His family encouraged him to play hockey as an outlet, and his father would often drive him to distant games in his police car, an experience Boogaard was to recall fondly later in his life. He quit hockey briefly at the age of 12, but his family talked him into returning. In his early teens he stated that his goal in life was to play in the NHL, and idolized Wendel Clark, another Saskatchewan native who was at the time the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs.