RANKWEIL, Austria – We pull off the autobahn, travel a short distance and make a right turn down a loose gravel road next to a quarter horse farm.
The sign on the giant wooden barn reads “Herzlich Willkommen,” which translates to “Warm Welcome!”
In the far distance on each side of us on this refreshing summer day is the tranquil landscape of the Austrian and Swiss Alps, where Marco Rossi hikes and mountain bikes weekly with his girlfriend. Rankweil, the nearby colorful Austrian village of 12,000 people, is where the Wild’s top prospect proudly grew up and never envisions leaving. A stunning basilica sits atop a hill overlooking the city, like a protective fortress. That’s where Rossi prays every week.
“Everyone believes in something different, and I believe in something that gives me power,” says Rossi, the 20-year-old center and ninth overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, while gazing at the magnificent church. “It gives me comfort.”
We pull up to a charming orange stone house. A sign to the left of the door, under the mailbox and over the doorbell, reads: FAM ROSSI.
(Michael Russo / The Athletic)
“That’s where Marco almost killed a horse,” Michael Rossi says as he gets out of the car, still spooked by an incident that occurred 11 or 12 years ago when his son was only 8 or 9.
“Yeah, in that field over there,” Marco says, pointing a couple of hundred feet away. “My dad was standing right there. I didn’t really know what was going on, but my dad was in shock … like shaking.”
Michael Rossi, who played hockey professionally in Austria for 20 years, knew early on that his son had something special. The way he skated, the way he thought the game, the way he passed the puck and, particularly, the way he shot it.
“Marco was shooting better and better,” Michael recalls. “I’m watching him shoot the puck right here and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, he shoot good!’ Then I saw the horse and thought, ‘I hope he don’t hit the horse.’ At that moment, I saw the horse go down.”
Michael flew past Marco and sprinted into the field. As he stood over the fallen animal, Marco’s father looked up and spotted the horse’s owner walking toward the field.
“I start begging to the horse: ‘Oh my God, please stand up! Please stand up! Please, get up!!!’” Michael says.
The horse finally did get up. Dazed and wobbly, it shook off the cobwebs after having taken that slap shot square off his forehead, right between his now-glazed-over eyes.
“But he was good. The farmer had no idea it even happened,” recalls a still-relieved Michael, now able to at least let out a slight chuckle a decade later.
The next day, Michael bought a giant piece of netting and put it up. When the farmer saw what Michael was doing, he walked down the road and said: “Oh, Michael, you are such a nice guy. You have such a good heart for horses.”
“I was thinking: ‘You have no idea,’” Michael says.
A week later, Marco shot a puck right through the back window of his mom’s car. Michael got the window fixed, and two days later, Marco did it again.
“I went back to the guy and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but I need another glass,” Michael says.
Marco points to a nearby house: “That neighbor over there, he gave me 50 euros once to stop shooting because it was too loud. I took the money … but I kept shooting.”
As we walk into Marco’s childhood home, a French bulldog named Bijou and wearing a Minnesota Wild collar greets us. We walk upstairs to Marco’s bedroom. He still lives at home on weekends, but he spends weekdays at the apartment of his girlfriend, Stefanie Prast, in nearby Dornbirn, a city close to the hockey rink in Lustenau, where Marco trains.
Marco’s bedroom door has a ROSSI locker-room stall nameplate and a rendering of a referee dropping the puck for an opening faceoff to a left-shot center that resembles Rossi.
Inside the room is a bed a little larger than a twin and a Marco Rossi museum of sorts. There are a dozen ROSSI jerseys hanging from the walls, from his Zurich team, the Europe SELECTS All-Star Game, his peewee club, the Ottawa 67’s, the Iowa Wild and the jersey from his NHL debut last January in Boston. He even has an autographed jersey from CSKA Moscow, Kirill Kaprizov’s former team.
There are giant posters of Rossi in action. There are team pictures, hockey playing cards of himself, medals, trophies and several certificates, including one for being the first European in history to win the scoring title in the OHL.
Wild center Marco Rossi in action in his NHL debut against the Bruins in January. (M. Anthony Nesmith / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
There are, of course, love notes taped to the wall from Stefanie and a bottle of tequila that former Iowa teammate Cody McLeod gave as a gift to every teammate after he played his 1,000th professional game last season.
The bottle remains unopened because Marco doesn’t drink alcohol.
“He won’t even eat tiramisu because of the rum,” Michael says. “When I played hockey, hockey and beer was very close for me. Not for him. He’s very different than me.”
We walk back downstairs and into a picturesque backyard that pops with green grass, green trees and green bushes that act as a fence line. There we are met by Marco’s mom, Claudia, Michael’s wife of 24 years, and Marco’s older sisters, Estelle, 26, who works at a bank and introduced Marco to Stefanie, and Marielle, 22, a fitness instructor. A big outdoor table holds pitchers of water and conveniently one coffee mug with a double espresso.
It’s not hard to be struck by the quiet, the fresh air, the majesty of the mountains in the background.
“This is home,” Marco says. “This is where I feel at home. I know everything about here. It’s the most relaxing spot for me. It’s clean. It’s quiet. There’s not much traffic like the U.S. It’s just most relaxing here.”
If Marco’s not at the rink, his home or church, you’ll most likely find him outdoors. Several times a week, he’ll visit Lake Constance (Bodensee), a giant lake that borders Austria, Switzerland and Germany, to sit on the beach, get on a boat or fish. He points to the mountain, a spot where he and Stefanie rented a house when he got back from development camp in Minnesota last month.
“Like in nature, when you’re up there, you’re not on your phone, you’re just by yourself or with friends, family,” he says. “You just enjoy it up there, especially for your brain and for your head, it’s like the best feeling I think you can get.”
Marco Rossi in his happiest place. (Dietmar Stiplovsek for The Athletic)
In Austria, when you’re a good, young hockey player like Marco was at age 9, you’re often playing against 14- and 15-year-olds. Marco attended a school that specialized in sports. He played soccer and basketball until age 14.
But in order to get more competition and develop as a hockey player, the Rossis allowed Marco to play two hours away, in Zurich, Switzerland.
Six days a week, Marco would go to school around 7:30 a.m. and get home at 4. Michael would get off work and drive Marco to Zurich. They’d get back to their home in Austria at midnight. At 5:30 a.m., Michael would get up for work and do it all over again.
“I know every stone on this highway,” Michael says as he takes The Athletic on the same 150 kilometer route he made with his son hundreds of times in their white Fiat. “I bought my car with zero kilometers. When Marco was done in Switzerland four years later, it had 580,000 kilometers (about 360,000 miles), and I drove the car right away to the garbage. I tried to get some money, but the car shop guy told me, ‘Don’t ask me about money,’ after looking at the car.”
That daily round-trip trek took a toll on Michael’s mental and physical health. He was never home to see his wife and didn’t have much time to spend with his daughters.
“But my goal was the NHL. I was always focusing on the NHL,” Marco says. “At the time, I was never thinking my dad was sacrificing so much. It was tough for him because he had to drive, but I could sleep.”
And then Marco’s career took off.
In high school in Rankweil, the headmaster was accommodating and made a deal with the Rossis. Marco would attend class on Mondays and Tuesdays. The rest of the week, he would focus on hockey, as long as he got his homework done.
“Marco could be very smart. He could be very smart. He could,” Michael says, causing his entire family to laugh out loud. “But his heart for hockey was so big. Every Monday and Tuesday, I’d drop Marco off at school. He’d get out of the car and say, ‘Bye dad!” One day, the director calls me and says, ‘Michael, can you come to my office please?’
“I go, ‘Yes, no problem.’ I go down and he says, ‘When is Marco going to come to school?’ My heart sunk. Finally, he says, ‘Let’s just make a deal: You start telling me when he’s coming to school, not when he’s not coming.’”
Michael and Claudia confronted their son. Where had Marco been going for months after being dropped off at school?
“The coffee shop,” Marco says, laughing. “I’d wait for my dad to drive away and then walk five minutes to the coffee shop. I’d just drink coffee and read the newspaper for a few hours and see out the windows all the kids running to school because they were late.
“I had it timed pretty good. I’d go there for two hours, then it was a one-hour walk home. I’d get home by 12 for lunch. My parents would go, ‘How was school today?’ And I’d go, ‘Really good.’”
When his parents discovered he had been skipping school, Marco made his case: “I haven’t been to school in two months, and I’m still at the same level as everybody.”
“I knew I’d be a hockey player,” he says, smiling sheepishly.
Marco Rossi, Stefanie Prast and Rossi’s family: from left, parents Michael and Claudia, sister Marielle, her boyfriend Jasmin Hodzic, sister Estelle and Bijou, in front of the Austrian Alps. (Michael Russo / The Athletic)
Around the same time, Ottawa 67’s general manager James Boyd struck up a relationship with the Rossis and told them he wanted to draft Marco in the CHL Import Draft.
“Marco was clear: ‘I go there,’” Michael recalls. “I told him, ‘Listen, have one night, sleep on it.’ He said, ‘OK,’ and then 4:30 in the morning, he comes to my bed and goes, ‘Daddy, I go to Canada.’ I wanted him to stay here, but as a father, you can’t tell him what to do. I always support what Marco wants.”
When word trickled out that Rossi was considering playing major junior in Canada, the Rossis got calls from 20 CHL teams. The Rossis let it be known if anybody selected him other than Ottawa, he’d stay and play in Switzerland.
“I was actually hoping somebody else would take him so he’d stay,” Michael says. “But Ottawa took him (18th overall), and I think that was the best choice. It was good for him that he could grow as his own person and leave and become a man. For me, it was tough. It’s more tough for a father than a kid. I was like, ‘What do I do now?’”
Marco went to Ottawa, worked with now-Arizona Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny, whom he calls “the best coach I’ve ever had,” and his career erupted.
After a 29-goal, 65-point rookie year, Marco scored 39 goals and 120 points in 56 games in his second season to become the first European to lead the OHL in scoring and the first European to lead the entire CHL in scoring since Alex Radulov (152 points) in 2005-06. He led the OHL with 81 assists and a plus-69 and was the second European import in OHL history to be named MVP. His 2.14 points per game ranked second in the CHL by one-hundredth of a point behind the 2020 draft’s No. 1 overall pick, Alexis Lafrenière.
“I remember when I first got to Ottawa, I was thinking, ‘Wow, this is what it feels like to play a home game or practice in the same city,’” Marco says. “Because for me, my entire life, every game was like a road game, every practice was far away. It was the first time I realized how tough that was on me and my family.”
Marco’s dad was a long-time pro hockey player in Austria and Marco knew from a young age he wanted to follow in his footsteps, only across the pond in the NHL.
“I was always the fun guy on the team,” Michael says. “I was not talented, but I played in the first league and I had fun. This world was for me OK. It was not normal for a young kid in Austria then to go to Switzerland or Canada. I retired at 37, coached one year in Germany and realized quickly I needed to be there for Marco. His talent was bigger than my talent in coaching.”
Michael and Claudia met while Michael was playing professionally in the late 90s in Claudia’s hometown of Graz, Austria. She admits she knows little about hockey.
“Stanley Cup Final, I’m watching and she’s sitting on the couch asking if we can change the channel,” Marco says.
“I watch too much hockey. I’d rather watch tennis,” Claudia says, laughing. “But when I got to watch Marco in Boston last year, it was amazing.”
Claudia works for the government in a small, Austrian town issuing passports. In a lot of ways, Marco takes after his mother.
“She’s quiet, and Marco can be very, very quiet,” says Michael, quickly triggering the nodding of heads from his wife and two daughters.
“Except when he watches Formula 1,” Claudia says, again triggering laughter from the entire family.
“Yeah, when the races are on, I need total quiet from everybody,” says Marco, whose favorite racing team is naturally owned by the Austrian company Red Bull.
Marco Rossi and his girlfriend Stefanie Prast. (Dietmar Stiplovsek for The Athletic)
We get into Marco’s black Audi and drive into town for dinner at a restaurant called “Rankweiler Hof.”
It’s got everything from wiener schnitzel to tafelspitz (boiled beef) to kasespatzle, which is a heavy, cheesy dish that the Rossi family warns may not be the healthiest.
We sit at a picnic table under a beautiful canopy of greenery. Everybody in the restaurant’s courtyard clearly knows the Rossis.
Marco is the pride of the town — for who he is as a person, for what he’s developed into as a hockey player, for what he’s overcome during a difficult 18 months after being diagnosed in January 2021 with myocarditis stemming from having COVID-19.
Between the heart condition that could have been career- and even life-threatening, and the pandemic, Marco basically went a year without competitive hockey. But despite that short offseason of training last summer, Marco set the Iowa Wild rookie record with 53 points in 63 games.
Marco orders Gemischter Salat mit Rosti, which is a salad with potatoes that resemble hash browns. Stefanie orders Flädlesuppe, a traditional Austrian pancake soup in broth.
“Stefanie went to cooking school,” Marco says. “She’s a great cook.”
Stefanie blushes.
Last hockey season, Stefanie left her job at the local bank and got a visa to visit Marco in Des Moines for two extended stints totaling 5 1/2 months. Marco always returned to a home-cooked meal, which brought comfort because one of the biggest things he missed last season about home was the food, like his grandmother’s schnitzel and the local kaiserschmarrn, which is an Austrian pancake dessert.
Marco is careful what he eats. During the week, at least. Marco and Stefanie write out weekday meal plans and he sticks to them. On the weekends, he allows himself to “cheat.”
Stefanie’s best dish?
“Lasagna,” Marco says, laughing, before deadpanning, “It’s her favorite food, so it’s always a little better than anything else she makes.”
After dinner, Marco takes us up to the basilica, which is his safe haven. He’s there weekly during the offseason and was there almost daily during his health scare of 2021.
Marco and Stefanie pray together before every one of his games.
As Marco leans against a stone wall overlooking his hometown at sunset, he says softly, “So peaceful.”
“Beautiful,” Stefanie says, nodding her head.
Far from the serenity of his hometown basilica, Marco’s NHL dream awaits.
Earlier this summer, Kevin Fiala was traded to the Los Angeles Kings for a first-round pick and prospect Brock Faber. The Wild are in a big-time cap crunch and will need affordable players on entry-level contracts to make the team and make an impact the next three years.
This is frankly a big reason Marco spent every game but two in Iowa last season. Sure, he didn’t play for nearly a calendar year and Wild GM Bill Guerin, always patient with his prospects, wanted the 20-year-old to develop properly. But another pertinent factor was that if Rossi played fewer than 10 games last season, his three-year contract would slide and the expiration would align perfectly with the end of the Zach Parise-Ryan Suter buyout pain.
This way, if Marco erupts in the next three years, the Wild won’t have to fret over being able to afford to re-sign him to a bridge deal or a long-term contract.
Marco never resented the decision even as he watched other players get recalled more frequently and Matt Boldy, his first-half linemate in Iowa last season, become a full-time NHLer after the two made their NHL debuts together in Boston eight months ago.
“I believe in Billy Guerin and what his plan is for me,” Marco says. “I kept seeing fans on social media saying, ‘Bring up Rossi, bring up Rossi, this is unfair.’ Maybe if I played the entire year before, maybe I would feel different. But after playing no games because of COVID and then my heart, I knew playing 20 or 22 minutes a game in Iowa was the best thing I could have right now. As a player, I knew Iowa is where I could grow. Fans see it different. They don’t see the player’s development. They just want you in Minnesota.”
Marco, who turns 21 on Sept. 23 — one day into training camp — is so focused on making the Wild out of camp this year, he has told his family, especially his dad, that he doesn’t want any visitors the first two months of the season. He also plans to avoid social media because he doesn’t want negative or positive comments to mess with his head, especially since he knows many fans and critics are looking at him as the Wild’s Fiala replacement.
And at 21 years old, expecting Rossi to replace Fiala’s 85 points is pretty unreasonable.
“I put enough pressure on myself,” Marco says. “Social media can be really, really bad nowadays. … It’s really bad energy, not just about me, but my teammates and family and friends. So I’m going to try to avoid that and just deal with the pressure I’m going to put on me.
“I see internal pressure as a positive, not a negative.”
Marco is expected to start on a line with Boldy, who scored 15 goals and 39 points in 47 games last season.
“Playing with Bolds in Iowa was the best thing for me because he’s so smart,” Marco says. “We’re both really smart, so when I had the puck, I was looking for him and tried to have him in open space. And same thing, when he had the puck, I tried to get into open space for him. We both played the half wall on the power play and we always tried to make that seam pass to each other.”
Marco laughs loudly: “It wasn’t always there, and Tim Army let us know that.”
Marco is abundantly aware there’s a roster spot waiting for him.
“But Billy Guerin just told me, ‘Be ready for camp,’” Marco says. “That’s the first thing I heard when I came to Minnesota, that you always have to earn that spot. He’s not going to give you anything. You have to earn that spot, and that’s the way it should be. So, even though the spot is open, I know I better have a good camp.”
There have been 17 Austrians drafted in the NHL. Until Marco Kasper was drafted eighth last month by the Detroit Red Wings, Marco, at No. 9 in 2020, was the highest-drafted Austrian since Thomas Vanek was taken fifth by the Buffalo Sabres in 2003.
There are not a lot of hockey rinks in Austria, so as much as this is Marco’s proud home and the place where he can find peace, comfort and relaxation, he would never have gotten to this point without the sacrifice of daily four-hour, round-trip drives with his dad or without the courage to leave home and live across the ocean as a teenager in Ottawa.
“It’s sad,” Marco says.
The next morning after our tour of Rankweil, Marco gets in a good, hard skate with other local professionals and his trainer, former pro Dylan Stanley. Now Marco’s preparing to run his hockey camp, which brought in 160 kids from all over Europe.
“I’ll look up during a drill and see all the kids just staring at me,” Marco says, laughing. “It’s humbling. It reminds me of when I was a kid and what I used to think about Thomas Vanek or when I first met (Swiss native) Timo Meier and how I looked up to him. And now I skate with Timo every week.
“I hope these kids realize that if you believe in yourself, you can make the NHL … no matter what small country you’re from.”
Marco Rossi encourages a young player at his hockey camp. (Dietmar Stiplovsek for The Athletic)
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic. Photos: Bruce Kluckhohn, Nick Wosika / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; brandstaetter images)
Wild prospect Marco Rossi’s long road, from Austria to the cusp of the NHL & Latest News Update
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