I'd say my dad was the biggest hockey fan out of all of us, having played the game himself until he was nineteen, but my mom and younger sister were just as die-hard. They were at every game back then, cheering me on.
The goal with playing junior hockey was to learn the game, understand it, and get noticed. The Major Juniors was where hockey players got noticed and was where the NHL drafted from. In junior hockey, you lived a pro lifestyle as a teenager and experienced everything the pros experienced, aside from the money. Sure, they paid you, but not nearly as well as they did in the NHL. I used to get a hundred dollars a week, and that was pretty cool when you were fifteen, but now I saw close to a hundred thousand. And just like the pros, you ate, breathed, and slept hockey nine months out of the year. The other three months you just dreamed about it and perfected your game.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association, or NCAA, considered the Major Junior League professional level. That meant by playing in a division of the Canadian Hockey League, I lost the eligibility to play for universities in the United States, but I could play for Canada if I wanted.
That wasn't my focus. I wanted to play in the NHL and had since my first slap-shot.
To enter the NHL draft you had to be eighteen by September 15 of that year, which meant I couldn't enter the draft until 2007. I was listed first overall in the NHL Central Scouting Bureau and International Scouting Services' respective rankings of prospects that year and went on to be selected first overall in the draft by the Chicago Blackhawks.
And now, here I was, my second season in the NHL, game thirty-six, already in the record books from our 2009 season. With an eighty-two game season, not including playoffs, the season was still underway.
For now, we had that unity, and we were looking good with twenty-four wins. We had that romance.
Waking from sleep with Leo sticking his finger up my nose, the bus skidded to a stop outside the United Center shortly after midnight. "Wake up sunshine!"
Leo Orting, our scrappy center, was my best friend. We roomed together on the road, sat together on the bus, and sat together on the team plane. Anywhere we went with the team, we were together. Hockey players liked routine. We had a routine.
Leo and I grew up playing in the OHL together. When I first met him, he slammed me into the boards so hard my mouth guard flew out of my mouth, and I was sure I'd be pissing blood. The next chance I got, I did the same. In hockey, you played dirty, and you better be ready to take it dirty, too. And Leo could.
He smiled, peeling himself from the boards and said, "Nice hit, eh."
From then on, we played each other with respect. He was a year older—entered the draft before I did—but was traded the year I signed with the Blackhawks to none other than the Blackhawks. It was fun having guys like Leo on the team—ones you could count on to keep your team alive and play well together. If Leo thought for a second the morale had been lost, he'd do something to bring it back. Usually this was to someone else's public humiliation, but that was Leo.
Making our way off the bus, we unloaded equipment bags and then transferred them to our respective vehicles. Leo spent more time tossing rocket snowballs at Shelby Wright, the rookie on the team.
Leo, Dave Keller (another defenseman), and a few others made plans to stop by the local pub before heading home to their families. I wasn't twenty-one yet, so I stopped off at Smith & Wollensky and grabbed some food with Shelby before heading back to my apartment on North Wabash Ave. Even though it was pretty late, they always served hockey players.
With nearly 2.7 million residents in Chicago alone, and even at two in the morning, the streets hummed with people captivated in the lights and glamour of the city. Passing through the large buildings, I noticed the temperature had dropped considerably.
The temperature of a Chicago winter proved to be variable and fickle. Mostly, the temperature hovered around the mid-thirties for weeks at a time, and then the occasional snowstorm would blow through leaving a fresh blanket of snow. Growing up in Pittsburgh, I was used to the cold winters and snow, but this week had record lows and averaged in the single digits at night. Let's just say, these were the nights I wouldn't mind have a nice warm body to curl up to.
My eyes were half closed as I walked from the restaurant, passing cabs hauling off drunks from the local bars. The wind blew, shocking me momentarily before causing a shiver. Huddling in, I pulled my jacket tighter. Squeezing my eyes shut, I felt the tenderness of the hits I took tonight, but welcomed the cooler temperature against my burning cheeks. Each breath burned my nose from the cold and made my eyes water. It was the kind of cold that had you thinking your lungs would freeze with the slightest breath.