Well before Zach Aston-Reese worked his way into his dream job, he had one of the most quintessentially American lines of work one can have.
He was a paperboy.
From sixth to ninth grade, the Blue Jackets wing would wake up early in the morning and deliver newspapers to 40 houses around his Staten Island neighborhood of Randall Manor.
“I had a nice, easy route,” he said. “Customers would get mad because I wouldn’t collect for like 20 weeks and then I’d be like, you owe $96.50 – plus tip. The bundle got dropped in front of my house. I would chuck ‘em. Got a couple complaints that the paper was in the bushes.”
That was the upbringing Aston-Reese had on the sometimes-overlooked borough of New York City. It was fitting for the working-class island just south of Manhattan, an expressway or ferry ride away from the glitz and glamour of the city that never sleeps.
For both Aston-Resse and fellow new CBJ acquisition Kevin Labanc, that was life growing up in the borough of nearly 500,000 residents. And it shows up in their play, which is part of why the two new CBJ forwards have been able to make it to the highest level of professional hockey.
“I think most people from Staten Island, they work hard,” said Labanc, who hails from New Dorp Beach. “I think when you play, you want to play the same way that you grew up with in that culture, working hard every day and just bringing it.”
The journey from enjoying Joe and Pat’s Pizzeria and Restaurant – serving classic thin crust pies since 1960 – to the NHL is a long one, but both have figured it out. The longtime friends and sometimes rivals have in many ways followed parallel paths to the NHL – as Staten Islanders, the fitting way to make it is the underdog route – and now they’ve amazingly reached an intersecting point.
Labanc was the first one to become a Blue Jacket, signing a one-year deal last Saturday after an excellent preseason with New Jersey. A 57-point player with San Jose in 2018-19, Labanc had an frustrating ending to his eight-year career with the Sharks last year and reported to the Devils on a PTO. After leading the NHL in preseason goals, he was signed by the Blue Jackets after injuries to Boone Jenner and Dmitri Voronkov left the team thin on the front line.
The same logic led to Aston-Reese’s arrival in Columbus as well. The NCAA’s leading scorer in 2015-16 at Northeastern, he had carved out a role as a dependable checking line winger with teams across the NHL the past six years before signing with Vegas this offseason. But when Aston-Reese hit waivers as teams were cutting down their rosters last week, the Blue Jackets snapped him up to add depth to the forward unit.
Suddenly, the two players who had similar paths and trained together in the offseason were teammates. They’re two of three current NHLers to grow up in Staten Island – Los Angeles forward Arthur Kaliyev was the third, though he was born in Uzbekistan – and spent their childhoods on opposite sides of the island but first met when they were squirts.
During their childhood years, they were rarely teammates, playing against each other more than with, but they’ve worked with the same development coach, Tony Samms, since high school. Though their paths would diverge – Aston-Reese worked his way from the USHL to college hockey at Northeastern, while Labanc went the OHL route – they reunited each summer to work to be the best they could be at the NHL level.
Not much was originally expected of either – Labanc was a sixth-round draft pick of the Sharks in 2014, while Aston-Reese was undrafted and signed his first contract with Pittsburgh after his college career – they never doubted the paths they were on.
“There was never really ever any panic,” Aston-Reese said. “It was always a straight vision, focusing on the path and not the trees in a way. We both took different routes and ended up in the same place. It’s kind of interesting if you think about it, but it’s always been hard work and just putting the work in. There’s no way around it.”
As they worked out with each other over the past few summers, they would compete for what they called the Chipotle Cup, as whoever lost that day’s game of soccer free kicks before training would have to buy lunch. Now on the same team with the Blue Jackets, the two can work toward capturing the Stanley Cup together.
“We always played against each other, never with each other, so this is a pretty surreal moment,” Labanc said. “We want to make the most of the situation and do well for the team and make the playoffs.”
If that were to happen, the borough of New York City that is full of fans of the local teams may have a union blue tinge.
“They love their hockey over there,” Labanc said. “You see so many people wearing Rangers jerseys, Devils jerseys. Now it’s gonna be a lot of Blue Jackets fans over there.”
