Do you remember how you started playing hockey? “Somewhat. My older cousins played. Friends of my family, a little older than us, played hockey. It was kind of the thing to do. The Wings were in '97, Everybody was playing hockey because they won championships every year, ’98, ’02, ’08. They were a big part of town. My parents (Ken and Kristen) were like, “Okay, today is I'll let you guys play hockey.''
(My younger brother) Brad, they put him in early, but then he didn't like it, so when I was a year older they put me in, and I love it. was. So the story is that Brad wanted to play because he liked me. Then we started playing together on the same team until we were 13, 14, moved to another team, and played together again when we were 16. We played together for a long time.
“That was the beginning. My parents didn't know anything about it, but it was popular at the time.”
Detroit is known as Hockey Town. What was it like growing up in a place where people loved sports? “That's unbelievable. I think if you look around the league you see all these players from Detroit. It makes sense. At this age group, everyone says the same thing. Many of them are from the Red Wings. It was because of the success and why everyone wanted to play. When I was a kid, I was lucky to have nine or 10 Hall of Fame players on my team and one Hall of Fame coach. We were spoiled as children watching them play. Many of us believe that it was they who made us successful, because we also played with them. Because I wanted to do the same thing. It was amazing.”
Did you often go to Wings games when you were young? “A lot. A lot of people we knew had season tickets. I remember a couple of times, in 2008 and 2009, we went to the Stanley Cup Finals and watched those games. I was in driver training, so I was 14 years old, and I remember after driver training, they picked me up and we went to the Stanley Cup Finals against Pittsburgh. We go pretty far. Whenever I can.”
When you were a child, did all your friends play together? “Everyone I knew was playing. I don't think there's a friend of mine who didn't play as a kid. It was a hot thing that showed how good the Wings were. Everyone wanted to play. We were always playing street hockey and mini-stick in the basement. There was pond hockey in the winter, so it was a good time to be a hockey player in Detroit.
“We always had a rink in our backyard. A few times a year, the big lake (Lake St. Clair) would freeze over. I had some friends who lived on the big lake, so I had to turn off the lights and shovel snow. When we had time off, we would go out there and play pond hockey. Most often it was a backyard rink. My cousin also had a link. Some of my friends had the link. We were there every day off. I was there every day after school. We played pond hockey there and just enjoyed it. ”
The city has been through a lot of hardships, are you hopeful about its recovery? “I love it. I try to tell everyone. They don't see much because we fly in, eat dinner and go to the rink. I'm not as big as you think. I'm trying to explain to you guys that it's different. I love it. I love having dinner there, going out, wandering downtown, but obviously people don't see much of that side of me. I'm a big supporter of that. I'm a fan of the city of Detroit.”
