Hockey Dreams (Touchdown Edition)

Chapter 1: New Skates

Sitting on a stool in the locker room at the Elk Arena in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on the night of my first NHL game, I can finally sit back and reflect about how in the world I got here. Standing at five feet six inches tall and weighing just over 160 pounds, I am the smallest player on the Minnesota Elk, and probably one of the smallest in the league. That won't stop me, though. I am determined to be a great NHL player.

The locker room is exactly the way I've imagined it all my life. Although I am a player now, I am still not completely comfortable in this room. It will probably be a while before I am. A few of the veteran guys on the team are looking me over as they prepare for the beginning of another long NHL season. I recognize most of them, because I have been cheering for this team since I was in diapers. Being in the same room with professional hockey players, though, is much different than watching them on TV.

My eyes dart around the room--guys are putting tape on their sticks, others listen to music, and two or three players seem to be asleep. I nod my head in the direction of a giant rookie defenseman. I remember Doug Callan from college. His eyes are the only pair in the room as wide as mine. Doug had knocked me around a few times during an NCAA tournament game we played last year. He smiles over at me, raising his eyebrows high, so that they are nearly merging with his hairline. This look seems to ask: can you believe where you and I are standing right now?

After taking a deep breath, I pull on my white, green, and red game jersey and a chill runs down my spine. I'm actually here, in the locker room of the Minnesota Elk. All the people who told me I was too short, too skinny--they were all wrong. I just celebrated my twenty-second birthday, and in about twenty minutes, my lifelong dream will come true.

I grab a pair of brand-new size eight skates from my enormous locker. The blade at the bottom of the skate is shiny and newly sharpened. My number, 44, is stitched into the back of them. As I run my finger along the skate, I close my eyes, remembering my first pair.

I was just seven years old when my parents bought them for me. They were black and white with light blue laces. I still have them today. When I opened the box they were wrapped in, I recognized them right away. They had been in the display window at the Hockey Warehouse, a sporting goods store in the Brookville Mall, for a few months. Every time we passed by the store, I would ask Mom to please buy them for me, but she'd always tell me the same thing: "Hockey is too dangerous for such a little boy, Wayne."

Each day after school let out, I would come home carrying a stack of sign-up sheets for Midget Hockey--the youngest age group for organized youth hockey in Robbinsdale. Second grade was the first year a kid could sign up. After just three weeks into the new school year, hockey flyers littered our house. I put them up with hockey magnets on the refrigerator, under Mom's pillow, in Dad's briefcase, and I even used them as place mats when Mom made me set the table. With constant pressure, and Mom realizing that other kids my age were starting to play hockey, she finally caved in. Inside the box of skates was a signed parental consent form--I was going to play hockey.

Lacing my new skates up on the living room floor was no easy task. Dad warned me about how important it is to lace skates properly. I knew that if I missed a loop or twisted the laces, the skates wouldn't respond properly and I could end up getting hurt. This knowledge forced me to really take my time. As I pulled the laces through the tiny holes in the black leather, my dad told me, "Hockey starts with your feet, Wayne. Great hockey players have great balance--great feet."

Whenever Dad started a sentence with the word hockey I always paid complete attention. And in the Miller house, lots of sentences started with that word. Jack Miller, my father, lived and breathed hockey. And from the time I was a baby, he breathed it into me. "Hockey's a game that requires talent--that's true. But the best players aren't always the most talented. They're the guys with the biggest hearts. Talent isn't enough. Size isn't enough. A great hockey player never quits, Wayne. He's always looking for a way to get involved, and get to the puck."

Putting on my new footwear was awkward and difficult. The skates were tight and very uncomfortable. They were nearly impossible to slip into. Of course, it didn't help that I tricked my mother into getting me skates one size smaller than my shoe size. After all, I figured, that was the way the pros did it. Even when I was seven, the NHL was a really big deal to me. So, a few days earlier, when Mom asked me to check the tongue of my gym shoes for my size, I told her they were a six, even though I knew they were a seven.

Because they were hockey skates, as opposed to figure skates, they were sturdy and heavy, even a bit clunky. The sharp metal blade at the base of the skate was supported by thick plastic. The tongue was huge, and the high ankle support wasn't something I was used to. To be honest, wearing them felt something like wearing cement blocks. Plus, the leather was hard and cut into my ankle.

"Do they fit?" Mom asked, unconvinced.

I hid the pained expression on my face. "Yeah, I think so."

As I struggled to wiggle my toes for Mom, all I could think of was getting on the ice and moving with the grace and speed of Wayne Gretzky--the man who is widely known as the greatest hockey player of all time. I had been following "The Great One's" career my entire life. My parents, who grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada, had been Gretzky fans since before I was born. They even had a hockey puck displayed on the mantle in the living room that he had autographed. When my parents found out they were having a boy, they easily picked out a name for me--Wayne. Needless to say, I had a lot to live up to.

Once the skates were securely on my feet, I tried to stand. I was unsuccessful. The blades dug into our grey-brown carpet, causing me to lose my balance and fall flat on my back. I smacked my head on the side of the couch but stood up again right away. Although I was a bit frustrated, I was also excited. Dad had promised to take me skating at Medicine Lake in the morning, but this simply couldn't wait. I begged them to let me go down to Mickey's Ice Arena with Dad, who was going to meet some friends for a pick-up game. I told them I could watch him play, and when he was finished, he could let me come out onto the ice. It didn't even matter if it was only for a few minutes. I just had to try out my skates on the ice--tonight.

It didn't take much pleading for them to let me go. Mom wanted to come, too, so she wouldn't miss the experience of watching me skate for the first time. When we hopped in the car, my legs felt almost completely numb from the tightness of the skates around my ankles. Still, I couldn't stop smiling.

We made our way through the winding streets of Robbinsdale, the Minnesota town where I was born. Hockey was a big part of life in our town. The town was pretty small, with a few restaurants, an ice cream shop, and a movie theatre, where all the high school kids hung out. We also had two hockey stores and three ice rinks, not including the ones at the middle school and the high school. Nobody in town ever missed a Minnesota Elk game. The NHL franchise is located in the city of Saint Paul, just a few minutes away. Although we rooted hard for our football and baseball teams, when it came to hockey, we were fanatics--we went absolutely nuts for the Elk.

The drive from our house to the ice rink was only about ten minutes, but the anticipation of finally getting on the ice made it feel more like thirty. When we pulled up and I saw the sign that read Mickey's Ice Arena, my heart jumped. Aside from a few Elk playoff games I had watched on television, my most vivid hockey memories are from the games I witnessed there live. The hockey played there was serious, rough at times, and highly competitive. Aside from pick-up games, Dad also played in the Men's Intramural League every Wednesday night. So Mom and I were always hanging out at Mickey's.

I'd been on the ice a bunch of times in my life, but never in a pair of skates. That was because I hadn't owned skates until an hour earlier. For the first time, I was going to step onto the ice and actually skate! I looked over at my mother and she smiled. She shut the car off and said, "Now, Wayne, this is your first time out there, so promise me you'll take it slow." I had a history of being a little too fearless in my life, like the time I rode my bike down an ice-covered hill in Lion's Park with the older boys in my town. I hit a bad bump, flew over my handle bars, and broke my arm. Mom already looked worried.

"I promise," I said with my smile spreading from ear to ear.

My mother and I sat in folding chairs just on the outskirts of center ice. My dad waved at us as he grabbed his hockey stick and jumped onto the ice. Although I loved watching him play, tonight was different. Tonight was going to be my turn. I could hardly stay seated as I watched Dad and the other men skate with speed around the rink, and hit the puck with such force that it became invisible. At one point, a man much smaller than my dad came from behind him and smashed him against the wall. Dad went down, but got up quickly and smiled at me. I didn't smile back. I was too busy daydreaming about being on the ice, starting Midget Hockey, and eventually playing alongside Dad.

At six feet four inches tall, Dad had been a powerful forward for his high school team. He set a Canadian scoring record during his junior season. There's a really cool plaque up at his high school with his name on it. Dad says that if things would have gone differently, he would have made it to the NHL. But when he broke his leg badly during the last game of his senior season, his NHL dreams fell apart. Dad was in a wheelchair for a year. Eventually, he was able to walk, and skate again, too. By that time, though, his window of opportunity had closed. Hockey became his hobby, but it was no longer a career option.

These pick-up games were something he did for fun, but that didn't mean he didn't take them seriously. During league games on Wednesday nights, a different side of my father would come out. He was a competitor, a warrior, a tough-as-nails athlete, who, though well past his prime, could still play the game at a high level. I desperately wanted to play like him some day--but even better.

Just when I thought I couldn't wait another second to get on the ice, the game paused for a moment. Dad said something to one of his teammates and skated over to us at full speed. His legs pumped as he pushed off the ice with smooth and powerful movements. When he was about five feet from us, he stopped short, pushing the side of his skate into the ice, and spraying a thin mist of snow right at my face. As I wiped the snow from my eyes, Dad grabbed me, lifting me in the air and over the boards.

He planted me on the ice and I held his shirt for balance. He then called over to the man who had just crushed him a moment earlier. "Phil, let's call it a night, okay? Little Wayne got a pair of skates. He's gonna try 'em out for a bit."

Even though I was just seven years old, I'll never forget standing there on the ice. I'll never forget how strange the slippery surface felt beneath the blades. In that moment, I couldn't understand how Dad moved the way he did. I couldn't imagine ever being in control like that on the ice. It was too slippery, the blade was too thin, my ankles kept rolling, and I kept falling to the ground. And I hadn't even tried to skate yet! It didn't make sense. How was it possible to have control of my body when all of my weight was concentrated on a blade no thicker than the point of a pencil? Standing on ice in sneakers was hard enough! How was I ever going to be good at this?

I never had the chance to answer those questions, because in the midst of my doubts, Dad grabbed me by the hand and started to skate. "Hang on tight!" he yelled.

He took off, pumping his legs and moving his arms quickly, up and down across the sides of his body. For a forty-year-old man, he was lightning fast. We started at center ice and made our way toward the far goal first. "Do you want me to slow down, Wayne? If you're scared, I can."

Although every ounce of logic in my brain was telling me to say yes, my sense of adventure took over. "No! This is great! Go faster!"

"Faster? Okay--here we go." Then he really took off. We skated from goal to goal at full speed. Tiny pieces of ice shot up and hit my face as Dad's skates cut across the ice. My brown hair blew back from my face in the wind. I was really skating! Well, my father was skating--I was coasting. Still, it felt amazing! Holding tight to Dad's jacket, the thin blades on the base of my new skates kissed the ground below them, barely making contact with the ice.

"Yeah!" I yelled at the top of my lungs. "I'm flying!"

Mom watched us closely from outside the rink, occasionally yelling "slow down" or "Jack, he's a little boy!" Dad skated with me holding onto him tightly for awhile. Occasionally I slipped, but I was scooped up by my father, who never stopped moving or lost his balance--even for a second.

After about ten minutes, we reached the far goal and Dad stopped. Sweat beads had formed on his head and he was breathing heavy. With his hands resting on his knees, he told me to try skating on my own for a bit. So I did. Even though I never got more than a few feet without falling, I was hooked on the feeling. I listened carefully to Dad's advice, bending my knees and pushing off the ice, using the back of my blades as an anchor.

"Stay right here," Dad said, skating back to the far goal, where two hockey sticks lay on top of the empty net. He grabbed them both and made his way back toward me near center ice. Then he handed me a stick that was much too big for me. He dropped a puck onto the ice. I slowly skated forward until I was about twenty feet from the goal, staring at it. "Take a shot, Wayne. Shift your weight back with the stick and then forward when you hit the puck. But stay low. And make sure to hit the ice before the puck. Oh, and snap your wrist on the follow-through, too." I looked back at him with one eyebrow raised in confusion.

"Just hit it," he said.

Easy for you to say, I thought. I zeroed in on the goal as I tried to stay balanced. Then I imagined myself being a professional with an open shot. I bent my knees the way I'd seen Wayne Gretzky do a thousand times before as he unleashed a slap shot. I gripped the giant stick with two hands, one near the top and one closer to the middle. Then I reached back and swung at the puck with all of my might, hitting the ground about six inches behind it.

Because the stick was so large, I lost my balance and fell backwards. The follow through of my stick still connected with the puck. Even though I was falling, I made sure to snap my wrist. Dropping my stick to the ground, I hit the ice with a loud thud and banged my head on the hard surface.

I lay there on the ice with a big bump on my head. Mom ran out to see if I was okay. She yelled at my father as he skated over to me. She sat down in front of me, blocking my view of the goal as she rubbed my head. My eyes welled up with tears, but I fought hard against crying. "Are you okay, sweetheart?" Mom said, kissing the top of my head.

"You alright, champ?" Dad followed. "Keep your balance next time. I liked the way you snapped your wrist, but you have to focus on the--"

"Jack!" Mom interjected. "The boy just hit his head. Give him a second." Dad never stopped coaching me.

A single tear streamed down my cheek. As Dad lifted me back up to my feet, I looked over his shoulder through the tears. There, sitting in the corner of the goal, was the puck. I'd made it.

A huge smile swept across my face.