From Amerks.com's feature story last week, when defenseman Casey Fitzgerald faced his brother on Saturday…
With more than 8,000 sports in the entire world, what makes sibling matchups seem unique is the rarity in which they occur, like the one that happened this past Saturday night when the Rochester Americans visited the Providence Bruins.
Casey and Ryan Fitzgerald are two years apart in age and come from a family that has had hockey injected into their veins since birth. Their dad, Tom Fitzgerald, played over 1,000 NHL games in his professional career and remains heavily involved in the game to this day. As the current assistant general manager and assistant coach of the New Jersey Devils, there's no question as to why Tom's oldest two kids dove into hockey the way that they did.
Growing up, early mornings consisted of dad's 6:00 a.m. practices that turned into long days at the rink. Time spent at the rink soon turned into watching their father's skillset, applying it to their own and falling in love with the game that they seemed destined to grow up and play.
After so many years of watching their father on the ice, it's no surprise Ryan wanting to emulate his dad's path starting at a very young age.
"I think for our situation growing up, most kids probably look at their dad and their family members and that's kind of the path that they want to emulate. For us, it was hockey and that's because that was pretty much all we had growing up."
Luckily for both boys, they were able to carve out their own path to professional hockey, like that of their father.
Now at the age of 22, Casey Fitzgerald finds himself as an up-and-coming prospect in the Buffalo Sabres organization. Casey landed himself a spot on the Amerks roster to begin the 2019-20 season, his first in pro hockey, and has seen time in most of the games for Rochester. One of those games included a face-off between he and Ryan just last weekend, the first between the pair in their entire lifetime.
When the puck dropped, it was an all-out competition, but Casey admitted just how fun it can be when facing off against your own family.
"We take it seriously, obviously. We're trying to win, both of us. But yeah, we're very competitive as well. We were kind of matched up against each other a little bit all night. I was right D and he was left wing, so I saw him a lot. He was giving me a couple of shots and we were going back and forth there a little. It was all fun, but we're both competitive and we both were trying to win."
