brothers_bigread

It's not unique for brothers to play in the NHL. For a host of reasons, it is happening more lately, especially so for siblings who are the sons of retired players.

But of the more than 20 sibling combinations playing in the NHL right now, the Devils are represented more than any other club.

First, there's Jack Hughes and his older brother, Quinn, the outstanding Vancouver Canucks defenseman who was a Calder Trophy runner-up last season. Luke, the youngest of three Hughes brothers, will be a high draft pick in this year's NHL Draft.

Secondly, there is P.K. Subban, and his younger brother, Malcolm, who tends goal for the Chicago Blackhawks. Jordan Subban, who, like P.K., is also a defenseman, was a draft pick of the Vancouver Canucks and has played more than 230 games in the American Hockey League.

Beyond the Hughes and Subban brothers, there are the Boqvist boys. Adam Boqvist, younger than Jesper by about 22 months, is a defenseman with the Blackhawks. Jesper has already suited up in more than 50 NHL games for the Devils since he was selected 36th overall in the 2017 NHL Draft. The Boqvists made their NHL debuts about a month apart - Jesper's came first - at the beginning of last season.

Subban Brothers
Boqvist Brothers

On the Devils roster right now, Michael McLeod had his best NHL season after being selected 12th overall in the 2016 NHL Draft. Two years later, Ryan McLeod, his younger brother, was taken 40th overall by the Edmonton Oilers. Like his brother, Ryan had his best season as a pro and earned a callup to the Oilers to finish the season.

Back in Newark, right wing Tyce Thompson made his Devils debut in April against his older brother, Tage, a member of the Buffalo Sabres. Tyce Thompson registered his first NHL point just four minutes into that game. Tage, also a forward, is now in his fourth NHL season, most of it spent with the Sabres after being drafted and debuting with the St. Louis Blues.

Tyce Thompson and Nolan Foote are both rookie pros and among the Devils brightest prospects. Like Thompson, Foote also has an older siblingin the NHL. Foote made his NHL debut about two weeks after Thompson. Like Thompson, he had an assist in his first game. In his second contest, he scored his first NHL goal.

Cal Foote, two years older than Nolan, is a defenseman in his rookie NHL campaign with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Are you seeing a trend yet?

We’re not sure if there is anything to read into this but the Boqvist, Foote, Hughes, McLeod and Thompson brothers – 10 boys in total – were born within a 40-month stretch from late-1997 to May 2001.

There’s more: Graeme Clarke had a good start to his professional career in Binghamton at just 19, taking advantage of an opportunity to play in the American Hockey League a year earlier than usual because the pandemic has halted play with his junior club, the Ottawa 67’s. Clarke has signed an NHL contract that kicks in for 2021-22.

Clarke’s younger brother, Brandt, is expected to be a high draft pick in July.

So, with Graeme now signed and in the organizational fold, combined with Brandt’s lofty Draft status, we’ll count the Clarke brothers as Devils- connected NHL sibling combo (in waiting). If that weren’t enough, Brandt Clarke and Luke Hughes are expected to be taken close to one another in the top-10 selections on July 23.

That brings the total sibling combos of which one half plays for the Devils, or is part of the organization, to seven. That’s also between a quarter and a third of the NHL’s total, which itself is at an all-time high.

The Devils numbers could easily have been more if not for Joey Anderson – brother Mikey plays for the Los Angeles Kings – being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Andreas Johnsson last summer. And Eric Comrie, who played a single game for the Devils in goal this year but was lost on waivers, is the younger brother of retired NHLer, Mike Comrie.

And finally, a few Devils prospects have younger brothers who could bear watching in the coming years, but that’s enough for now.

Historically, the Devils have seen five pairs of brothers play for the team: Aaron and Neal Broten, Claude and Jocelyn Lemieux and Scott and RobNiedermayer, all missed one another in New Jersey; the Giontas were members of the organization at the same time but Brian had moved to Montreal by the time Stephen suited up for the Devils. The Sundstrom twins (Patrick and Peter) are the only brothers who have played together on the Devils and that was for just 21 games during the 1989-90 season.

Could the Sundstrom twins soon have company in that rare category? If the Devils select Luke Hughes or Brandt Clarke, that is likely to happen over the next few years.

Understandably, Jack Hughes would welcome sibling company on the Devils.

“If he’s (available) I would want us to take him,” said Jack to NJD.com’s Catherine Bogart. “I’d love to have him in New Jersey but if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out.”

Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald was asked a similar question when the regular season wrapped up.

“We are going to be true to the process,” said Fitzgerald, when asked by NHL.com’s Mike Morreale if he had an inkling that Luke Hughes is of interest because of Jack.

“I’m sure the Hughes family is very excited about where Luke is going to be… it must be exciting to have two NHL players under the same roof, never mind a future NHL player.

“Must be the water in the Hughes house.”

It could be. But beyond that, to a certain degree the reasons are simple and obvious why brothers follow each other into pro hockey. One sibling sets a standard, giving the younger brother a target to focus on.

Karl Subban is a retired Toronto high school principal and father of P.K., Malcom and Jordan. He is also the co-author of a book How We Did It: The Subban plan for hockey, school and life. During a recent phone conversation, he made an especially interesting observation about how hockey brothers can grow and mature with each others’ help, but also from the guidance the game gives them.

“Hockey can be the extra parent,” he said. “It helps them grow … P.K. was more mature at 25 than I was at the same age."

There are lessons on the ice, too, some of the tough love variety.

Graeme Clarke
Brandt Clarke

Last season, Graeme Clarke returned to the 67’s after a long injury absence to twice play Brandt, who was in his rookie Ontario Hockey League season with the Barrie Colts. The 67’s were Canada’s top-ranked team at the time, the Colts were one of the league’s youngest clubs.

The first contest was a close 67’s win in OT in Ottawa, the family’s hometown. The Clarkes were all in Barrie for the second game to watch a convincing 7-0 win, with Graeme picking up three points and the game’s first star.

“It was nice to put a minus on him,” said Graeme at the time, with a clinical disposition that is a birthright of elder siblings.

Occasionally younger siblings get revenge in surprising ways.

This season, Dawson Mercer, the Devils first-round pick (18th overall) in the 2020 NHL Draft, was itching to get back into action for the Chicoutimi Sagueneens after sitting out multiple pandemic quarantines. His second game back was against the Drummondville Voltigeurs, the team for whom his younger brother, Riley, plays in net.

Mercer scored a hat trick against the Volts other goalie, who was pulled for Riley in the third period. That set the stage for the boys to face each other for the first time in a competitive game.

Dawson was licking his chops – did he pour it on?

“Nope, I had one shot and he stopped me,” explained Dawson. “It was sort of a semi-break in, but he made a really good save on me.”

And then there are stories growing up playing road and street hockey. The McLeod brothers are alleged to have engaged in some legendary tilts, teaming up against each other, and the Strome brothers, Ryan (NYR), Dylan (Chicago) and Matthew (Philadelphia prospect) in Mississauga, Ont., a Toronto suburb where both sets of brothers lived near one another.

“I used to hear these stories,” recalls James Boyd, who was coach/GM for the Mississauga Steelheads, for whom the McLeod brothers played junior hockey, “and how intense things got – legendary road hockey battles – involving the McLeod and Strome boys.”

Tales of sibling achievement and rivalry is not complete without mentioning the famous Sutter clan. Six of seven boys from that Alberta family made it to the NHL, with former Devils head coach Brent Sutter having the longest and most distinguished career. Only eldest brother, Gary, whoset the bar when they were all young kids, never played in the NHL. Gary Sutter has had a good life with few regrets. He even won the lottery – literally – taking home more than $1 million, his share of a group prize that struck the winning number in a Canadian draw about 15 years ago.

Proof of how important a role model is for younger brothers, all Gary Sutter’s siblings are adamant that he was every bit as good as they were, maybe better, while they were growing up. Gary Sutter was also the only one to play defense.

Hardscrabble farm boys, the Sutters are not only numerically the best example, the stories of how they got there are the best, and they do not always meet PG guidelines. During a recent Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, Brent Sutter described how the boys, from Gary on down, were ruthless with one another on the family farm.

“On the frozen sloughs, if it was a full moon, we’d play all night long,” remembered Sutter. “In the summer, we’d throw all the bales out of the hay loft and play (ball hockey) up in the hay loft … neighbor kids would come over, we’d have tournaments, hockey wasn’t a six-month game for us, we’d play year-round.”

“It would get pretty intense sometimes and you’d hear (foot) steps, Dad, walking up the steps, you could hear him coming up and we’d be like ‘OK, we all better stop right now.'”

Sean Pronger
Chris Pronger Hall of Fame

Though without any Devils connection, another notable sibling connection were the Prongers. A Stanley Cup and Olympic champion, Chris Prongeris now in the Hall of Fame. Two years older than Chris, Sean Pronger scratched out a 260-game NHL career with seven teams across a decade of pro hockey. Sean’s career was brilliantly chronicled in his 2013 book, Journeyman, which he wrote with co-author Dan Murphy. Of the many hilarious stories, Sean provides a vivid description of how edgy sibling competition can get when growing up.

“I wish I would have taped our street hockey games,” wrote Sean Pronger in Journeyman. “We played after school and then after dinner. On the weekends, as soon as everyone was up, it was Game On. Our games weren’t about trying fancy new moves. No way. Our games were life and death. It wasn’t considered a game until someone was bleeding. And that would happen often.”

One can only imagine what Eila Pronger thought when her boys came through the door of the family home in Dryden, Ont. Her face probably looked a lot like Kim Thompson’s face did one day late last summer when the Thompson boys returned home after a training session that got, well, Sutter/Pronger-level heated.

During a recent conversation, Tyce didn’t seem too bothered.

“Typical brother stuff, but nothing too bad,” he said of any sibling dustups with Tage.

Typical for hockey brothers is a bit different than average brothers. Their father offered a bit more detail.

“Well, there was a little incident this summer just before Tage went back to Buffalo, and Tyce back to Providence,” recalls Brent Thompson, matter-of-factly.

“I think there was a bit of a battle and they dropped the gloves. They shook hands after … I know they were laughing about it by the time they got home.”

Mom was not laughing.

“She wasn’t very happy,” said Brent, of his wife’s reaction.

The former Kim Oliver could not have imagined what she was in for when she attended her sister’s wedding three decades ago in Phoenix, her hometown. Taking place at the same banquet facility that night was the Phoenix Roadrunners rookie party/dinner.

Thompson Brothers

"I think there was a bit of a battle and they dropped the gloves. They shook hands after … I know they were laughing about it by the time they got home."

- Brent Thompson, father of Tyce and Tage

Like Tyce now, Brent Thompson was a rookie pro at the time and was playing for the Roadrunners of the old International Hockey League. Rookie parties back then were the stuff of legend, but it’s safe to say that Brent Thompson was the first (and probably only) professional hockey player to meet his future wife on the night of his team’s rookie party.

“He’s the original Wedding Crasher,” said Tyce, of his parents meeting.

As that story suggests, Brent Thompson has pretty much seen it all in his pro career. He played 121 games for the Los Angeles Kings and Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotes. He had a long run in the AHL, where he’s now head coach of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

Even with his background, Brent Thompson marvels at the circuitous journey that minor/youth hockey has put Kim through and how she managed it.

“There is really no job like a minor hockey mom,” said Brent Thomson. “It’s like being a single mom, really. She covered everything that I couldn't because I wasn’t there as much as I could have been, and should have been, because of my job.”

Tyce marvels as well:

“It was amazing what she sacrificed for us,” he remembers. “I’d need to be in Chicago for a tournament, my brother would have to be somewhere else two hours away. There were hotel stays. She made it work, every time.”

Kids play sports for fun and the competition, of course, but as they get older and better at it, elite athletes naturally start to think about the possibility of playing at the highest level.

There are no guarantees and that was fine for Karl Subban.

“I was always just fascinated with hockey when I moved to Canada,” he said of his immigration to Sudbury, Ontario.

Canadians bristle at the stereotype of their country being covered in snow and ice for most of the year. That’s because the reality is that most Canadians live within a two-hour drive of the American border and winter is, sure, cold, but manageable.

Not Sudbury. It is a northern Ontario town notable for producing Alex Trebek and hockey players, its mining industry and the Wolves, its Ontario Hockey League team. The late, great Canadian folk singer, Stompin’ Tom Connors, who penned The Hockey Song, also sang, Sudbury Saturday Night, an epic ballad about life in a hard-driving, hard-living, freezing-cold mining town.

That’s where Karl Subban arrived when he was 12 from Jamaica. He didn’t even know how to grip a hockey stick. All he knew was that it was different than how one holds a cricket bat.

“It was just a dream for me as a young kid (learning about hockey), but I still pinch myself that this has happened for my boys, for P.K. It is such a small percentage of boys who make it to the NHL, or even to get drafted, and I’ve had three.

“You really need a lot of luck, too.”

Subban Brothers and Dad

Luck shined on Karl Subban when he was invited to play and hang out with a group of largely French-speaking kids on Peter St., where his family lived in Sudbury. Perhaps because of the French connection, Karl became a Montreal Canadiens fan (Karl has barely put a foot wrong in his life, but you can’t expect perfection).

Now a grandfather who has raised five grown children – two daughters came before his three hockey-playing sons and after becoming a Toronto high school principal, Karl Subban still comes across as a wide-eyed kid from Sudbury. A Sudbury kid with a trace of a Jamaican accent that creates an especially bold cadence when he’s making an important point. Like this one:

“When kids get older, they may not want to be around you as much, but they don’t love you any less. I have my theories (how to motivate kids) when they are younger … I think you always have to be there and be with them as much as you can and actually get down to do things with them, to play (hockey) with them.”

Subban recognizes that that sort of commitment isn’t always possible for all parents, but says that nurturing a proper environment is almost always possible. It’s also critically important because the love of the game, or any sport, grows organically in just such a setting.

“I never said ‘no,’ but I also didn’t have to push, either. P.K., Malcolm and Jordan always wanted it,” remembers Karl. “P.K., the boys, were always coming to me saying ‘Daddy, let’s go shoot pucks.’”

Brent Thomson grew up in Alberta. Even with the different background, his and Kim Thompson’s approach resonates with the one that Karl and Maria Subban used.

“Kim and I always encouraged the boys, but we never pushed them,” he said.

The commitment required to enroll a single child through competitive sports is expensive and time consuming. To put siblings through elite hockey is astronomical.

Equipment costs for ever-growing kids are one thing, but at least gear can be passed down. Registration and travel, time off work, all add to the bill and are fixed costs. Extra training and specialized coaching costs bubble up by the teenage years. To a certain extent, the spike in sons of retired NHLers following their fathers into the league is a practical, but also concerning result of that commitment.

If you’re around that environment from a young age, not only does it rub off on you, it also provides opportunity that is much harder to come by for kids who are not fortunate enough to have a professional athlete as a parent. You still must navigate the long odds of which Karl Subban referred to. To say nothing of taking advantage of the opportunity when it comes, or else the equally talented prospect sitting in the stall beside you may well take your job.

“Both my brother and I, we’ve been very fortunate to have been around an NHL team,” said Nolan Foote in a recent interview, of growing up around his father, Adam, and his Colorado Avalanche/Columbus Blue Jackets teammates. Foote repeated that sentiment in comments he made to the media after his NHL debut.

Examining the Devils siblings list is quite fascinating in this regard – the background of their parents.

In addition to Ellen Hughes being an outstanding three-sport athlete, Jim Hughes was a player at Providence before getting into coaching, including stints with both the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs organizations. It’s not hard to imagine Quinn, Jack and Luke gravitating to elite sport in general, and hockey in particular, growing up in the Hughes household.

Brent Thompson had a long pro career, both as a player and coach, and that surely helped both Tyce and Tage.

“We were always at the rink with him when we were really young,” Tyce said of his early years when his dad was still playing in the AHL. “And (as a result) being a professional hockey player is always something I wanted to do."

On the other hand, P.K. (and Malcolm/Jordan) Subban is a first-generation Canadian and the son of a teacher/principal. Graeme (and Brandt) Clarke’s dad, Chris, is an orthodontist.

The list seems roughly split down the middle between sons of athletes or not. Obviously, NHL players earn enough money to afford it when their kids begin to compete in high-level hockey. But as youth hockey has grown more expensive, for players whose parents weren’t pro athletes, they tend to have white-collar and/or middle-class (or higher) backgrounds.

On a broader level it’s a worrying trend, and not one unnoticed by the parents of Devils and B-Devils.

“Costs for kids sports are crazy,” said Brent Thompson, “but that seems to the way with everything, for all sports. I also think that hockey doesn’t need to be (a year-round) sport. It’s important that kids take a break from hockey, play other sports. I know that’s what my boys did.”

Forever one to see the positive side in pretty much everything, Karl Subban notes that there has been progress in accessibility for people of color and other backgrounds. He says that he’s encouraged that more of that progress will come.

“Hockey hasn’t always been welcoming for everyone,” he remembers, citing cost as one of the reasons that shut-outs kids of all backgrounds, but especially people of color.

“When the boys were growing up, it was always easy (for others) to assume whose parent I was. But now that isn’t always the case. There are other players who look like my sons. Most NHL games now have a (Black) player involved in some way. And even more so in junior and minor hockey. I think things are getting better, definitely.”

For all the time commitment and cost, being inclusive is free.

“When those kids on Peter St in Sudbury invited me to play,” remembers Subban, “Ah, man, that’s all it took. I was in.”

One wonders if the story of the Subban family had been different if that invite not been extended.

Now, Karl Subban deals with an entirely different change brought on by hockey.

“Everywhere I go, I’m no longer Karl Subban,” he says, with a hearty laugh, “I’m just P.K.’s dad."