Stars on and off the ice.

Pat Mullane with a St Col's student

I walked into Conte a couple of weeks ago to go watch practice but when I entered, instead of hearing whistles and pucks banging against the boards, I heard soft Christmas music and instead of practicing, I saw the players were skating around with fifth graders. At first I was really confused about what was going on but I soon realized that the Eagles were skating with their "buddies" from the St Columbkille school just down the street in Brighton. It is pretty amazing how these players with all the hockey, academics, and other stuff they have to take care of take the time out of their days to go down and skate with these kids. Every boy in the fifth grade at St Col's  has a mentor on the men's hockey team while every fifth grade girl has a mentor on the women's hockey team. It is pretty cool to watch because you can just see how the players make these kids days just by spending a couple of hours with them. The kids and their parents got to meet all of the players and at the end they took a group picture. Every couple of weeks the team will take a bus down to the school or the kids will all come to Conte to just play around on the ice and have some fun. Head Coach Jerry York said of what the players are doing "I want good players, but I want better young men", they may be the best team in the country on the ice but off the ice the Eagles are also #1 in these kids hearts.