The Carpool Parents | FEATURE

When Luke Hughes was four years old the Hughes family packed up and moved from their home in New Hampshire to a city just outside of Toronto, Ontario called Mississauga. Father Jim had taken a job with the Toronto Maple Leafs organization, and with Luke’s older brothers Jack and Quinn in tow, Jim and his wife Ellen packed up the family and moved to Canada. There, they would spend nearly 11 years, settling into a neighborhood that would completely shape the rest of their lives.

“Those weren't just informative years, they were essential years,” Jim Hughes said from the stands of Prudential Center overlooking his sons take part in practice. “Hockey, it's such a culture in Toronto, where our kids just enjoyed every moment of it.”

The ‘our kids’ reference is not just about Jim and Ellen’s boys Quinn, Jack, and Luke. It’s a list of kids that includes other familiar hockey families like the McLeods and the Bahls, all raising their young families in the Greater Toronto Area, not too far from one another.

This is the story of the Carpool Parents.

We heard earlier this season from the Devils Carpool Kids, memories from Jack Hughes, Michael McLeod and Kevin Bahl, of growing up in the same neighborhood, their parents playing chauffeur, as hockey parents do, from rink to rink. But now we have the parent's perspective of raising families full of NHL players, each doing their part in shuttling the kids around both indoor and outdoor rinks, and the times they shared that shaped their children into the players they have become.

“That was a crazy time,” Rich McLeod, father to Michael, recalled. “Sometimes Ellen would need help one day with Quinn or with Jack and, Judi (McLeod’s wife), she had to stop working because she was basically a taxi service to the rink.”

“I do know that there's no doubt John Bahl would help, too” Jim Hughes said scanning his memories. “He’d bring them to the community rink with Jack, coming from Mississauga.”

The Hughes family was raising three young boys, and so were the McLeods, and the Bahl’s had two children, Kevin and daughter Kristina also playing hockey. It was a lot of moving parts.

Everyone took their turn, coming together as a hockey community does.

“We had a Dodge Caravan, an extended version,” McLeod harkened back, “There'd be like six hockey bags in the back, and you’d never want to be the guy in the middle, but we'd have seven kids in the car.”

It didn’t matter what time of year either. Whether it was organized hockey or the public rink opening, some combination of the Hughes, McLeod and Bahls would find their way.

“The municipal rinks, usually opened around December 1, so Ellen would know exactly which ones were opening when,” Jim recalled, “It's open hockey, so our kids would spend countless hours just on outdoor rinks playing when they weren't playing regulated hockey. They were they were out on the outdoor rinks in Etobicoke, under the lights, under the moon, under the sun. Just playing for the love of the game. And I think that's where a lot of these kids built that passion.”

Although now teammates, it wasn’t always that way for Jack, Luke, Mike and Kevin. Mike McLeod is the oldest of the group and didn’t play directly with Jack, and only on occasion with Kevin in organized hockey. Luke was always the little guy, the youngest brother. Nevertheless, simply having so many talented young kids growing up in the same area helped foster the NHL talent we see on the ice today.

Rich McLeod called it the ‘Center of Excellence’.

“The years that the boys came through, there was just a really strong core group of families that were there,” he shared. “I think where the competition was, was just over the times where like the Hugheses had been organizing the skates and the McLeods would show up and before you know it the Stromes, and it became a free-for-all. I think that was where the competition was, having them play against each other in non-competitive settings. They got to work their magic and try things that you can’t even do in a game.”

John Bahl would build the outdoor rink on top of the swimming pool. The backyard was fenced in by greenery.

“There's still an imprint of Jack in the hedges from where Kevin hit him with a body check right into them,” Mr. Bahl laughed.

The boys had a lot of fun out there. Sometimes though, Jack may have taken it too far.

“One of the parents had a big outdoor rink, so they invited all the kids over and all the parents over, the parents stood around the campfires staying warm,” Bahl remembered, “And the kids, most of them weren't even playing hockey, they were running around just being kids. And then we went inside to warm up to have hot chocolate.

“Ellen had sent Jack with one of the other parents, and then everyone's like, ‘Oh my god, where's Jack?’,” Bahl continued, “We didn't know where he was. So, we ran all around looking for him, and there he was, outside on the rink by himself in -10 Celsius weather (14 F), he almost had frostbite on his hands. He was out there alone for an hour, just working on one shot, one after the other after the other. He must have been eight at the time.”

Fast-forward so many years later and it’s the boys who are returning the favor for the endless hours of time and milage on cars that their parents put in by hosting the parents. A reunion of sorts for the families, but the tables have turned.

“It's almost like a take your dad to work day,” Hughes said, “They wake up this morning, and they go out to their day job. We see them off and they go out the door and they're gone.”

From little kids now to young men, there is something so unique about all three dads preparing for a trip not only with their sons but with other parents they’ve known for a lifetime, all of whom have played some sort of role in getting each other's kids to where they are now.

Whether it was the carpool from rink to rink, endless hours clutching hot coffee in municipal rinks, or playing host on the backdoor rink, they have all, both parents and children come a long way.

“For us, it's surreal,” McLeod said, “You know, every time I see Jimmy, I think about the two of us out there for their practices, and he's rocking the kid sticks with the boys, and now to be able to reconnect with John (Bahl), it's been fantastic.”