‘Playing for the Hawks would be crazy’
bunch of people asked me who I wanted to get drafted by and I always said the Hawks,” Vlasic said. “The hometown team is something you can’t really beat. In the future it would be so special to see my friends and family up in the stands rooting for me in my hometown. Playing for the Hawks would be crazy.”
Vlasic, 18, won’t make his debut in a Hawks uniform anytime soon. He’s starting summer classes at Boston University this week and intends to play for the Terriers for at least a couple of years before turning pro.
It wasn’t a surprise that the Hawks used their second-round pick on Vlasic, a 6-foot-6, 198-pound defenseman who spent the last two years with the star-studded USA Hockey National Team Development Program. Vlasic’s team had 17 players drafted last weekend, including top pick Jack Hughes and another Chicago-area kid, Alex Turcotte, who went No. 5.
Despite it being a foregone conclusion that Vlasic would get picked fairly high, when the moment arrived, it came as a shock to his mom, Tara, who was watching at Rogers Arena in Vancouver with friends and family.
“I wasn’t really paying attention,” Tara said. “And then I heard, ‘From the U.S National Program,’ and my ears slightly perked up. I’m like, ‘Ooh, who’s that going to be?’ Because I did not think that was going to be Alex.”
After a pause, she added like any good mother would: “Not that I didn’t think he was worthy of being picked.”
Tara and John Vlasic grew up in Canada before moving to Chicago in their 20s and settling in Wilmette when they began their family. John played hockey as a kid and passed on his love of the sport to Eric and then Emma before Alex came along.
Eric is a standout goalie for the Blackhawks Special Hockey team, while Emma, a forward, played four years at Yale and is mulling over offers to play in the NWHL next season.
They are close-knit siblings and have shared a love of hockey since they played in their basement, pretending to be on AHL teams and then NHL teams as they moved up the ladder and played out their pretend season. When somebody lit the lamp, music blared.
“I think we did play ‘Chelsea Dagger,’ ” Emma said. “And some Motley Crue.”
When Alex was 3 years old, his parents put him on skates for the first time — and it went about as well as the time he fell through the ice.
“I was taking a skating class where you push those chairs where you try to get support to stand up,” Alex said. “And I remember I came off crying and my babysitter was calling my parents like: ‘You can’t make him do this. You can’t make him do this.’
“My parents just said: ‘Put him back out there. He’ll like it.’ And eventually I just started to like it.”
Alex began playing for his local team, the Wilmette Braves, with his dad coaching him at the Mite, Squirt and Pee Wee levels. The Mite AA team was particularly good, winning the prestigious Silver Stick championship in 2010. It also included goaltender Cameron Rowe, who went on to play with Vlasic on the NTDP team the last two years.
Vlasic’s talent led him to play for two of the area’s top programs — the Chicago Young Americans and Chicago Mission — before trying out for the NTDP. John Vlasic had watched with amazement years earlier when his nephew MarcEdouard became an NHLcaliber player, and this was starting to feel familiar.
“All of a sudden similar things are going on in this household when you think, ‘Wow, maybe it can happen twice,’ ” John said.
Tryouts were held in Plymouth, Mich., the home of USA Hockey, where the players would live and attend school if they were accepted into the program.
“Forty-five people tried out for that team, and you’re not sure how your kid fits in,” John said. “We knew all the players; still, you don’t know. Then they have the tryout and he looks as good or better than the players out there. That’s where I kind of realized that he had something going for him.”
Vlasic graduated from high school with his NTDP teammates a little over a month ago, then they began to go their separate ways.
“That was probably the hardest goodbye I’ve had to say,” Vlasic said. “I’ve got some friends on that team that I’ll be friends with for the rest of my life. Some of us were crying saying goodbye to each other.
“I spent two years straight every single day with these guys. I was as close with them as I am with my family. I can tell those guys anything. Hopefully we’ll be able to play against each other someday.”
The trophy case at Wilmette’s Centennial Ice Rink, where Vlasic played much of his youth hockey, contains the Silver Stick hardware his Mite team won nine years ago. Whenever he stops by, he’ll peek into the case just to know it’s still there.
The facility teems with youth hockey players and adults who can’t get enough of the game. On the walls are life-size posters of current Hawks, including Duncan Keith, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews.
There’s always room for another. Perhaps even one of a hometown boy.