Part 1

My 8 year old legs are pumping me faster than I’ve ever gone before, but it’s still not fast enough. Eric flies by me, the puck balanced agilely on the end of his stick as he looks over his shoulder; he’s laughing. He turns back around just in time to see Marc zooming towards him from the opposite angle. They collide, their 12 and 10 year old bodies falling to the ice as a smile spreads over my face. They’re still sitting on the ice as I reach them, sliding the puck out from between them and continuing on my way to the make-shift net.

"And it’s Jordan Staal… on a break-away!”, I make a quick wrist shot and shoot the puck easily into the middle of the sideways garbage can. “He shoots, HE SCORES!!“, I throw my hands in the air, and skate back to where my brothers are, still celebrating my victory.

“That don’t count!” Marc’s standing now, pouting.

“Does too!”

“Does not!”

“Does too! If you fell down in the NHL they’d still play… just cause you fell down doesn’t mean the game stops!” I’m angry now, they always discredit my goals.

“IS IT MY TURN YET?” Jared calls from the other end of the ice.

“NO!” Marc, Eric and I all yell in unison back to the youngest Staal. His 6 year old face falls back into a frown as he throws his plastic stick down onto the ice.

“I’M TELLING!”

“Good, go! You’re too little Jared!” Marc yells over, all thoughts of our argument forgotten.

“I am not! You said I could play when I’m bigger… I’m bigger now!”

“Go home Jared!” His face falls even more and the tears form in his eyes, he drops down onto his bum sitting beside the ice, his arms folded over his chest.





“Go home Jared.” Marc’s voice snaps me out of my memory. “Yah I know… but that doesn’t matter. Go home and we’ll see you there.” Marc sighs as he snaps his phone shut and puts his phone hand back onto the steering wheel.

“What’s he saying?” I ask absently, the days of our childhood still edging in on my mind as I gaze out the window of my brother’s SUV.

“Ugh, he just doesn’t want to stay in Ontario anymore. He was at the rink saying he wanted to come down and meet us here.”

“But we’re on our way up…” I turn my full attention over to my older brother. My oldest brother is stretched out in the back seat, snoring softly as we drive through the snow on our way north to Thunder Bay.

“That’s what I said… poor kid, he’s just lonely. He’s got no one else up there… sounds like mom is driving him crazy too. She’s a lot harder on him then she was on any of us. He’s only got another year or so before they’re gonna want to pull him out of Sudbury. He’s the only one she has left now, she won’t give him up without a fight.”

I smile to myself as I think about mom. She always complained about how noisy and messy we were. She use to say she couldn’t wait until we got out of the house… “I’ll finally be able to have nice things without having to worry about you nuts breaking everything in sight!” I can still remember all the times she use to say that, usually it was well earned but, I don’t think she ever assumed we’d all be gone so soon; or so far.



4 hours later and we’re finally almost home. Driving past the old homes I can’t help but smile, it’s been so long since we’ve all been back here together but, it looks like nothing has changed; well, almost nothing.
“No way!” Marc shouts, slamming on the breaks. Apparently he’s forgotten about good old Canadian winter driving and the car lunges sideways, skidding, before coming to a stop in the middle of the highway. “Dude!”

“No Marc…”

“Dude!”

“Seriously? You’re that excited?” Somehow he’s already found a camera and is handing it to me, smiling and nodding. He pushes his door open and jumps out. The back-door opens next and Eric wakes with a start, just in time to catch himself before he falls out onto the snowy highway.

“What the hell man?” He yawns, sitting up, rubbing his eyes with both hands. Marc is already sprinting across the highway.

“Come on man!” Marc yells over his shoulder, motioning for us to follow. Eric hops out and I follow out my own door, the cold air causing me to shiver involuntary. Eric takes off across the highway too, scrambling up over the snow-plow-made slope that Marc has just topped. They both smile like idiots as they stand underneath the new ‘Thunder Bay welcome’.
The sign is almost covered by the amount of snow pushed up around it, but it is still viable; Welcome to Thunder Bay, Home of the NHL Staal Family.

I sigh and hold the camera up to my eye. I allow it to focus before taking the picture. So much had changed for all of us, and here they were, still the biggest goof balls ever. I slide the camera into my pocket as I see Eric hit Marc with a snowball.
Soon they're flying across the all but deserted highway towards where I am standing. "Hey Jordan! You throw like a Penguin!" Marc laughs, as one of my snowballs misses it's mark.

"Good thing you don't need to know how to throw a ball to win the Stanley Cup!" That shuts him up.

I smile back at my brothers who have now resorted to tackling each other into the snow banks. I turn around and head back to the car, jumping into the drivers seat. The other too jump up and head back over to the SUV, laughing and shaking snow out of their hair. They both jump into the back seat and we all laugh as we drive away. I take one last look over my shoulder at the changed sign that we once drove by so often; how the hell did we ever get here?