During last year’s Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Dads Trip, Noel Acciari’s father Mike told a story about their minivan getting rear-ended on the way to a youth hockey game in Massachusetts.
At the time, Noel had been watching videos on a TV screen – which, back in those days, plugged into the lighter with an adapter. When Mike hit the brakes, Noel got a big cut on his nose from the device. As they got out of the car to assess the damage and talk to the responders who came on the scene, Mike told Noel he’d have to miss the game.
“I said, we’re barely going to make it home with the car like it is. He started to cry. He wanted to play that game so bad,” Mike said. “So, we were two miles away. We got to the rink, he ran in, bleeding… everyone actually who was coming to the rink saw we were in the accident and couldn't believe that we were still there and he was gonna play.”
One of those teammates driving by had been Kevin Hayes and his dad.
“I was like, Oh my God, that's the Acciaris! So, we pull up into the rink, and Noel is walking into the rink with his bag on his shoulder, blood coming down his face. He's like, I don't want to be late for the game,” Kevin said with a laugh. “He hasn't changed at ALL.”
On this year’s Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Dads Trip, Kevin Sr. shared what he remembered from that night.
“We were driving by... Noely is maybe one of my favorite kids ever, right? What you see now is what you got at age 10,” he said. “So, we’re going to the game, see an accident in front of us, cops are there and everything. You see Noely running... we just cleaned him up and he played. He played the same way then as he did now.”
Hayes and Acciari were teammates for several years with the South Shore Kings youth hockey program, based out of New England. The boys, now veterans of the National Hockey League, live about 200 yards from each other in Boston during the summers and reunited in Pittsburgh this season, with locker stalls right next to each other.
“I ran into his mom this summer in the Seaport with Noel, and she was so happy to kind of rekindle with my parents and stuff,” the younger Hayes said. “It’s kind of come full circle.”
“It's hard to believe,” Mike added. “They’ve played against each other for the past six, eight years in the NHL. Me and Edna, Noel’s mom, we would always say, boy, wouldn't it be nice if they played together?”
Showing the older Hayes the picture of Kevin and Noel on the couch from those days, and asking what it’s like seeing them together on the Penguins, he said, “it’s surreal, you know? You never think it’s going to happen... just brings a million smiles thinking about it.”
Noel was born and raised in Rhode Island, and started out with a youth organization there. He was so good that Kevin Sr. said, “we gotta get that kid!” He approached Mike after one particularly intense game, where tempers had been flaring between the parents. “He said to me, are you Noel’s dad? Are you Mike Acciari? I said yeah, I am. You’re Hayes, right? I go, wow, that was a rough game,” Mike recounted. “He goes, well, I’m here because I have to tell you, I was sent to tell you, we want Noel to play on the South Shore Kings. We’d like him to come over and play. That just calmed the whole situation.”
It wasn’t a far drive to join their team, but when the Kings played on Saturdays, Noel would often stay over at the Hayes household for the rest of the weekend. Acciari said Hayes was a bit of a basketball star in his town, the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester, and they were always looking to play.
“I loved basketball growing up. My dad played basketball. He was our coach, and Cookie played for our team,” Hayes said. “My sister actually texted me the other day, do you remember when Noel used to have the blue Gatorade mustache after every game? Cookie was the same way with basketball as he is now, just rumbling into people [laughs].”
The boys could also be found at the playground during Kevin’s sister’s soccer games, and “I'd always hit my head running and playing,” Acciari said. “One time his mom was yelling at me, because the only way I could stay is if I did a book report. So, while him and his brother were playing video games upstairs, I'm sneaking up as he's yelling at me to get back downstairs to do my book report.”
Kevin’s mom Shelagh (pronounced Sheila) would always help Noel with his homework, and while he doesn’t remember what that particular book report was on, “I remember doing a Wayne Gretzky posterboard, like a biography on Wayne Gretzky,” he said.
The Kings did have some games in Noel’s neck of the woods, and on those occasions, Kevin would stay with the Acciaris. “I rode my first dirt bike at his house. I’ve lived in the city my whole life, while Noel’s house was on this huge plot of land. I didn't know what to do with myself!” Kevin said.
There was one PeeWee tournament in Quebec where the boys had to billet with a local family, and the boys quickly got homesick. “Neither of us had done that before,” Noel said. “We’re having cookies and milk after dinner, milk out of a bag. We were like, where are we? We only did one night, and that was it. We called out sick the next night.”
Looking back on it, Mike is so grateful for that initial conversation with Kevin, because it changed the course of Noel’s life forever. While they liked their team in Rhode Island, it’s such a small state, and Noel had outgrown what the area was able to offer.
“If it wasn't for Kevin, we wouldn't have gotten involved in the Mass hockey that elevated Noel’s play. It just progressed things,” Mike said. “Took it to a higher level – All Star teams, elite teams, triple A teams, travel teams... We went all the way up and down the East Coast, to Canada. The boys pretty much ate, drank, did their homework, and watched TV in the car together.”
Hayes and Acciari ended up going their separate ways for high school and college, but continued to cross paths when they played against each other at both the amateur and professional levels. “Convinced that I'm still the only guy NHL he hasn't hit. He’d always give me a charitable, I'm coming, I’m coming!” Hayes said with a smile.
The biggest thing Hayes has always respected about Acciari – like his dad, he also affectionately calls him ‘Noely’ – is that his friend has never forgotten where he came from.
“He’s never switched his path,” Hayes said. “He goes to a high school, nobody knows about him, he makes a name for himself. He commits to Providence, no one knows about him, makes a name for himself. People don’t put him as a big free agent, and then he goes to Boston and makes a name for himself. He's done it the same exact way since he's been nine years old.
“It's kind of funny, every time someone asks me about him it’s like, he hasn’t changed at all. I think that's probably the thing I respect most of all, he’s one of the most genuine, humble people.”
For Acciari’s part, he praised how difficult it is to get the puck off Hayes’ stick, and how well the forward uses his big body to make plays.
“He's been effective in this league for so long at what he does,” Acciari said. “As a person, he’s salt of the earth. He'd give you the shirt off his back. He's a good guy, good team guy. Would do anything for anyone.”
And their dads couldn’t be prouder of the people that they are.
