On Friday, February 15th, Marc-Andre Fleury and the Vegas Golden Knights made two young boys’ dreams come true. The Make A Wish Foundation set up Jace, a forward and Jay, a goalie, with the Golden Knights due to their love for the team and specifically Marc-Andre Fleury. These boys both had the time of their lives becoming Golden Knights players for the day, during a well-deserved day of fun, for two young hockey players battling some heartbreaking conditions.
Both boys are from Canada, but became huge Golden Knights fans last season, specifically during their playoff run. Jay’s mother Amanda, told us that Jay just “fell in love with the Golden Knights and Marc-Andre Fleury while he was in the hospital”. Watching the Golden Knights’ playoff run made a lasting impression on Jay. “My son has always supported Marc-Andre as he was with the Penguins, I believe and now with the Golden Knights, he just has followed him.” As a child fighting an uphill battle of his own, Jay told me that he could relate to the Golden Knights and how they came into the league as a new team, yet beat the odds and made it to the Stanley Cup finals. “Yeah, it was pretty cool. They did so good in their first season and Fleury is an awesome goalie. I was trying to learn some things from him out there.”
George McPhee looking over the boys’ contracts
General Manager George McPhee kicked off the day with the boys, signing them to one-day contracts in the press conference room at City National Arena, in front of a large crowd of journalists, approximately an hour before practice. After snapping a few photos and signing their deals, the boys headed back to the locker room to meet their new teammates and gear up. This was a big moment for the boys and I wish I could have seen their faces, as they walked into the NHL locker room to meet the team. When Jay originally saw the video from Marc-Andre Fleury, announcing that he would have the chance to meet him later that day, Jay’s mother said, “He was speechless and it’s very, very rare for him to go speechless….and all the color went from his face. I’ve never seen him like that before, it was phenomenal”.
During the Golden Knights’ practice, we had a chance to meet the parents, and hear more about the young athletes’ journeys. It was impressive to hear that Jay is able to play goalie, playing three to four times a week, while relying on a special pacemaker to keep the separate parts of his heart communicating, as needed. Jay was born with a complete heart block, which keeps his heart from communicating properly. Essentially his heart doesn’t beat fast enough, or at all at times. Amanda very graciously let us know that Jay’s pacemaker saved his life. “If it weren’t for the pacemaker, we wouldn’t be here, so we are very grateful.” It was truly admirable watching both mothers and how they handled themselves in these interview sessions, containing all of the emotions they had to be experiencing on that morning. Their sadness, relief, joy, excitement, and intrigue had to be bursting at the seams and the women showed just what a great mother does, they were there for their boys and made sure they had the best time possible. In a day centered around the Golden Knights and the boys, the mothers were certainly the glue that held the day together.
Jace and his mom’s interview session
Once the Golden Knights were finished with the full-ice, more intense portion of practice, the boys joined them, leading some stretches and that’s when the real fun began, for the packed house in attendance and the men (read: big kids) on the ice.
Jay and Jace leading the Golden Knights in stretches
It was impossible to ignore just how anxious and excited Jay was to get in net with Marc-Andre. During stretches, Jay got into his butterfly, pushing side to side over and over again, excited to get to work in goal. Meanwhile, the big kids, Jonathan Marchessault and Malcolm Subban, were play-fighting with each other over a specific spot in the stretching circle. After the team broke out of stretches, half the group went and took part in a breakaway contest (won by Valentin Zykov) against Subban, the eventual Saturday starter. Down at Fleury’s net, the other half of the team took turns taking shots on Jay and coaching up Jace as the two went head-to-head, with Fleury watching closely from the side of the net. It was hard for the skaters to hide their affinity for goals, breaking into cheers when Jace scored a goal over his counterpart Jay.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Nate Schmidt cheering on Jace
After watching Jay take a few shots, Fleury went into the net and took some shots himself, from Jace and the other Golden Knight skaters. With the infectious feeling of happiness running through the rink, the big kids booed Fleury on each save he made, even louder if he got a piece of one of Jace’s shots. Down on the breakaway net, Nate Schmidt was being his ageless self, playing up to the crowd and at one point looking at me after losing an edge pleading, “No cameras on that one!” and yelling to the crowd, “that was not a good shot”, after being stopped by Subban. At one point, Deryk Engelland and Subban began tussling on the visitor’s bench, with Subban taking a few knocks on the mask from Engelland’s stick. As practice was winding down, I even took a jab in the ribs from a playful Subban, coming off the ice. It was a wonderful feeling throughout the arena, watching the young boys live out a dream and the big boys acting like they were kids again.
Never one to shy away from a challenge, Jay ended up seeking out Ryan Reaves during the practice session for a little scrap, while the players were taking turns shooting at Fleury. Jay must have watched some tape on Reavo because he held his own and apparently put Reaves’ availability for the Predators game in question. “Uh, I think that’s my first loss in a while, actually. He surprised me, he looked real confident and had this look in his eye. He started throwing some heavy rights and caught me in the back of the head and I’m now day-to-day” Reaves joked from the locker room. When I asked him if that should get uploaded to hockeyfights.com, Reaves replied, “that’s gonna take my rating way down on there, so I hope there’s no video”.
(Sorry Ryan, I got the whole thing on tape)
Although they started out shy, the boys quickly warmed up to the large group of reporters, answering each question fired in their direction with overflowing personality. When he was told that Reaves may want a rematch, Jay quickly shot back with, “I mean, if he wants to go, I’ll drop em!”
I had the chance to ask Jay a few questions once the media scrum diffused and bit and moved on to Fleury.
Jay, in the locker room after practice
HockeyBuzz: “What was your favorite part of the day, beating Reaves in the fight or making some big saves?”
Jay: “Um, probably making some big saves. I had a bet with somebody, I forgot his name (just a little guy named Jonathan Marchessault, by the way), I said to him, “I bet out of five shots, you’ll miss four of them” and he missed all four. The fifth one went off the crossbar and I don’t know if that’s a miss or not, but, yeah it was pretty fun”.
HB: “How long have you been playing hockey?”
Jay: “Since I was about five or six.”
HB: “Have you always been a goalie or do you play other positions?”
Jay: “I started out as a defenseman, but I wanted to play goalie and I have been doing it ever since then. I liked playing defense, but I really like playing goalie.”
HB: “Any big games coming up when you get back home?”
Jay: “Well we have a game on Saturday, but I don’t think we will be back in time.”
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Turns out Jay was right, the boys wouldn’t be back in time to play on Saturday because they were special guests at the Golden Knights’ game that night against the Nashville Predators. That game was a big win, snapping a five-game home losing streak for Vegas. Is it a coincidence that the boys came in and practiced with the team the day before and then watched as the Golden Knights played their best game in recent memory? Just ask Ryan Reaves, “The kids are going through some tough times and to see them come out with a smile on their face like that, puts a smile on our face. You saw, we had fun out there and the whole team stayed out for an extra thirty minutes just to get to play with them, it was a blast.”
Vegas carried that energy over to their game against the Predators and made sure they sent the boys back home with a win. On a day that started out as the Golden Knights doing a nice thing for the boys, the boys may have unintentionally woken up the Golden Knights, potentially snapping them out of their prolonged slump. Only time will tell how the Golden Knights will finish off the season and perform in the playoffs, but this past weekend, they were simply perfect. Jay’s mother Amanda said it best, “We always tell Jay, if you do good things, good things will happen.”
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Be sure to follow me on Twitter for your Golden Knights news, updates, and analysis. There are assorted videos from the event over there.
I will be Tweeting updates throughout the game tonight against the Colorado Avalanche, so come join the conversation! Tonight’s President’s Day matchup will start at 6pm Pacific, due to the road game in the Mountain Time Zone.
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