As a player, coach and mentor, there is nothing about ice hockey he does not love.
"It’s my life — it’s what I eat, sleep and breathe," Daigle said.
The defender is in Dunedin this week representing the Ice Blacks at the division 2, group B world championships and could be in line to add another medal to his collection.
But Daigle has already added something pretty special to his trophy cabinet this year — albeit off the ice.
In February, Daigle led the New Zealand under-20 men’s team to gold at the division 3, group A under-20 world championships in Turkey in a big moment for the sport
The head coach, whose efforts will see New Zealand promoted to division 2, group B next year, could not be more proud of his team who went through the tournament unbeaten.
"I’ve been with that programme for about eight years now. To finally see all the hard work come through and get that result was pretty special.
"We knew it was our best opportunity. The boys bought into every thing we were trying to do from a coaching perspective," he said.
"A really, really special team and obviously a special result."
Many of those young players he coached through the national pathway have now become his team-mates in the Ice Blacks this week.
"It’s a pretty unique thing.
"I sort of reached out to all of them after they’d been named in the team and just said it’s so crazy that our dynamic is going to change so much from the coach-to-player relationship to now just being players and team-mates.
"It’s very special."
Ice hockey has seen a shift in attention throughout New Zealand in recent times — hosting a home world championships certainly helps — and more children were taking to the ice.
It was a shift Daigle was proud to see and be part of.
"It’s a testament to all the work that’s being done at the grassroots, in my opinion.
"There’s lots of stuff going on from a national perspective as far as growing and developing learn to play programmes and starting younger.
"We’re starting to see that coming through the pipeline and the development pathway is well established now, so it’s pretty cool to see."
Guiding people through the sport is almost like second nature to Daigle, who landed in New Zealand 12 years ago.
He grew up playing sport back home in Alberta, Canada, before playing NCAA college ice hockey for 18 months when he had a near career ending injury.
It forced him to step away from the game for a while and go travelling, where he ended up in the right place at the right time and joined the West Auckland Admirals.
He joined the Auckland Ice Hockey association as head coach, is in his second season with the Ice Blacks and relished the chance to represent his adopted country.
"It’s been awesome.
"Being from Canada and not ever really getting close to representing that country, to have my life set up and established here in New Zealand and play for the national team, and represent the country’s pretty special."
Getting the chance to win a silver medal against Iceland in front of a sold out crowd for their final game tonight would the icing on the cake.
• Georgia beat Chinese Taipei 3-1 during the penultimate day of the championships yesterday.
Also yesterday, Iceland beat Thailand 6-3, and New Zealand 3 (Colin McIntosh, Regan Alexander, Justin Daigle) beat Bulgaria 2 (Veselin Dikov, Miroslav Vasilev).
