[Dion]

Johnny Gaudreau's mother, Jane, chronicles some memories of raising her four kids, recounts the day Johnny was drafted by the Flames and talks about some of the challenges of having her son living and playing hockey over 2,300 miles away.

I remember the day when John was drafted by the Flames. He was playing in a AAA hockey summer tournament with all of his friends that my husband runs every year. Someone ran over to the bench and said something to Guy (who was coaching). All the kids started banging their sticks on the ice. I was in the bleachers, at the other end, thinking “what is going on?” Guy yelled over to me to tell me John was drafted. I said "where?" and he yelled out "Calgary." Again, I said "where?" and he repeated "Calgary." I didn’t know much about Calgary other than the Olympics were there and it was very far away. I immediately started to cry. One of the other mothers came over and said, "oh my gosh, you’re crying … you must be so happy!" I said "no, I’m crying because it’s so far away!"

I didn’t exactly know where Calgary was but I did know it wasn’t near any of the other Canadian cities where we played youth hockey, like Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa. Immediately, I looked it up on my phone and saw it was 2,363 miles away. I was so upset.

But hockey was always their biggest love.

They would always play hockey inside our home with mini-sticks and nets. When their homework was done they would grab those little sticks and play until they went to bed. The little balls they played with would be all over the house.

If they ever did anything wrong, we would ground them by taking away their mini-sticks and balls. We didn’t take away the nets because they couldn’t play without sticks and a ball ... or so we thought.

I recall a time we had taken their mini-sticks and balls away -- they were probably 3 and 4 years old. I was in the laundry room and when I came out they had taken two spatulas from the kitchen and then rolled up some aluminum foil into a ball and were playing hockey on our hardwood floor! I told them they needed to put the kitchen utensils away because they weren’t allowed to play hockey. John, who did all the talking for Matty back then, said “no mom, you took away our hockey sticks and ball. You said we couldn’t play with those." I had to turn around because I was laughing so hard! Leave it to John to find a loophole in our household rules! It forced us to be a little clearer when we defined the rules moving forward. Next time NO hockey. Period.

When I think back to those early days of the boys playing hockey in the house, I could have never imagined where it would lead. Never in my wildest dreams would I have predicted this outcome.

John asks me every once and a while if I wished he was drafted by the Philadelphia Flyers so he was closer to home. Of course, I would like him to be closer to home, but Calgary has really grown on us. The fans there are incredible and no U.S. city, that I’ve seen, has fans as passionate as the Flames. It’s absolutely incredible!

Guy and I traveled to Calgary for the playoffs last season and we were amazed at how many Gaudreau jerseys we saw at the games! It was so surreal. We couldn’t have imaged anything like that in a million years! There were even fans who recognized us and wanted our picture. That is something we definitely aren’t used to!

http://flames.nhl.com/club/news.htm?...a568-207121861