The T-Shirt: Eat, Sleep, Live Hockey | FEATURE

One of the first t-shirts Jesper Bratt’s mom bought him as a kid had a very simple message. Scrawled out on the front were four words:

Eat, Sleep, Live Hockey.

Little did Karin Bratt know, but that t-shirt would, in some ways, become the motto of the Bratt family’s life; especially Jesper’s.

“He lived that. He did that all the time. Everything was hockey,” she said from the stands of RWJBarnabas Health Hockey House just prior to the Devils and their moms departing for a road trip in Washington.

She is here in New Jersey on her first Moms' Trip, eight years into her son's incredible rise to stardom in the NHL.

Those words - eat, sleep, live hockey - are everything that Jesper has done, and continues to do, to get to this point where he can share in this noteworthy experience with his mom. It has been a lot of eating, sleeping and living hockey to arrive at this moment. And boy is Karin glad they're here because this was the only outcome in life that Jesper was looking for.

“I am so glad that he came all the way,” she laughed. “Because he never had a backup plan. Never.”

Turns out he didn’t need one. And he worked hard to make sure he didn’t.

“When he was young, he wanted to go to a hockey school,” Karin said. “I said, ‘No, you need to meet normal, regular people also. You have to have other friends too.’”

Even if his mom pushed back on going to a hockey school, she likely knew her son well enough to know that he was going to let few, if anything, stand in his way.

Hockey school or not, he was driven to succeed.

“He always believed in himself,” Karin said. “But then there were times that were better, then some were worse for him. But he just pushed himself. Pushed himself, maybe too hard sometimes, but I think he always believed in himself.”

His self-assuredness isn't about ego. Talk to him for just one minute and you'll know there is no ego that exists. It is all about putting in the work, the hard work that drives Jesper toward success. He is now approaching game 500 of his NHL career, which may have once seemed like an unlikely milestone to reach by 25 years old after being drafted in the sixth round in 2016.

Instead, Jesper is top 5 in points among active sixth-round picks in the NHL, with 387 in 494 games. Ahead of him are all players who have played 650 or more games and are all at least six years his senior. It’s a remarkable rise up the ranks, and one Karin is awfully proud of. Not only because of the success her son has found, but because of what it says to others.

"I think it's great for other children to see that, that nothing is impossible just because you're not drafted in the first round," she said. "They get more chances, and if you're not drafted there, you need to be so much better than anybody else just to have a chance. Just to even get on the team. And then also, when he came here to New Jersey, it was a good team because they were on the rebuild and everything, so he got this chance and he took it when he got drafted; he came here and went even further. I am so proud of him."

When Bratt arrived in New Jersey for his first training camp in 2017, the expectation was that he would play Junior hockey with London, but that never happened. Instead, Jesper forced the Devils' hand. He made the team out of training camp, bursting onto the scene, his skating and skills on display, and never looked back. It's that determination to eat, sleep and live hockey, that leaves Jesper with no shortage of determination to constantly get better.

Her son has become a cornerstone of the franchise. He, along with captain Nico Hischier, are the longest tenured Devils on the team and were the start of a rebuild to where the club finds themselves today: on the verge of something big.

Karin is happy her son has his friend Nico by his side.

“I think it's so important that they have each other,” she said. “They know everything, they know what they're talking about. They've been there every step of the way together. Good times, bad times. I think it's super, super important for them.”

Yet another thing that makes Karin so proud.

"Oh my god, I can't even describe it," she said. "He's so dedicated to everything he does. He does it all to perfection. I am really, really proud of him."

She is infinitely proud of her son and what he has done to chase his dream.

Eat, sleep, and live hockey.