Mad Dash to Massachusetts

On the morning of Jan. 1, Brian Boyle was sitting in the team's video meeting at PPG Paints Arena when his Apple Watch buzzed at 10:05 a.m. with a text from his pregnant wife Lauren, who has been staying at their home in Massachusetts with their two young children Declan and Isabella. So Boyle ran and grabbed his phone to give her a call.

"She actually said go practice, I don't know what's happening. And my sister - she has a family practice, she's a doctor - said to me, I'll be at your house in ten minutes and I'll let you know," Boyle recounted. "A few minutes later, she called me and said get out of there now, get on a plane as fast as you can.
"It turned out she was kind of in labor the night before, and she didn't want me to come and her not to have the baby. That was her first thought, which I was like, what? (Laughs) What are you doing?"
After hearing that the arrival of the Boyles' third child was imminent, Penguins director of team operations Jason Seidling quickly jumped into action. He somehow managed to book Brian a flight back to his native Massachusetts that was scheduled to take off at 11:51 a.m., and drove the veteran forward to Pittsburgh International Airport himself.
"I didn't have a toothbrush or anything, I just went," Boyle said. "Luckily for me, the plane was delayed a little bit. Jason had a car waiting for me right when I got there that brought me to the hospital."
Lauren was at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, and when Brian walked in, he said everything was calm. The doctor saw him arrive and asked if he was the husband, and when Brian replied in the affirmative, determined that they could move forward with Lauren's labor. And exactly 11 minutes later, son Callum James Boyle entered the world - a new addition for the New Year.

"At 3:22 I walked in and at 3:33, Callum was born, so it was good timing," Brian said. "She's doing great, he's doing great. The best thing I've ever done is become a dad, so it's really exciting for us."
Brian said the couple chose the first name Callum to continue the Gaelic-Irish theme with their boys, while his middle name is partly in homage to Lauren's uncle Jimmy, a World War II veteran who recently passed away at age 99, with Brian calling him "an unbelievable guy."
He was able to spend the last couple of days with his newly-expanded family before returning to Pittsburgh this morning in time for practice at UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex (where the boys gave him stick taps to congratulate the new dad), admitting it was tough to leave. "It's a little bittersweet, but it's a big, big blessing for us," Boyle said.
Brian feels so incredibly fortunate to have a partner like Lauren, who has been the rock of their family through everything they've faced, particularly her husband and son's health issues back in 2018.
Just two weeks after Brian was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia, he and Lauren feared that Declan also had cancer in the form of Ewing's Sarcoma. After a number of tests, it was revealed he had arteriovenous malformation in his jaw, which is an abnormal tangle of blood vessels connecting arteries and veins that disrupts normal blood flow. So at just 3 years old, Declan had to undergo multiple surgeries that were performed in Boston.
"She held it together a couple years ago when things were kind of falling apart for us, and she's holding it together now," Brian said. "She carried through that pregnancy when I was not there very often. She put together an unbelievable Christmas, I came home and the house was all decorated like out of a magazine. The kids are happy, they're healthy, they're doing great. She's taking my son to hockey and then she has Callum, and now I'm leaving and she's like, good luck, go get 'em. She's just incredible. To have somebody to share your life with like that and raise kids with like that, there's no bad days, even when things get tough."
And there certainly are days where Brian is sitting around wishing he could do more, but has to make sure he focuses on what he can do to maximize the opportunity he's been given here in Pittsburgh after a season away from the NHL. As he said, it's hard missing his kids and it's time he won't get back, but on the other hand, you don't get a lot of time in the NHL.
"It's just preparing the best I can, because with the group that we have, I'm chasing a Cup," he said. "It's no secret. I want to be part of a culture and make a playoff run again. That's the most fun hockey I've ever played. I've been fortunate enough to have a couple teams like that. It's just, what can I do today to make the most of today, really? That's kind of been my approach."
It helps that Declan is old enough now that he is starting to really love hockey, and watches every Penguins game whether his dad is playing or not, and wants to break it all down the next day.
"It's pretty special for me that he's found that love I have for this game at such a young age," Brian said. "We've been able to bond over that. So you get blessings with different things. Life will take you different roads and different places, you don't know, but kind of got to count your blessings, though."