final on the same ice, wearing the same club colours.

The match brought two parts of his career into direct competition. Canada was the country he had represented at the Olympics. Davos was the club where he had won a Swiss championship and the town where he had met Tabea. For one afternoon, those connections sat on opposite benches.

Thornton’s role at the tournament would change again after his playing career. He would return to Davos to help put together the Canadian team, working for the side he had faced in the 2012 final.

2020: At 41, Joe Thornton Plays for Davos Again

Joe Thornton’s third spell with HC Davos began in October 2020. The pandemic had disrupted the NHL calendar, and after fifteen seasons with the San Jose Sharks, he was preparing to join the Toronto Maple Leafs. Before he played his first game for Toronto, he had another chance to play in Switzerland.

By then, Thornton already knew the Davos team from summer training. He and Tabea had kept returning to the town with their family, and he had been practising with the club before signing a short-term deal. The arrangement gave him competitive games while the NHL worked towards a new start date. For Davos, it brought back a centre who had helped win the Swiss championship fifteen years earlier.

There was one practical difference from his previous spells. Thornton now held a Swiss passport, so HC Davos could put him in the line-up without using a foreign-player licence. His connection to Switzerland, which had begun with a contract during the 2004 lockout and deepened through his life with Tabea, now affected how the club could use him on the ice.

At 41, Thornton recorded five goals and six assists in twelve National League games. The six assists were familiar territory for a player who had already passed 1,000 in the NHL. The five goals were a reminder that he could still finish chances himself. Twelve games was a short stay, but nearly a point per game was a substantial contribution.

In December, Toronto called him back to North America. His third Davos spell ended before Christmas, and the pandemic also forced the cancellation of the 2020 Spengler Cup. His twelve appearances that autumn were all in the Swiss league.

Thornton went on to play one NHL season with Toronto and one with Florida. He announced his retirement in October 2023. By the end of that year, he was back at the Spengler Cup in a new role. After playing for Davos against Canada in the 2012 final, he was now helping choose the players who would wear the maple leaf at the same tournament.

2023 and 2024: Building Team Canada for the Spengler Cup

In November 2023, only days after Joe Thornton announced his NHL retirement, Hockey Canada named him co-general manager for the Spengler Cup. He shared the job with Brad Pascall of the Calgary Flames, while HC Lugano sporting director Hnat Domenichelli joined them as assistant general manager. It was Thornton’s first international tournament in a management role.

Their assignment was to put together Canada’s coaching staff and roster for the December tournament. The appointment brought together three different kinds of experience. Pascall had worked in both the NHL and Hockey Canada. Domenichelli knew Swiss club hockey from the inside. Thornton had played for Canada at the Olympics and knew the Spengler Cup from two appearances with its host club. He had seen how quickly the tournament moved from the opening games to the final, and what it felt like to play for Davos in front of its home crowd.

Thornton returned in the same role in 2024. On Christmas Day, he watched Canada train before taking to the outdoor ice himself during the delegation’s family skate. His family was there, and fans stopped him to talk and take photos. The following day, Canada opened its tournament against HC Davos. The man who had once worn blue and yellow against Canada in a Spengler Cup final had now helped select the Canadian team that would face Davos.

His familiarity with the town came from years of returning with Tabea and their family, as well as from his three spells with the club. That made this an unusual first job in international management. Thornton was working for Hockey Canada in a town that had become part of his own family’s life.

Within weeks of the 2024 tournament, he would be at another rink in a different role. In Québec, he would wear an HC Davos jacket again and help Michel Riesen behind the bench of the club’s under-13 selection.

2025 and 2026: How Joe Thornton Helped Davos Juniors Get to Québec

Less than two months after helping assemble Team Canada for the 2024 Spengler Cup, Joe Thornton was back in Canada wearing an HC Davos jacket. This time, he was at the Québec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament, where Davos was fielding an under-13 selection for the first time. The club credits Thornton with using his hockey contacts to help secure its entry.

The work of putting a team together began in Switzerland. Davos held a selection camp in November 2024, drawing much of the roster from its own youth programme and bringing in players from other Swiss clubs. The team entered the second-highest division at the tournament. Getting a place was one challenge. Giving players from different clubs a chance to train together before crossing the Atlantic was another.

In Québec, former Davos forward Michel Riesen led the team, and Thornton spent the week with the group, helping at the bench. His son River played for the selection. One of the moments captured during the trip came when Mirco Christoffel scored on a penalty shot and Thornton broke into applause. Davos went out in its third game, losing 2–1 to the Québec Remparts.

A year later, Davos sent another team. This time, the club’s official staff list named Riesen as head coach and Thornton as assistant coach. River was again on the roster. The second trip showed that the opportunity extended beyond the players who had been selected for the debut in 2025.

Thornton had first travelled from Canada to Davos because he needed somewhere to play. Twenty years later, he used relationships built over his hockey career to help young players from Davos make the same crossing in reverse. He helped get them into the tournament, then showed up to stand with them behind the bench.

No. 19 Goes to the Rafters and Joe Thornton Enters the Hall of Fame

On 23 November 2024, the San Jose Sharks raised Joe Thornton’s No. 19 to the rafters. He was only the second player in franchise history to have his number retired, after Patrick Marleau. The two had spent years as teammates and were part of the Sharks team that reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2016. At the ceremony, Thornton thanked Marleau as a teammate, roommate and friend.

Thornton recorded 1,055 regular-season points in 1,104 games for San Jose. His 804 assists set a franchise record. In December 2019, he and Marleau became the first NHL teammates to appear in the same game after each had already reached 1,600 regular-season appearances. They had arrived in San Jose by different routes, and by then both had spent more than two decades in the league.

Thornton’s full NHL totals reached 1,714 regular-season games, 430 goals and 1,109 assists, for 1,539 points. He added 134 points in 187 playoff games. From his NHL debut in 1997 through his final game in 2022, no player accumulated more regular-season points or assists. His 125-point season split between Boston and San Jose remains the clearest example of his peak. The career totals show how long he kept producing after it.

In November 2025, the Hockey Hall of Fame inducted Thornton in his first year of eligibility. In his speech, he remembered the brothers he played knee hockey with in Ontario and the Bruins veterans who helped him settle into the NHL. He spoke about the shock of the trade to San Jose and the pleasure he found in playing there. His voice caught when he thanked Tabea and their children.

By the time of the induction, Thornton had already helped the Davos juniors get to Québec for the first time. A few months after the ceremony, he was back at the tournament as an assistant coach. He had spent years setting up chances for teammates. Now he was helping young players from the Swiss club where he had met Tabea get a chance to play in Canada.

Why Joe Thornton Kept Coming Back to Davos

When Joe Thornton first signed with HC Davos in 2004, the arrangement had an obvious end date: he would go back when the NHL started again. By then, he had won the Spengler Cup and the Swiss championship, and he had met Tabea. The next time the NHL shut down, he knew the town as a place where his family spent time as well as a place where he could play. By his third spell in 2020, he was taking the ice for Davos with a Swiss passport.

His relationship with the club kept changing. He won a Spengler Cup in its colours, faced Canada in the 2012 final and later helped select the Canadian team for the same tournament. Then came the call on his contacts that helped Davos secure a place in Québec. This time, the players crossing the Atlantic were young enough to be at the start of their own hockey stories.

There is a reason to end with Mirco Christoffel’s penalty shot. Thornton’s part in getting the team to Québec had happened before the puck dropped. Now the shot belonged to the young player. When it went in, Joe Thornton was at the Davos bench, clapping.

Sources and Further Reading

• NHL – Joe Thornton’s career statistics, awards and draft history
• Hockey Hall of Fame – Joe Thornton’s 2025 induction and career record
• SWI swissinfo.ch – How HC Davos won the 2005 Swiss championship
• Sportsnet – Thornton’s return to Davos and his Swiss family ties
• Spengler Cup – Official tournament history and final results
• Hockey Canada – Thornton’s role as Spengler Cup co-general manager
• HC Davos – How the U13 team secured its first Québec Pee-Wee entry
• HC Davos – The 2026 Pee-Wee roster and coaching staff

Picture: AI-generated editorial illustration bringing together Joe Thornton, the Davos ice stadium and Québec City to represent his connections to Swiss and Canadian hockey.

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