After the fire, coach finds warmth
Community rallies behind Mike Christian after blaze destroys his family’s home in Caledonia
The irony is that he wasn’t in a rink when he got the call. He’s always in rinks. For 18 years as a hockey coach and who-knows-how-many years before that as a player, he’s lived in rinks.
But Sunday he was swimming at a relative’s pool with his family when his cell rang. He listened to the voice on the other end for a moment. Then as fast as he could scramble everyone out of the water and load them in the vehicle, they were racing toward Caledonia. Toward home.
There was a fire, he’d been told. Get here now.
Mike Christian and his partner, Ashley, bought their 1870s farmhouse three years ago and started fixing it. Having space for their six combined kids with the chance to get back to the country had been too good an opportunity to pass up.
Yet no matter how fast he drove right now, it wasn’t going to be fast enough. By the time he was getting near the top of the Red Hill Creek Expressway, he could see the smoke. That wasn’t good, he thought. When they got close enough to see what was going on, it was devastating. “It was gone,” Mike says. That’s no overstatement. There was really nothing left.
“When you see the commitment they’re making back to you and you see their life choices they’re making, I enjoy it. It’s a passion.” MIKE CHRISTIAN
The fire had started in the living room. That’s what the firefighters told him. All that old country wood had gone up immediately. Once the house was consumed, the wind had pushed the flame onto the surrounding fields of straw that were parched from no rain. A nearby farmer on his tractor actually cleared an area to prevent the blaze from spreading any farther.
“(The fire chief ) told me, ‘If you guys were in there, you wouldn’t have been getting out,’ ” the 38-year-old says.
The relief that nobody had been home, nobody was hurt, and the dog and cats had made it out OK was immense. But then he started taking stock.
They had the bathing suits, shorts and T-shirts they were wearing. That was it. Their clothes, their furniture, their sports equipment, their appliances, their other stuff was all gone. The house had been reduced to a few blackened pieces of wood and scorched cinder blocks. Everything inside was completely incinerated.
Especially painful to lose were the items that had emotional weight. Mementos from Ashley’s grandmother. The stuff from when their kids were babies had been torched. The family photos, too.
“It’s really disheartening,” Mike says. “We were shattered.” Yet that’s just the start.
Mike was a good hockey player growing up. His brother Jeff was a draft pick of the New Jersey Devils and played a handful of games in the NHL during a long career that took him around the world and back. His brothers Gord and Brandon were minor league pros, too. Mike was right there with them.
He started playing goalie in Glanbrook and was solid. But a knee injury suffered while playing catcher in the Ontario baseball championships forced him to give up that position. He became a forward, made the Junior C Glanbrook Rangers, was drafted by the Ontario Hockey League’s Guelph Storm, was eventually traded to the Barrie Colts and eventually won an OHL championship in 2000.
That success earned him a tryout with the Dallas Stars and the chance to play a pre-season game under the bright lights of the best league in the world. Eventually, a concussion during a practice while playing in the minors ended his career. Which is when he started coaching.
He worked in Caledonia with the Corvairs, the Hamilton Jr. Bulldogs, the Grimsby Peach Kings, the Dundas Blues and last year with his alma mater in Glanbrook, where he helped the squad make it to the Ontario finals. That added up to 18 years of helping young men become better players and better people.
“It’s the kids,” the superintendent of Hamilton Mountain roads says of why he does it. “When you see the commitment they’re making back to you and you see their life choices they’re making, I enjoy it. It’s a passion.”
In the days since the fire, he says nearly every young man he ever coached has reached out. That’s been gratifying. But the mementos of his time in the game?
His Barrie and Guelph sweaters are gone. The gloves and pants from the Stars that he wore in the NHL? Ashes. His OHL championship ring. No more. All other physical memories of his time in the game. Dust.
In case that wasn’t enough, there was one more punch in the gut. His dad, Gord, was a Grey Cup-winning tight end with the Tiger-Cats who won championships in 1967 and 1972. The latter is especially dear to fans.
Some say it was the greatest sports moment in Hamilton history. One of them, for sure.
“His football helmet from when he played for the Ticats (was in there),” Mike says.
Yeah, it’s gone.
The family has insurance on the place. But how do you replace all that?
In the midst of the devastation, it took about eight seconds for the local hockey community to get going. A GoFundMe page started by his brother to raise a few bucks to get them through the next little while eclipsed its goal of $5,000 in days. A cottage has been offered for the family to use until they can get sorted out. So many people have reached out offering help in some way or another that Mike says he’s overwhelmed.
The capper comes Saturday and Sunday mornings from 9-12 when folks can drop by the Glanbrook Arena (4300 Binbrook Rd.) and donate whatever they can to help.
Organizers are asking for diapers — while the couple has two 10-year-olds, their youngest is six months — nonperishable food items, toiletries, toys, clothes, back-to-school items, gift cards, used furniture, dishes and on and on. Anything, really.
As for Mike and his family, what do they do now? How do they recover? “You start all over again,” he says. With some help. Hopefully, a lot of it.
(The fire chief) told me, ‘If you guys were in there, you wouldn’t have been getting out.
MIKE CHRISTIAN Family lost home to blaze