Hockey's home away from home: Three days inside the life of a billet mom and her superstar new son ·

16 Jun 2024, 00:00

Friday, November 23, 5:40 a.m. — Beyond a snow-covered cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Ottawa, three dim porch lights illuminate a two-storey red-bricked home.

Inside, as neighbours sleep, Andrea Guzzo Lehman, is already dressed and cooking breakfast when a 17-year-old shuffles into her kitchen from the basement, with acne-fighting cream still caked to his cheeks.

As he pulls his knapsack off of his shoulder and takes a seat at the kitchen table, she pesters him with questions about his plans for the day.

He responds quietly with one-word answers. In his longest reply, through broken English, he says his dad called and she needs to call him back.

In a lot of ways, the pair are polar opposites. But they work.

Andrea is the loud, charismatic, high-energy 48-year-old with dyed-silver hair pulled high into a short ponytail. She is a mother of two kids, a wife, and dog-mom to a seven-month-old Havanese named Duke.

Andrea’s husband, 53-year-old Greg, is still sleeping upstairs after a long drive back from a rec league hockey tournament he played in the night before in Montreal — a team he has played on for 32 years. So too is her son, 13-year-old Kirk, and daughter, 11-year-old Kenzington.

The teenager sitting in front of her, scarfing down his eggs, is Marco Rossi. They aren’t related, at least not in the traditional sense. Andrea is his billet mom.

Rossi is the nearby Ottawa 67’s bright young star. The team recruited him, from Austria, to play in the OHL, taking him with their first-round pick in the CHL Import Draft.

This season, he’s proven to be one of the best rookies in the CHL. His 1.17 points per game puts him in the same company as just five players his age in the last decade: Connor McDavid, Nail Yakupov, Alex DeBrincat, Sean Monahan, and Alex Galchenyuk. A year and a half from now, he may challenge Thomas Vanek (fifth overall) as the highest-drafted Austrian ever. Not long after that, he’ll become the 16th Austrian to play in the NHL.

But first, he’s got a 6:20 a.m. pickup from teammate Graeme Clarke for their shared 7 a.m. physical therapy session.

Beneath his Polo sweater, Rossi, who is only 5-foot-9 but built thick and wide, hides a bulky braced elbow.

Before he heads out into the black, Andrea hands him a zip-locked bag with his favourite chocolate muffins (made with over 70 percent cocoa, as his strict diet dictates).

Rossi is the first in a long line of people (her husband included) that Andrea gets ready every morning. She never stops to pause for coffee, a shower, or a return to bed. There isn’t time.

As soon as Rossi is out the door, she pulls a tray onto the countertop and begins prep for Kirk’s favourite dinner: twice-baked potatoes.

When Kenzington enters the kitchen at 6:48, her hair still nappy and a little dazed, Andrea greets her with loud questions about what she wants in her lunch and begins to make her spaghetti — including a homemade sauce that features blended carrots and broccoli because Andrea never feeds her kids anything processed (they get homemade granola bars in their lunches too).

Kenzington is soft spoken, intelligent, and a little shy. She’s in Grade 6 in the International Baccalaureate French immersion program. She loves three things: Hockey, their dog, and being a billet sister. Kenzington shows off the hat her mom made for her, which reads “Billet sister of Rossi.”

“She didn’t want to wear a big jersey with his name on it at the rink. She just wanted to have a little something. And all her hockey teammates are jealous,” Andrea says. “Hey Kenz, do you like Marco?”

“Yeah!” she replies.

“What’s the best part about having a billet, Kenz?” Andrea shouts back.

“Everything…” she answers, adoringly.

This isn’t the first time the Lehmans have billeted, though they’re new to the 67’s. Three years ago, they took in another stranger, Nepean Raiders Jr. A forward Justin Hess, after Andrea received an email through Kirk’s minor-hockey team. The family remains close to Hess — recently catching up with him to watch one of his games with Nazareth College, an NCAA Division III team.

With both Hess and Rossi, Andrea wanted a kid who took the opportunity to play junior hockey seriously. Hess was an Ontario Scholar who took night courses at Algonquin College — but still took the time to play mini-sticks with the Lehman kids for hours.

In Marco, they found the same kind of connection. On his first day with the Lehmans, Marco helped Kenzington work on her shot on the net outside.

“It was pretty fun,” Kenzington says. “And then my shot was way better.”

“We started calling him coach Marco,” Andrea chipped in.

Each of those moments are commemorated in photos. Andrea has photos of Rossi coaching Kenzington, of him with her kids before his first game, of their recent dinner with Hess, and of dress-up night at TD Place with the other billet moms. For Christmas, she plans on framing a photo of Rossi celebrating a goal (a rare show of emotion) — the same photo Kenzington has as her iPad background.

When the potatoes and spaghetti are finished, Andrea descends into the busy morning routine.

Kirk is the second to rise at 6:57 and the first thing he asks is whether Rossi’s home. His head is shaved, with a line carved out of its part, and he’s wearing an LA Kings t-shirt (though he’ll swap that out for a Vegas Golden Knights one before school).

“Marco’s already long gone honey bun,” Andrea says.

Kirk is sports-obsessed. He recently made every team at school (table tennis, badminton, rugby, golf, volleyball), and spends his morning yelling at the TV and discussing the Senators’ Uber controversy with his mom.

“Let’s go!” he yells at the New Orleans Saints highlights.

Greg is the last to wake, at 7:30.

“Babe, how was your game!?” Andrea says.

“We got smoked,” he answers.

“Take a ringer with you next time,” she says.

“We had ringers!” he answers — and her laughter fills the house.

Greg’s a lean 6-foot-3, with a narrow face and glasses. He wears a Chicago Bears t-shirt, an allegiance to his hometown. Greg, an engineer, moved to Canada for work and never went home after meeting Andrea in his late 30s.

Nepean is now their home — though Greg and Andrea both watch beachfront bargain shows dreaming of retirement south of the border.

Greg isn’t immune from Andrea’s early-morning questions and reminders either. She tells Greg to drive Kirk to school and insists he better not be late for the ringette fundraiser they’re attending later that night.

“When am I ever late?” Greg says.

“When is daddy ever late?” Andrea asks their kids.

“When you aren’t on top of him!” Kirk answers.

“I always brief my husband on our plans,” Andrea says.

“What do you mean!? On time is my middle name!” Greg replies, while making an espresso, before agreeing. “I’m just a tourist in my own home.”

When Greg returns from dropping Kirk off at school, the conversation turns to Rossi — as it often does. He admits that after he did a few of Andrea’s 6 a.m. morning shifts with Rossi, the novelty wore off.

“I think it’s exciting to have a kid that you can help and allow them to improve and live their dream. The important thing is it had to be the right kid. We both wanted somebody who wasn’t here just to party, play some hockey, and drink. Regardless of level, this doesn’t mean they have to go to the NHL,” Greg says.

“Marco was really shy that first day. But if it’s hockey in the driveway they’re comfortable. I think it’s a good role model for our kids, just to teach them that in life with what you want to do you make sacrifices, you focus, and you commit.”

Given how quiet Marco is, Greg and Andrea both worried he was unhappy early on. They’ve learned that’s not the case.

“Marco is just a really lovely kid. He smiles at everything – we joke about it. And you can tell he has a really solid background. He has a really good relationship with his parents so that’s the kind of kid we got,” Andrea says.

“He’s just an easy, easy personality. And very, very polite and very appreciative. Every text I send to him it’s ‘thank you very much’ or ‘yes please’ or ‘no thank you.’ And he doesn’t care what he eats as long as it’s healthy.”

Because Rossi is obsessive about organization, Andrea is the perfect fit. She can parent him like she parents her own kids. She’s schedule-crazy too, and jokes about how her favourite thing to do is to check her Team Snap app for her kids’ hockey schedules because it tells you how early to be there. The 67’s have also provided billet parents with an app called Driven that updates their schedules. Andrea has Rossi’s memorized and she can see when Andre Tourigny, the team’s head coach, adds Rossi’s name to an event he has to attend (most players have to do things like school readings but Rossi only does charity skates due to the language barrier).

Andrea is, above all else, attentive. She noted, while serving Rossi breakfast, that it was the first time he hadn’t had toast since arriving.

“They really don’t have a lot of time here. I’m sure there are other teams that have more time but on a typical day he has a 7 a.m. meeting, 8 o’clock ice, then skills sessions, then Blythe (a private school with individual programs for each of the players), and then the gym and he gets home at 6 o’clock has to do it all over again the next day,” Andrea says.

There are only four stops on Rossi’s route (TD Place, Canadian Strength, Blythe, and home in Nepean) and she drew it out for him when he first arrived. He usually spends roughly four hours a day in school.

“His English has got a lot better even since he has been here. They have to work around their schedule and this whole going on the road for five days thing. It’s too bad there aren’t more teams that operate like that because the boys could use it. I’m telling you right now: They’re not all going to the NHL,” Andrea says.

Before each road trip, Andrea sits down with Rossi to explain the geography of where he’s going, sketching it out on a piece of paper he can take with him. Rossi likes to know exactly how many hours he’ll be on the bus, if he needs to charge his laptop or his phone, how far the hotel is from each rink, and when the buses leave.

Andrea and Greg don’t billet for the money. The few-hundred dollars a month the team provides for food and everything else Rossi might need is a wash.

Andrea does it for her kids, she says — and to help someone else’s.

“I don’t require anything from the 67’s. From the kids’ perspective, they see Marco who is committed to a goal just like Justin was, it doesn’t matter what the outcome of that goal was, and no drugs, no alcohol, and works hard toward something. I’ve been clear about that too though. I can’t do that. I don’t want to get up and do this in the morning for somebody who is not appreciative or isn’t committed,” Andrea says.

The 67’s do everything they can to show billets their appreciation. This season, they had them to an Ottawa RedBlacks game that Greg and Kirk attended, and a dinner with all of the players, billets, and staff. Rossi and Andrea attended a seminar together on suicide prevention. Every billet gets as many season’s tickets as they need — and a parking pass so that they can come and go freely from a busy TD Place.

“They’ve been really, really good to us,” Andrea insists.

The 67’s require that each player must have their own bedroom and access to a bathroom. Marco’s room is cluttered but not messy.

By the time her house is empty, it’s only 8:30 a.m. and Andrea is mad at herself for forgetting to ask Marco for his suits so that she could dry-clean them, for her kitchen being dirty, and for the fact that she’ll miss the beginning of the Grey Cup because both kids play hockey Sunday evening.

Andrea refers to mornings like this as “ridiculous” but common.

“I’ve got it down to a science,” she says. “I can get down here and make Marco breakfast in five minutes and he’s out the door.”

While Andrea seldom worries, she does about Marco. His transition from Austria to Ottawa has been decidedly tough on both him and his parents. Andrea tries to send Rossi’s mom, Claudia, as many photos of him as she can, knowing a teenager won’t send his mother photos of himself.

She has also been teaching Marco to cook, which was one thing he told her he wanted to learn while in Canada. They’ve made hamburgers and lasagna roll-ups from scratch. Claudia appreciates those little things.

“I actually went through a little phase where I felt incredibly sad for [Claudia],” Andrea says. “For our son in a couple years to be doing what Marco is, like he’s not prepared for the world… It’s still her baby, right?”

Saturday, November 24, 9 a.m. — Marco isn’t just Claudia’s baby, either.

Inside the Minto Sports Complex, Marco’s father, Michael Rossi, sits next to Andrea as Kenzington’s Nepean Wildcats prepare to take the ice for a game against Cornwall.

Michael has travelled by way of Feldkirch, Austria, a small town of 14,000 people on the country’s western border, to stay at the Raddison Hotel and be near Marco, who has struggled with homesickness. As hard as billeting has been on Marco, it has been just as difficult on Michael, who worries about his son.

“It’s very hard for me and my wife — but he wants it,” Michael says.

Initially, Marco wasn’t sure if he was ready to move across the Atlantic. He was very close to his family and didn’t like to be separated from them for long.

“What do you think Daddy? Should I go?” Michael recalls his son saying.

Michael told Marco that it had to be his decision.

“He slept on it one night and then he comes to me and he says ‘Daddy, I want to go to Canada’ — and I go ‘Woah, OK, let’s go,’” says Michael. “But it was hard.”

This is Michael’s third trip to Ottawa in just three months. He came for a couple weeks during training camp, then came back with Claudia for another two weeks — and stuck around for a third, after Claudia had to return to Austria for work. This time around, after a month away — the longest he has ever been without his son — Michael’s entering his second and final week in Ottawa before he and Marco will return home together. Marco was meant to play for Team Austria in their second-tier world championships, but his elbow injury makes that unlikely. Regardless, they plan on making the brief trip back to Austria.

At Christmas, the Rossi family, including Marco’s two sisters, will return to Ottawa to spend the holidays with the Lehmans.

“His parents, we’d be friends with them if they lived beside us. Like they’re that great,” Andrea says, explaining how they had them over on Marco’s first night and how she has grown to like Michael because he’s a conversationalist.

“I said to Claudia when she was here, ‘Are you sad?’ And she said she was but since she’s been to Ottawa she felt a lot better because she met us. She’s lovely. She’s the nicest girl.”

Michael, who had a decade-long pro hockey career of his own in Austria including an appearance at the 1998 Spengler Cup, shares his appreciation for the length Andrea has gone to help make Marco feel comfortable.

“Some people do it for the money, she does it for the kids. That’s what I love about her,” he says. “In Austria, when you have success people get jealous and it’s like ‘Ah, fuck them.’ Here, they want to help them.”

Michael maps out the unique location of the Rossi home, which sits five kilometres from Lichtenstein, five kilometres from Switzerland, and 20 kilometres from Germany, on his jeans. For four years, Michael drove Marco back and forth from Zurich at 4:30 a.m. and midnight so that he could go to school Monday to Wednesday and be with his club team the rest of the week.

These days, both Michael and Marco are relieved to have a family like the Lehmans to help with the transition to the next level.

“They are just wonderful,” Michael says. “You have a good life in another country and you want to be respectful. That’s why the guest parents like these two, they really try to [help him] understand the life here in Canada every day. Marco is very lucky.”

Michael takes solace in the fact that Marco is learning to challenge himself, but the injury has made things even more difficult. At first, it looked like his elbow may have required surgery and his season might be over. Now, Michael thinks he’ll be back by January. And with Marco’s rising stardom, a lot of people are eager for his return. These days, Michael is getting five or six calls a week from Austrian newspapers for stories on Marco and updates on his injury. Back home, Marco was always told how good he was and Michael hated that. In the OHL, he doesn’t get that kind of treatment.

“To me it was always, when you tell a kid every day how good they are, you stop the working,” Michael says. “I tried to give him a challenge every day.”

For the Rossi family, Marco’s move to the CHL was always going to be Ottawa or bust because of 67’s head coach, Tourigny. They trust him. Marco grew up playing against Swiss star Nico Hischier, and Hischier played under Tourigny with the Halifax Mooseheads before recommending him for Marco’s development.

“Andre is a really nice man,” Michael says.

“Oh yeah, first class, we both got that feeling right from the beginning,” Andrea replies.

After the game, Kenzington joins her mom in the lobby. She assisted on two goals. Michael congratulates her on a job well done.

“I say, ‘OK…I’ll watch the girls,’” Michael says. “And then oh my gosh — you’re really good!”

“Thanks,” Kenzington says, blushing. “Thank you for coming to my game.”

Room 361, Senate of Canada — Between driving Kenzington home to make lunch and picking up Kirk to head to a 2 p.m. Ottawa game against the Sarnia Sting, Andrea makes a pitstop at her other job: leading public relations and communications for Senator Mike Duffy.

The senate has called a Saturday session to begin the process of passing back-to-work legislation for striking Canada Post workers and Duffy has cancelled flights to events in his constituency so that he can deliver a speech on adoption law to vouch for provinces that have opened up their records to allow parents the ability to reconnect with children (and vice versa), and a second speech during second reading on the impact of the strike over the holidays.

After some time with the Senator, Andrea rushes home for the day’s next items on the Lehman agenda: grilled-cheese making and melon-slicing, list-making for Greg so that he’s reminded to finish up some jobs, a quick refill on tire pressure, work on Kirk’s science project, another outfit change, dog toy cleanup, a new round of hand sanitizer for everyone (Andrea’s orders and something Marco says reminds him of his mom), and a warning that no junk food will be consumed at the game.

Just before running out the door to the 67’s game, Andrea gathers the entire family around the TV to watch a replay of the hit that injured Marco, which only she had seen.

“When it happened, I thought I was going to be sick. I just felt horrible, like it was one of my kids,” she says.

“I’ve never seen him go down and not get up. He went off, went to the locker room, said he was fine, came back and played. It’s too bad. Marco was tracking really, really well. But he’ll be alright.”

By game time, everyone has assumed their regular spots.

The game quickly gets out of hand as the 67’s route the Sting. Andrea cheers just as loudly for the first goal as she does for the eighth (when the 67’s Kody Clark scores his second of the game, she tells his billet sister Cassie to have her hat ready).

Behind Andrea, Marco is laser-focussed on his team, pausing only to Snapchat his girlfriend from back home. His dad jokes about how he had to move away because he won’t stop talking about the plays. It’s clear that Michael is more relaxed than his son.

“At training camp, I was like ‘Mike, do you get stressed?’ He says ‘No, it’s just a joy to watch my kid play,'” Andrea says. “Sometimes I sit on the other side of the ice and Marco will go coast-to-coast and I look over and Michael is just shaking his head like ‘I can’t believe he just did that.’ Sometimes you sit next to hockey dads and they’re so intense. He’s not a crazy hockey dad. He’s just a lovable guy who cares about his kids just like any other parent.”

A few seats down, sit two more Austrians.

Konrad ‘Conny’ Dorn coached both Michael and Marco (and alongside former NHL coach Ralph Krueger) and is the all-time games played and penalty minutes leader in Austria. Bernd Schmidle, who now works in the printing business, played with and for both Michael and Conny.

“We had a really hard time yesterday,” Michael says with a smile, still hung over from the night before. “We have fun here. It’s beautiful here.”

They can’t believe the little things: benches on opposite sides from each other in some rinks, the pace and detail in Tourigny’s practices, that there are more than 100 rinks in the Ottawa area, and that 140 girls tried out for Kenzington’s Wildcats team.

The trio have known each other for 35 years and when they saw footage of Marco playing they decided they had to come to Canada to see him in action (he wasn’t injured when they booked their flights). It’s Conny’s second time in Canada (he played for Austria in their ninth-place finish at the Calgary Olympics, which Marco gives him a hard time about).

During the second intermission, billet coordinator Eileen Duffin stops by to say hello to Andrea and Marco.

Together, Andrea and Duffin are considered superheroes around the 67’s organization.

Marco says that along with Andrea, he couldn’t have made the transition without Duffin, who keeps the players in order — and Marco affectionately calls “Mrs. D.”

The on-ice adjustment was fairly easy, he says — although the ten-hour bus rides to Sault Ste. Marie are certainly new. He points to teammates Alex Chmelevski, Austen Keating and Tye Felhaber for their help and guidance. Coach Tourigny has been a big support too.

But, along with Andrea, Marco says he couldn’t have done this without Duffin. Because of both women, he says he has no regrets about his decision to come to Ottawa.

Duffin is who she is because she cares deeply for each player, like a third mother. Eight years after taking the job and leaving a background in education for another, she’s still at it. She FaceTimed with the Rossis multiple times before Marco came over to get to know them. Marco is lucky to be on this team, she says, because it’s the most cohesive group she’s been a part of.

“There’s no way every OHL team has an Eileen,” says Andrea. “The boys go to her with all sorts of stuff and not every player has a relationship like we do – I’m not saying he’d come to me with everything but I think he feels pretty secure here. The whole education component and the billet-matching component, she’s a rock star. She’s fair but she’s on top of the academic component too.”

That sentiment is shared by Torurigny.

“Eileen gives the proper environment to the player and she’s a second mom for them in the sense that she makes sure everything is rolling in the right direction. We’re so fortunate to have her as such a support,” he says.

James Boyd, the team’s general manager, credits Duffin for her ability to find the right match between a billet and a player.

“For a player to maximize their potential, they’ve got to be comfortable with their life away from the rink so the billet home being a surrogate home for them is of the utmost importance because if you get the right fit there and everyone is comfortable then the player won’t have any anxiety when he’s coming to the rink,” Boyd says. “Players form special relationships with their billets and go on to lifelong friendships.

“Billets are the lifeblood of junior hockey, like there’s no way we could do this without them.”

Unlike most billet coordinators, Duffin waits until training camp before she places her players, rather than assigning them to a home in June — that way, she’s able to get a sense for the players and parents who are more nervous than others.

“The match is the most important thing,” she says. “If you put them with a brand new billet family and the parents are super nervous, they worry even more.”

Once a player is placed, Duffin never moves them. Andrea was told she’d need to make a commitment for Marco’s entire career.

“You’re bringing a kid five thousand kilometres away from home from parents who are very, very concerned about his well-being,” Duffin says. “He turned 17 in September. In Austria, they had it worked out where he wasn’t really ever alone… I make decisions based off of what’s right for the individual player and Andrea is it.”

After meeting with Andrea face-to-face several times, including once where she brought Tourigny to the Lehman house (a rarity for the coach), Duffin quickly learned that Andrea is involved and “willing to go the extra mile.”

“She’s a communicator, and when you have a young kid from overseas you want that kind of billet. And some billets you just let them take your boys and you hardly talk. But with a young guy like Marco, and let’s face it he is a pretty special kid, you want him to be happy and healthy,” Duffin says.

Marco isn’t your typical player or kid, either. Duffin says she doesn’t cater to stars but that he has needed special treatment. She has worked closely with him and Blythe to improve his pronunciation and begin some media training so that’s he’s more comfortable when the attention builds ahead of the 2020 draft. She credits him for finishing high school before he came (it’s not uncommon for European players to finish by 16).

“Marco is Marco, he’s a very dot your Is and cross your Ts kind of kid,” Duffin says. “Andrea will make sure he understands so there’s no anxiety. That’s a huge piece for a younger player.”

This season, Duffin put 16-year-old Matthew Maggio with her brother, a retired RCMP officer, “because he was a highly unfocused kid whose mother hit the panic button.” Others, who come from divorced parents, thrive in homes with big families.

“Marco is the opposite. He wants things organized. Andrea is so organized and she has good conversations with him — though I think it took Marco a while to get used to the intensity of Andrea because that can be intimidating,” she says.

Dinner at the Lehmans — “I’m going to cry,” Andrea says, opening her arms for a hug as Michael, Conny, and Bernd enter her front door with one of Marco’s jerseys as a gesture of appreciation.

“You do a great job. Really,” Michael replies.

Quickly, the dinner descends into a blend between a Q&A session (the quartet of Austrians are full of questions about Canada and vice versa) and a comedy club.

Michael, when he’s at a loss for words — or after a couple of glasses of wine or beer — begins to mime everything with theatrics. And Conny fills in the gaps.

“When you play hockey together, you have to make jokes, eh? Oh, he can make me laugh,” Michael says, pointing at Conny.

While Andrea serves crackers and cheese, her table set as if for a giant Thanksgiving dinner, the questions begin.

“Did you have a hockey rink in the backyard like other Canadians?” Michael asks.

“No, but I built them one in the boulevard out front, with lights and everything,” Greg replies.

“How was Andre in the dressing room after the win today?” Andrea asks Marco.

“He wasn’t happy. He’s never happy,” Marco replies with a smile.

“What’s the hockey like in Austria?” Greg asks.

“If Austrian ref came over here, he would call everything,” Michael replies. “When we were kids, hockey was big. Now, with cell phones, it’s not the same.”

“It’s not hockey in Austria anymore,” Bernd echoes.

As the night progresses, Andrea learns new things about Marco — like that when he was 15 he once skipped a hockey tournament for basketball, that his favourite players are Patrick Kane and Pavel Datsyuk, and that he excelled at the 60-metre and 2-kilometre track events back home.

The Austrians learn a few things too, and comment on how young Canada is and how everything, from the 500-year-old buildings to the food, is better back home. They can’t believe Ottawa’s Rideau Canal Skateway exists, nor its summertime locks network.

In the background, Hockey Night in Canada plays. Michael asks if anyone knows Michael Grabner or Michael Rafl, who’ve made Austria proud.

By the end of the night, the majority of the conversation has centred around Marco. Michael tells the story of how the nerve-wracking import draft went down, and how he had to tell managers in Shawinigan, Sudbury, Saint John, and Halifax that if they took Marco he would stay in Switzerland.

“We didn’t want first overall. Parents are always thinking too much. But with parents now it’s always ‘Why isn’t he playing, why this?’ When I was young my dad brought me to the rink and he just said have fun,” Michael says.

It’s clear that Marco is more at ease than usual now that his dad and his friends are around. He openly gives his opinion on the 2020 draft’s other top prospects, from Quinton Byfield and Alexis Lafreniere, to Jamie Drysdale (who Michael likes a lot), and Swedes Alexander Holtz and Lucas Raymond.

“Last year it was Holtz, this year it’s Raymond everyone talks about,” Marco says.

They wonder about where he might go, and Greg jokes that if the Blackhawks take him the Lehmans might have to move to Chicago after all, while Andrea promises she’ll be there for his draft day. Everyone has to give their opinion on Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty, and on the differences between the QMJHL, the OHL, and the WHL, too.

“We see the emotions with Canadians and hockey,” Michael says. “It’s crazy. Fast hockey too. First game here, they’re playing Kingston, I swear to God, first faceoff, I see my son three metres in the air. He got a big hit and I’m like: ‘OK, welcome Canada.’”

“It’s Canada, it’s freezing cold, what else are you going to do here?” Greg says to laughter.

Before leaving, Michael begins to plan out their final days in Ottawa with Andrea. They want to go to Kingston for the 67’s game on Wednesday and they ask how far it would be to go to Toronto after that, hoping to get tickets to the Leafs game against the Sharks, or the Hockey Hall of Fame, and split the five-hour drive back to Ottawa that night.

“Toronto!” Michael says, flashing his hands as if the city is up in lights like New York or Hollywood. “These guys come here just once. We must go.”

Sunday, November 25, the Canadian Museum of History — “All he does is talk, talk, talk,” Michael says as he leads the way into the museum’s first exhibit while Conny tries to tell him they’re starting in the wrong place.

They pause at the displays they recognize — the ones that bring worlds together.

The first is a World War exhibition that shows the division between the allies and the axis — and Austria’s place within it.

The second is a Maurice Richard jersey, though they don’t know who he is.

“It would be hot in that,” Marco says of the thick sweater.

The third is an ode to 9/11.

“It’s horrible but the good thing is it connected the world. It’s sad that terrorists are the only thing that can do that,” Michael says, clenching his fist.

At a map of early Ontario, Conny can’t believe the distance from Ottawa to Sarnia.

“That must be 1,000 kilometres,” he says.

Marco is only peripherally interested, but he is able to help teach them about Terry Fox, a story someone has already told him since arriving.

“That’s why I do this for Marco. You want to be respectful and know a little history,” Michael says. “In Austria, nobody puts a flag outside their house. Here, if something goes wrong, they do. He needs to learn about proudness. You can see at every game, they’re proud.”

Michael puts his hand over his heart in the Expo 67 exhibit to mimic the fans at Ottawa’s games during the anthem.

Before leaving for the walk back to the hotel, Michael turns to Marco in a museum lobby halfway across the world from where they started and grabs him by the shoulders.

“They care about their history. That’s good,” the father says, pulling him closer. “This is your new home.”

(All photos by Scott Wheeler/The Athletic)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57lXFobW5oZH9xfZdoaGtnYGp8qbvCpJyyq12dvK6xjJqumrFdm7%2BwuYyhpqadXam1s7HEZpuasaNitq%2B%2FyJ2cZqyYmnqttcWeZKieXZZ6o7XLpZytZZ2kum6tzZ1koZ2iYsC2vMSrqq2ZomK7psOMrKanZw%3D%3D

Hockey's home away from home: Three days inside the life of a billet mom and her superstar new son

Share!