SKILL & STYLE
Team Canada’s Meaghan Mikkelson, her dad, brother and husband have a lot of hockey lore to share
Canadian women’s hockey star Tessa Bonhomme graces the cover of Style magazine, inside today for subscribers.
PLUS: Teammate Meaghan Mikkelson on the power of family and hockey lore.
Years from now, when Meaghan Mikkelson reflects on her family’s hockey legacy, she’ ll think about the story her father Bill would pull out about his first game in the NHL.
It was November 1971 at Maple Leaf Gardens, and the game was broadcast all over Canada. Bill was a defenceman for the Los Angeles Kings.
“It was a dream come true for him,” says Meaghan. But that game turned into a nightmare when he misfired a pass and The Leafs’ Dave Keon scooped it up on a breakaway. Bill’s plusminus record, one of the worst in the NHL, was featured in Sports Illustrated last July.
“Now he laughs about it. We laugh about it, too,” says Meaghan, who will play for Canada at the world championships in Ottawa April 2-9. Of all the lessons she learned from her father, but the most important was never to have any regrets.
“No matter what you do, you should be able to say that you could not possibly have worked any harder,” she says.
“The advice that he gave us was priceless. It was great to have a dad like him to give us advice. There were times when I would have a rough game or a rough practice and he would pull out a story.”
The Mikkelsons have a lot of hockey lore to share.
Bill played four seasons in the NHL in the early ‘70s with the Kings, the New York Islanders and the Washington Capitals. Meaghan’s brother Brendan, 25, plays for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Meaghan, 28, who also plays defence, played for the University of Wisconsin Badgers. She was part of a lineup that allowed only 0.94 goals per game, with 15 shutouts. She was a member of Team Canada from 2008 to the present, winning three silver medals and a gold as well as a gold medal in the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
Her husband, Scott Reid, played hockey for 12 years, including stints with American League teams in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Wisconsin and Alaska, as well as a year in Scotland. The pair, who met at a hockey school in Edmonton, now live in Calgary, where Meaghan plays for Team Alberta of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Reid is now a goalie coach for the team.
But the family history goes back even farther than Bill’s years in the NHL. His uncle, Jim McFadden, played for the Detroit Red Wings when they won the Stanley Cup in 1950.
McFadden played in the NHL when Bill was a child, so he barely remembers it, aside from listening to a game on the radio and watching him play post-NHL playing in a pro hockey league.
“He gave me a stick after a game one time in Brandon. For my whole hockey career, I always taped the handle of my hockey stick exactly the same way as he did on that stick that he gave me,” says Bill, who doesn’t remember having any hockey conversations with his uncle.
“Even so, he was probably the single biggest influence on my becoming a hockey player. Along with my own father who, like thousands of fathers, bought my hockey equipment and took me everywhere, all winter long, almost every day of the week, to just go skating or to play hockey.”
Bill grew up outside Brandon, Manitoba and learned to play hockey in an arena that was a glorified machine shed.
He played from the Brandon Wheat Kings, the Winnipeg Junior Jets and had completed three of the four years in his commerce degree before his stint in the NHL. He went back to school and finished his degree at the age of 30.
“Back when I played, I wasn’t good enough to to earn the big dollars. Education was always something I was going to do,” says Bill.
Meaghan started playing hockey at seven. The Mikkelsons were living in Regina, and it was the first year the city had an all-girls hockey team.
In 1994, when the family moved to St. Albert, a suburb of Edmonton, there wasn’t a girls’ team. So she played both ringette and boys’ hockey. When she had to make a choice, Meaghan chose boys’ hockey.
“It probably gave us a bit more grit,” she says.
Bill, who worked in sales and marketing for IBM, had to travel a great deal, so he could never commit to coaching, but he often arrived at the arena straight out of his office in his suit and coat.
Playing hockey with the boys was pretty much Meaghan’s choice, says Bill, who never pushed hockey on his own children. The Mikkelsons’ other daughter, Jillian, played ringette, but is now a music journalist.
Bill is probably one of hockey’s more mellow dads.
It’s futile to yell at your kids when they’re on the ice, he says.
“When I was playing, I never heard anything from the other side of the glass.”
Kids will burn out if they are forced to play a sport, he adds.
“I tried to get them to play baseball. They ultimately made all their own choices. They took tennis lessons, they were in the swim club. Brendan even played football. I think sports are just good for kids,” he says.
“We just sort of put everything in front of them and let them choose. It just turned out they were good skaters.”
Bill says he can’t claim that he offered the younger Mikkelsons advice and guidance. He believes they got just as much from their mother Betsy, a teacher who knew almost nothing about hockey when she met Bill in Baltimore.
“We demonstrated and taught them a good work ethic and the importance of thinking.
“People underestimate how much athletes think. It’s not the hockey skills. It’s more the soft skills — work hard, do your best.”
Bill has urged Meaghan and Brendan to savour every moment — because their careers can be over in a heartbeat.
Meaghan was playing in the Final Four of U.S. women’s college hockey in Lake Placid with the Wisconsin Badgers. The Badgers won, and there was a big celebration in the dressing room. Bill’s advice to his daughter was to go back into the dressing room after everyone else had left and just soak up the scene.
“It could have been the peak of her hockey career. They are lucky to be where they are. And they know it, too.”
Brendan has had his trials and injuries. Only a few weeks ago, he went headfirst into the boards. He was knocked out and had a bruised shoulder, but no concussion.
“As a parent, these things keep you up at night,” says Bill. “I couldn’t survive out there.” For Reid and Meaghan, it helps that the other knows the game and its trials.
“We understand the game both on the ice and outside the rink,” says Reid.
“We look out for each other. It helps that we’re both passionate about it.”
Meaghan credits her father with stressing the importance of good values, good morals and the importance of being part of a team.
It’s clear that his influence has left a lasting impression on the athlete, both on and off the ice.
“My dad wanted to make us better people. If you are a better person, you are a better member of the team.”