Burnside: Slavin's Story

RALEIGH, NC. - By the time Jaccob Slavin was in his first pair of skates, the third of five hockey-playing Slavin children, the folks at the local rink had given up any idea of enforcing age rules.

"They were, 'Oh, it's the Slavins, he can start when he's two," mother Wendi recalled with a laugh.

And nobody seemed to bat an eye when Jaccob learned to skate by tottering from one M&M candy to the next strategically placed on the ice, five feet apart.

Jaccob recalled the pattern vividly. Find an M&M. Plop to the ice. Eat it. Get up. Totter on to the next one and so on.

"He was very motivated by the M&Ms," Wendi recalled. "What kid doesn't love M&Ms, right?" Jaccob observed.

"That's how I got comfortable I guess on the ice."

Funny how memories can influence behavior even years later, a line from the past to the present to the future.

"I did that trick with Emersyn," Jaccob said. Truth be told, though, Jaccob's three-year-old, adopted at birth three years ago during the Hurricanes' first playoff series in a decade, seemed more interested in savoring the candy than in bouncing back up to get to the next one.

"She was enjoying her time on the ice," Jaccob said with a laugh.

Later this summer Jaccob and his wife Kylie will welcome a son to the family.

The family's new addition will provide for new experiences on a number of levels, not the least of which is that Kylie is giving birth to their son as opposed to the couple adopting Emersyn.

Emersyn's long-awaited arrival happened the day after Game 1 of the Hurricanes' 2019 first-round playoff series against defending Stanley Cup champion Washington, and Jaccob found himself jetting back and forth between the Raleigh area where Emersyn was born, and Washington, where the Hurricanes eventually upset the defending Stanley Cup champs in seven games.

This time the external hockey pressures won't be as acute. The couple's son will be born well into the off-season and, yes, it's nice to imagine a possible visit with the Stanley Cup as part of the growing Slavin family's off-season plans.

Certainly Emersyn has already begun planning her life as a big sister.

She has been practicing by carrying a small baby doll around the house and helping out with its feeding and changing. And she is expecting to take on brother-sitting duties as soon as possible.

"She's like, 'Mommy, when the baby comes I can watch him, you go to the grocery store and I'll watch the baby,'" Jaccob said with a laugh.

So many signposts along the way, snapshots really, of the evolution of not just a hockey player but a man very much guided by his faith, a father, a brother and an integral part of whatever community in which Jaccob Slavin finds himself.

Wendi and Rob Slavin are both from Colorado. She wanted a horse farm and Rob wanted to be close to the auto body shop he still operates so they bought some land on which to raise their family. As it turned out the Slavins also needed to be close to arenas, baseball diamonds and golf courses as they and their five children were always involved in something depending on the time of year.

But mostly, and always, there was hockey.

It started with Justin, the oldest who had been rollerblading and then moved seamlessly into hockey.

Jordan wanted to skate when she was three, but was told that she was too young.

Jaccob got the M&Ms treatment at two-ish and Josiah, a Chicago Blackhawks prospect, was still in diapers when he got on the ice and learned that the sooner he was potty trained, the sooner and more often he could get on the ice.

"I tell people I couldn't hold him off the ice any longer," Wendi said with a laugh. "He was the easiest potty training kid I had."

Jeremiah, the youngest, spent most of his earliest years strapped in a car seat going from rink to rink and wasn't sure he wanted any part of this hockey thing at all. Well, DNA being what it is, he's now playing in the United States Hockey League - a Tier I junior league.

"Oh my goodness. I actually have no idea how my parents did it all," Josiah said. "I feel for my parents. It was amazing that they did what they did."

"Let's just put it this way, my mom had a mini-van with over 300,000 miles on it," Jaccob added.

The Slavins early on took in foster kids, but as their own children began to grow they moved on to become a billet family for hockey players who came to play in the area from out of town.

In spite of that experience, when Jaccob was recruited by the Chicago Steel of the USHL Wendi and Rob had some trepidation.

"As a parent, you always kind of worry about what it's going to be like. You don't know about the environment that they're in," Wendi said. "And he'll tell the story, but that's when he really came into his own faith."

"Going away that first year is really hard," she added. "It's good to have your faith to fall back on and be your stronghold."

Years later Slavin's billet mom, Jaime Faulkner, would say that she and her husband Colin would learn much from Jaccob and the Slavin family as their own children grew into teenagers.

"We had never intended to be billet parents, in fact I had never even heard of billet families until we moved here to Chicago. I didn't even know that was a thing," Faulkner said.

"At the time our oldest was eight years old. So we didn't have teenagers in the house. We were not anywhere near that age, so I wasn't even sure what a 16-year-old could do. But the more that we learned about Jaccob and their family I think the more we were like oh my gosh their family is so similar to ours," she said.

In the end there was a lot of learning on both sides of the equation when Slavin arrived at the Faulkner house for the start of the 2011-12 season.

"Actually he was really self-sufficient. Super responsible," Faulkner said. "The things that we didn't have to do were like having him clean up after himself, he was super engaged and would hang out in the kitchen which is sort of the central part of our house. But he didn't know how to really cook anything for himself, except boiling water to make macaroni and cheese."

"So many things," Faulkner added. "My husband taught him how to grill. But that's what teenagers learn right? Now our kids are teenagers and I realize that that's the age they learn to take care of themselves a little bit more and participate more in different types of chores. Now I know it's natural."

Jaccob chuckles at the memories of those first months away from home. And he wants it made clear that any of his household deficiencies on leaving home to play in the USHL were not on his mother.

"That's not a shot at my mom for not teaching me how to do that," he insisted. "She was a rock star mom."

Slavin was a natural as a surrogate older sibling for the Faulkner children. He called Faulkner 'Mama Faulks' and when she got a job as President of Business Operations with the Chicago Blackhawks - her husband Colin holds a top executive position with the Chicago Cubs - one of the first calls was to Slavin.

"I think that's one of the reasons we connected with him so quickly. He has an ability to connect with everybody," Faulkner said. "We would ask Jaccob, what do you do when you're on a bus to Muskogee for a game? And he's like, 'I read my bible.' And Jaccob do the guys give you a hard time when they're all going and partying and you're coming home? He's like, no. Not at all. I think because of the kind of friend he was and teammate I think people respected him. So even though he might have made a lot of different choices than his peer group, there was just mutual respect. He's not judgmental at all. He just has this ability to connect. He leads with his heart I would say. So yeah, we noticed that right off the bat. I think that's why we gelled so quickly after having him come stay with us."

It's also why, even though Jaccob and his wife Kylie have their own family, whenever possible they still connect with the Faulkners.

"When he got called up to his first NHL game, my husband and my son hopped on a plane the next day to go watch his first NHL game," Faulkner said.

When the team comes to Chicago Slavin usually pops out to the house for dinner, and during COVID when contact wasn't possible, Faulkner dropped off one of Slavin's favorites, a Portillo's chocolate cake. Actually, multiple Portillo's chocolate cakes.

"Here's the other thing we learned from Jaccob. He loves Portillo's cakes," Faulkner said. "We, to this day, have a scale in our kitchen because he was so determined to gain weight and he wanted us to put a scale in our kitchen and he would weigh himself all the time. So he fell in love with Portillo cakes, which is this amazing chocolate cake in Chicago. That was like our thing. So every time we would see him we would bring him a Portillo's cake. So when he came into Chicago last year to play and I couldn't see him because of all the COVID protocols, I went into Portillo's and I picked up like seven chocolate cakes (for Jaccob and his teammates)."

The family room at the Slavin home boasts three televisions to keep up with Jaccob, Josiah and Jeremiah.

Multiple television screens are also the order of the day at Jordan Slavin Smith's house not far from her parents' home.

Jordan played Division I hockey at the University of North Dakota. She still recalls bringing her future husband, a novice as it relates to hockey, to family Christmas Eve skates and finding much to his chagrin more than a handful of aspiring NHL players in the mix.

Any spare moment at home usually ended up with a call to shoot pucks, get on the trampoline, or play some backyard baseball. That love of competition - and of each other - didn't change when the siblings got older and left home.

Jordan recalls video chatting with Jaccob after he moved away to play in the USHL in Chicago, and then to Colorado College, and how even those calls would be marked by some sort of competition like sit-ups or other physical feats even as they were chatting.

"I think we all had a hard time leaving home," Jordan said.

Jordan, a dean of students at a local high school, describes the Slavin clan as very supportive but also very competitive.

"Our parents taught us to be humble, but we were allowed to brag about each other," she said with a laugh.
Jaccob, 27, was what the family called "the black horse": the one that had to work harder to get where he was going.

"He always had to fight for what he got," Jordan said. "He was under the radar for everything.

Even up to the moment Carolina took him with the 120th overall pick in the 2012 draft the family was, well, is this going to happen or not?

"It was like, we know he's good and we know he can play but does anybody else know he can play?" Jordan said.

Safe to say that question isn't being asked by many people around the game anymore.

Both Josiah, 23, and Jaccob, played in the USHL with Josiah actually playing one year with the Steel, as well. He also spent two seasons at Colorado College before being drafted by Chicago with the 193rd pick in 2018.

"When Jaccob was drafted it made it real for our family and it made it real for me, that it's doable," Josiah said.

It's not just the hockey, part, of course, that Josiah has watched and learned from as Jaccob has made his way in the world.

"Just kind of witnessing his career path, he's one of the biggest influences on my life. Just watching him do all the things he's done and to see that it's possible," Josiah said.

Like Jaccob, faith isn't just a big part of his life, it's the biggest, as is illustrated when Josiah takes a moment to pray at the end of each game at center ice.

"It's the most important thing," he said. And watching how Jaccob has handled that part of his life has been crucial to Josiah. "He's one of the biggest influences and role models in my life. To see the way he lives his life has definitely influenced my life."

And really, this is what it's all about for Jaccob and the Slavin family. Not the accolades and the contract and the growing notoriety around the hockey world as Slavin builds a resume as one of the top all-around defenders in the game, but about making the best of those gifts, those opportunities.

"That's really what it's all about, using his platform for the glory of God," Wendi said. "It's amazing to watch him be able to do that."

"I think we all grew up with strong values and beliefs," Jordan added. "Wherever you're at, love people and you don't stray from your morals and values."

And Jaccob embodies that.

"My first thought is that he's living the life I've really wanted to live, shining a light for Christ with his platform," Jordan said.

He has such a strong identity, his sister added, "it allows him to live freely and do the things he knows he can do."

It's difficult to believe that 500 games have come and gone for Jaccob Slavin.

Maybe it's just a reflection of how hard and unyielding the world is on so many levels that it seems uncommon for a young man to be so comfortable in his own skin, in his own beliefs.

Jaccob doesn't view it that way.

"It was just always treat everybody with respect and love everybody," Jaccob said. "So it was easy to go in and be myself in those environments."

Whether that was as a teenager in Chicago living away from home for the first time or going to Colorado College where he played two seasons of Division I hockey or in Raleigh where he's now played more than 500 NHL games for the Hurricanes.

Katie Sack has been with the Chicago Steel since 2003 when she started as an intern, and the memory of Slavin, not as a player necessarily but as an impressive young man always ready to answer the call in the community, remains vivid for her.

"He was probably one of the most memorable players we've ever had come through the organization," Sack said. "He's just one of those people who gets it."

For young players, heck anyone for that matter, it can be intimidating to engage with strangers. Whether in a crowd or one-on-one in a hospital visiting sick kids, at a school or a library, or interacting with special needs fans. Often Jaccob would see a teammate struggling in this environment and step in and smooth out the rough edges.

He took the appearances seriously, "and that's so hard to find at that age," Sack said. "He's just so selfless. Honestly, he's just one of those people that I will forever remember."

"I wasn't uncomfortable in any of those situations," Jaccob said. "It was just stuff we had to do. It was being a part of the community."
That attitude and willingness to commit time to good causes has continued through to today, where the Slavins are among the few Hurricanes families to remain in Raleigh for most of the off-season so they can continue to engage in various programs and charitable endeavors. Many are connected to their church, and others are connected to the team.

"It's a big thing to be a part of your community and to let people see you're just a guy that happens to play hockey for a living," Jaccob said.

"It's definitely something that we love being a part of," Jaccob added. "We know God has given us a lot of resources and it's important that we use them to help people or organizations out."

Sometimes there's folks who are a little star-struck when they first meet him, "but that's more on the rare side," Jaccob said.

Usually, the conversation becomes so natural that soon it's just two people talking and one of them happens to a top-flight NHL player.
Jaccob notes that their favorite Jersey Mike's sub shop cashier happens to be a Rangers fan. "When we go in, all she can talk about is the Rangers," he said with a laugh. "It's great to be able to have some fun with it."

Longtime Chicago Steel head coach Scott McConnell is a Colorado guy and knew of Jaccob through the local AAA program in Colorado. The fact of the matter is that the Steel were in a rebuilding phase and one of the scouts suggested they take a look at this Slavin kid even though he wasn't even playing at the U16 level.

"We were miserable," McConnell recalled. "We needed bodies."

At the time if a player played in 10 games in the USHL the team could protect him, so Jaccob ended up playing 17 games during the 2010-11 season from straight from the local U15 program in Colorado.

"He came up, started playing and he didn't look out of place at all," McConnell said.

The next two seasons Jaccob was part of the Steel lineup.

"He spent two years and every day of the two years you laughed because he got that much better every single day," McConnell said. Scouts started circling around and the coach kept telling them that when it came time for the draft, Jaccob was going to go sooner than they thought because someone is going to realize his potential.

"He was gangly (at first). He was a little bit Bambi-ish at times," McConnell recalled. "But he never made the wrong play, he was always in position. He didn't look like your prototypical shutdown defenseman. But he played almost like a (Nicklas) Lidstrom. It was just crazy how he was always in the right position."

McConnell watches now and is surprised by nothing that is being accomplished at the NHL. "He's doing the same thing he was doing in the USHL at the highest level possible," he said.

"He's surprising everyone, but also surprising no one that knows Jaccob."

As always, the hockey is only a part of this story.

"He never wanted to shy away from who he is," McConnell said. "He's very confident in that. And it's refreshing to have someone that's really so faith-driven and is non-judgmental and really is just a good human being."

"He was very much an old soul," the coach added.

"Find me someone to say something negative about Jaccob and that person will be a liar," McConnell said. "He just makes everyone around him better. On and off the ice."

"He's a natural leader," McConnell said. "Taking over an organization that was having some troubles. It's not easy to change the identity or the culture. And having someone be a part of the team and be relentlessly positive about the ability to turn things around no matter what the circumstances was something that, that's what comes to my mind."

The last person to whom you should go to for assessing Jaccob Slavin's game is, well, Slavin.

He is, of course, proud of how his defensive game has evolved and he would like to take strides to expand his offensive game. "but not at the cost of losing any ability defensively," Jaccob said.

Carolina GM Don Waddell finds himself equally effusive when it comes to discussing the player Jaccob has become and the person he is away from the rink.

"I've never seen this guy panic. His mindset is so far ahead of so many other players. He knows what he's doing with that puck, he knows how he's going to move that puck before he gets to it," Waddell said.

"He's got a great stick. Knocks pucks out of the air," that is reminiscent of another defenseman folks might have heard of, Hall of Famer and longtime Detroit Red Wing great Lidstrom. "Is he going to make mistakes? Absolutely. We all do. But you know game in and game out what you're getting from him."

"He's not going to be the yeller and screamer that some guys are," Waddell added. "But every day in practice he wants to be the best player in practice. Every day. He takes no days off from that end."

As for the other stuff? Let's just say Waddell is never surprised when he finds out about another cause Jaccob and Kylie are supporting or time they are giving to help those less fortunate whether it's connected to the Hurricanes or not.

"Very proud of him," Waddell said. "I think how he carries himself away from the rink. He couldn't represent himself and the Carolina Hurricanes any better."

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