Katja Hischier softly put her hand to her heart. She was just asked about her son, the captain of the New Jersey Devils, Nico.

“It’s very special,” she beamed.

Katja is as soft-spoken as he is and exudes a palpable joy when talking about the man her son has become since the first day he arrived in New Jersey in 2017. He was just 18 years old then, a fresh-faced kid, the bright NHL lights thrust upon him.

“He (left); he was a young boy, now he is an old man,” Katja laughed, thinking back on those early days.

In truth, 25 is not old, but Nico Hischier does have an old soul wisdom about him. He speaks with a knowledge and a certainty well beyond his years.

“It’s incredible, really incredible. I often think, ‘Is this Nico? My youngest? Wow. He speaks like an old man.'” Katja said whimsically.

But in all seriousness, as his mom sees it, this is still the same Nico he was as a young boy that she and her husband Rino raised from the start.

Already eight years into his NHL career, Katja has watched her son handle the highs and lows of life in the NHL, far away from their home in Switzerland. In a way, she says, her son has grown up in two different worlds.

In New Jersey, he’s an NHL star, the captain, living the fast-paced life of a professional athlete, hoping on and off planes, battling every night on the ice. It can be intense, with a rare instant to take a breath. While in New Jersey, that’s how he thrives. But at home in Switzerland, life slows down when he is among the mountains, the lakes and his family. In Switzerland, that’s what makes him thrive.

The important thing, Katja says, is that Nico is himself in both realities. Although the circumstances of his life change drastically from hockey season to off-season, he never changes. He has remained the same Nico in both.

“I think he can make a good difference between normal life and this bubble energy (of the NHL),” she said. “The bubble is special, but it’s not normal life. I try to change this in the summer when he is home, for four months. And then he comes here (to New Jersey). That’s important.”

© Courtesy of Nico Hischier's Facebook

When Katja has the opportunity to visit her son in New Jersey, she prefers to come alone. She doesn’t even need to see a game she says, though of course she’s happy to as well. She just wants to have time with her youngest son.

“I say to Rino, ‘We don’t come (to New Jersey) together,” she laughs. “When I am here, I want to be with (only) Nico.”

When Katja has that time to share with her son, they like to cook, she says. They watch TV and tackle the odd puzzle together, too. But most of all, what Katja loves about spending time with Nico is their conversations.

Rarely, if ever, does hockey play part of their conversations. Instead, they are interested in talking about life. And not necessarily in the superficial day-to-day life talk, though she’d be happy to hear about that as well, but Katja says she and her son often find themselves asking and trying to answer the bigger questions about the world in which we live.

“Philosophy,” she responded when asked about what they like to talk about. “Like, what are we doing here? He’s just interested. What’s the history of our world, humans, and the universe.”

Katja asserted that her son has always had that curiosity of life. He was a good student and always interested in the world around him.

“The human side (of life),” she emphasized.

When he played in Halifax, he still had schooling, but he still craved to know more. She shared that even at 16 Nico always wanted to learn something. Perhaps that’s part of what set him up to be the perfect captain for the Devils, named at such a young age. He could handle it.

He cares about people and humanity and that has to be the foundation of any successful team.

“He wants all of them to feel they belong,” she said of her son’s teammates. “Nico is good to all. It’s not important (to him) if you are the president or a regular worker. You are all the same.”

“He likes harmony,” she adds. “He is so calm.”

Those qualities are likely why Nico is so revered by his teammates, both young and veterans. He is quiet and calm, but he is someone whose energy everyone wants to follow. He has, on several different occasions, been called the heartbeat of the team, and learning more about Nico, the person, through his mother’s eyes, there’s little doubt as to why.

It is not just because of the ‘C’ stitched to his jersey, it is because of who he is at his core, still very much that same Nico that left Switzerland at 16 for North America to humbly chase his dream.

This trip and time Katja has to share with her son is special. Yes, she is excited to see what it’s like inside the team plane, to visit Washington, and to spend a day in the life of her son on a road trip. But what is the most important part of it all she says, is that she gets to experience it with him.

“To experience it with him, I don’t know if it’s important to him, I think it is, but for me, it’s such a nice experience and I am so thankful,” she beams.

And while Katja is happy sharing these moments with her son, she is happy too, he still returns home every summer to decompress among the Swiss mountains, lakes and life.

It’s where he finds his bit of tranquility. Where the bubble energy of months in the NHL grind can find a bit of release.

And of course, she has her son home before it starts all over again.

“This is good for our family,” Katja said. “We miss him very much.”