Rachel, Brandon Kisker taking stock in civic endorsement

Even before he saw them in action, Brandon Kisker favored the Rough and Ready Islanders uniforms.

The ECHL’s Stockton Thunder were to assume a temporary persona Feb. 7 and 8, 2014. It was the front office’s choice of costume for the league’s answer to a masquerade ball.

As the Alaska Aces’ guests when Anchorage observed Hockey Heritage Weekend, the Thunder were to sport a celebration of their history and the ECHL’s relationship with the NHL. Being the New York Islanders’ Double-A affiliate, they had a natural choice to checkmark all of the criteria.

Per a press release announcing the promotion, club president Brian Sandy thought back to Stockton’s welcome sign. It reads “Port of Stockton – Rough and Ready Island.”

Accordingly, the Thunder took the template of their parent club’s road white jersey. They then modified the iconic Long Island/NY/stick-and-puck shield to display their own offshore locale. To complete the local flavor, they emblazoned “STOCKTON” on the band of orange trim along the midsection.

Kisker, then a rookie commentator for the Thunder’s radio crew, was intrigued. By that point, the lifelong citizen of the Eastern Time Zone had been working in California for four months. But he elucidated his love affair with his new home through a Twitter chat with a fan named Ren.

Ren, whose handle is @ren870, wanted to settle a score. Was this upcoming promotion or a prior “Fantasy Team” jersey showcase better?

Kisker engaged in the Jan. 28, 2014 chat with this reply: “Rough & Ready no doubt. It’s such a unique thing and pays such a great tribute to both affiliate and city. #loveit #sandydidgood.”

The dialogue carried on for four more posts apiece. It proved to be a preemptively refreshing inside chat among natural-born and naturalized Stockton citizens. A week-plus later, the concept failed to resonate among the host Aces fan base.

“To an outsider, those jerseys were meaningless and lame,” Kisker conceded in an interview with Pucks and Recreation. “I can’t tell you how many tweets we had that picked on the name. But what locals know is that Rough and Ready Island is actually a real island here in Stockton.”

The island’s history began late in World War II as a naval base. It has since transitioned to a private-sector shipping port. In addition to foreign trade, the site connects Stockton with the likes of Oakland and Sacramento.

The port’s past and present purposes also make it a symbolic inlet to understanding an undersized, underpublicized California city. For Kisker and his wife, Rachel, underappreciated is another operative term.

“When you Google Stockton, very little comes up that is positive,” said Brandon, now the play-by-play announcer for the AHL’s Heat. “People assume there’s nothing to do in our community.” 

Rachel Kisker (nee Saiger), the Heat’s membership retention executive, seeks to solve that scurvy of knowledge day and night. Her official bio’s job description entails ensuring “a memorable time at Stockton Heat games and special events.”

Beyond Stockton Arena, both Kiskers are keen on illuminating all of their adopted home’s attractions. In 2015, while staying through the transition of hockey franchises, they pursued certification in the Stockton Ambassador Program. The program is one of 41 chapters of the Certified Tourism Ambassador™ network, which covers 17 states plus Bermuda.

“It tends to be people connected in the tourism industry,” said Brandon of the program’s membership. “However, we felt that it could also help fans who come to our games by providing them excellent service and recommendations on where to go before and after games — and if they’re staying in town, any other fun things they can do in the area to keep them occupied.”

Since 2013, the Visit Stockton tourism bureau has offered two-and-a-half-hour seminars on the city’s fundamentals and finer points. That class, along with marathons of homework, will culminate in a test.

To date, the Kiskers plus retail/promotions director Rob Cvetan have passed the course, allowing them to represent the Heat as local CTAs™. Five colleagues are hoping to join in the club that already boasts 495 members in total.

“When Visit Stockton offered the program to us, we immediately saw value,” Rachel said. “And as native Ohioans, it gave us a chance to learn more about the history surrounding our arena and team.”

Fish out of fresh water

Brandon Kisker and Rachel Saiger missed intersecting early in life. They each spent portions of their respective upbringings in Cincinnati and along Lake Erie. Brandon was born in Buffalo, N.Y., then raised in the Queen City. Rachel returned for college after being born there and raised in metropolitan Cleveland.

They finally converged upon enrolling in the electronic media studies program at the University of Cincinnati. They overlapped in a class for the 2010-11 academic year, and teamed up on an assigned interview.

As fans of Cincinnati’s edition of Oktoberfest, they surprised few by selecting Dr. Manfred K. Wolfram, who directed a study-abroad program in Germany, as their subject. In the interview, Wolfram peddled modern Munich as a recreational and educational tourist destination.

Brandon went on to intern with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The two otherwise remained in Ohio until the Thunder came calling. With the offer, he was effectively two steps away from his dream of filling an NHL booth full-time.

Hockey still needed to grow on Rachel almost as much as the new region would on both of them. But she followed Brandon out west and joined him at Stockton Arena as the Thunder’s inside sales representative. She has since ascended the ladder in her department, and now says, “We’re chasing an NHL dream.”

With the Kisker and Saiger families back in the Buckeye State, the two households’ long-distance breakaways united via necessity. But together, they took a rapid liking to the bevy of taco trucks, homegrown fruits and the annual Asparagus Festival. (“Be sure to get your asparagus ice cream and your deep-fried asparagus,” said Brandon, endorsing the event.)

By the end of their first season with the Thunder, Kisker and Saiger’s comfort zones had expanded to self-explanatory lengths. Rather than return to their old home for as long as possible, they ventured further west to Hawaii. Brandon punctuated the vacation by taking Rachel to the top of a Big Island volcano, where he popped the question.

They wed two summers later — on July 16, 2016 — at a German-inspired ceremony in Cincinnati. They subsequently jetted across the other great pond to honeymoon in Munich.

“Brandon and I love to travel,” said Rachel. “I’d like to think we bring some flavor from each place we visit to our lives.”

By the time of their wedding, they had elevated to Triple-A in their respective lines of work. And they were fully trained to tout Stockton’s offerings to prospective residents and vacationers.

“We’ve done a lot of growing in this city,” said Brandon. “To the point that I will always have fond memories of my time spent here with her.”

Better reads

In their final season, the Stockton Thunder had two intrastate rivals in Bakersfield and Ontario. They gave way to the Heat — the Calgary Flames’ new partner — as part of the AHL’s push to the Pacific.

With the Triple-A league fulfilling NHL clubs’ desires for closer-range affiliates, the Golden State gained five franchises. Bakersfield (Edmonton) and Ontario (Los Angeles) joined Stockton in its upgrade from the ECHL. San Diego and San Jose became the development bases for the Ducks and Sharks, respectively.

With Bakersfield and San Jose, in particular, the Kiskers have more radiant opportunities to employ their tourism pitching prowess. The Bakersfield Condors have enjoyed a natural rivalry with Stockton, a fellow Central Valley community roughly four hours away. The addition of the San Jose Barracuda one hour away in the Bay Area opens more avenues.

“Most of the people here are Sharks fans,” Brandon notes. And with a 12-game Stockton-San Jose season series, there is ample interaction between the regional fan bases. When the Heat are the hosts, the locals have the harder sell, at least on paper.

“Visit Stockton definitely does a good job welcoming tourists in and helping educate the community about the Heat,” said Rachel. “I think the longer the AHL is in Stockton, the more people will travel out for it. We do have fans from Bakersfield and San Jose come in for games. And after their first visit to the city, we see a lot of them returning for all of our team’s matchups.”

There is just as much give as there is take. Brandon feels obliged to learn about the greater Central Valley and the nearby Bay Area in his side gig. And as the team broadcaster, he constantly interacts with players and coaches who come in with as little familiarity as he had circa 2013. Except many of the young players have the disadvantage of not having found a soul mate to join them.

At best, the new players have the same initial geographic barrier as the Kiskers did. Only three Americans have suited up for Stockton this season, with no Californians. The other players outside the Canadian majority include three Swedes plus one Belarussian, Czech and Slovak apiece.

“It certainly is an adjustment for some of these guys,” Brandon said. “So I do my best to help them out by giving them ideas on places to go, eat, live while also making sure they understand and realize the areas of the city that aren’t in their best interest.”

Yes, even as a communications employee, Brandon will not take C-cuts around every flaw. Stockton has had its reasons to scramble for a reputational redress, especially within the last five years.

Forbes magazine has twice ranked Stockton among America’s 10 most dangerous cities. 24/7 Wall St. had it at No. 12 in the same category last year.

If you took Brandon and Rachel’s challenge to Google the city’s name on Nov. 22, unflattering headlines leaped out. The first three news results, listed horizontally with mugshots over the text, concerned two sagas of manhunt and arrest. The outlets relaying those stories were from San Francisco, San Jose and Sacramento.

Most of Stockton’s local TV reportage comes from stations based in Sacramento, more than 40 miles away. As a result, it lacks the luxury of more intimate everyday scrutiny Cincinnati might receive.

But Rachel, for one, was broader-minded when she joined her then-boyfriend on the uncharted ground. “We knew from experience with Cincinnati and other cities that there is bad and good everywhere,” she said.

Added Brandon: “The people of this city are really friendly and eager to do good things for those in need. This is a big city, and crime is always an issue in big cities. But what always goes unnoticed is the good people that call this city home. 

“Too many times, I have seen the media ignore positive stories in this city and instead report on another shooting. So I think for me, there was an expectation that I was coming to a very dangerous city. And in reality, it’s like any city. Be aware of your surroundings and you’ll be fine.”

As the Kiskers quickly assimilated, diversity dethroned danger as their pick for Stockton’s defining characteristic. Area Vibes gives the place an A-plus for amenities and notes that more than 11 percent of its population is African-American, more than 20 percent Asian. The Hispanic demographic nearly matches the number of residents identifying as “white alone.”

“It excited me to be around people with new and different ideas,” said Brandon.

Between that revelation and a craving among seasoned Stocktonians for improved perception, the CTA™ program was a natural step. The Stockton Ambassador Program began in April of 2013, mere months before Rachel Saiger and Brandon Kisker moved in.

By the time they were an engaged couple of ex-outsiders, the saw the interconnectivity between the program and their jobs. Engaging visiting fans was a natural incentive, but even locals are never finished learning about their community.

“We’re able to better serve our fans and make sure their whole experience is an amazing one,” said Rachel. “Oftentimes, a fan’s experience with the team starts well before they enter the arena and doesn’t end until they arrive home.

“With information about other local attractions, places to eat and even detours or alternate directions to the arena and parking, we’re able to make sure their whole experience is a great one. The more time people want to spend near the arena, the better chance they’ll want to attend more games.”

The apt adage about sports tightening a community radiates with merit in the Kiskers’ intramural and extramural endeavors. As the Heat’s communications anchor, Brandon often accompanies players to appearances at schools and other engagements. This past October, team representatives joined city government officials in a classroom to launch a joint literacy initiative.

In Rachel’s role, she ensures the regular return of those flaunting the crests and colors of other Stockton institutions. Everyone from essential public-service departments to nonprofit organizations is targeted for frequent arena visits.

Already this season, Heat games have coincided with canned-food drives and coat donations. The beloved Teddy Bear Toss — a junior and minor-league staple that never loses its luster — is set for Jan. 20. The Stockton edition partners with its United Way chapter, and involves representatives from the police, fire and education departments.

“To see the pure joy on peoples’ faces when that first Heat goal is made is priceless!” Rachel said. “I love being able to bring people out and leave them with an amazing memory not only from our team but of Stockton coming together for a cause.”

Student-teachers

Despite his critiques of the Sacramento media’s portrayal of Stockton, Brandon counts the California capital among the “most underrated cities.” He appreciates being based in a location that is “pretty central to a lot of things.” It grants him and Rachel easy access to Sacramento, the Bay Area and numerous as-yet unexplored landmarks.

“There’s still so much we haven’t done,” he said. “Like Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, et cetera.”

Once the Kiskers check those boxes, odds are the experience will amplify their informed appreciation of their city’s offerings. And Brandon has high hopes that precocious first-year mayor Michael Tubbs will accelerate and illuminate the attraction within city limits.

The age-old hockey humility bug bit Brandon long before it did Rachel. As such, he was less inclined to credit the ECHL-to-AHL upgrade for making his second job easier. He defers generous recognition to the neighboring Stockton Ports, Single-A partner of the Oakland Athletics. (Banner Island Ballpark and its tenant sit next door to the Heat’s house.) The rest goes to the visionaries in elected office and the tourism leaders.

“I’d give credit more to Mayor Tubbs on helping to reinvent Stockton,” Brandon said of His 27-year-old Honor. “And Visit Stockton for making it fun for tourists to visit this city.”

Of Tubbs, he added, “I think the strides he is making will turn this city back around completely and restore its old glory.”

Maybe not quite as old as the naval-base days of Rough and Ready Island. That legacy will likely live but spiritually in history festivals and minor-league promotional sporting events.

But if Brandon’s optimism comes to fruition, that will mean more material for Stockton CTAs™ to cover. In turn, there could be more Kisker couples to come.

Of the test he passed in 2015, Brandon said, “there really isn’t anything too challenging, in my opinion. You just have to want to learn it.”

As far as Rachel is concerned, that principle has no better exemplar than the man who literally tells the world about their city’s highest-ranking athletic institution.

“Brandon’s passion for what he does is contagious,” she said. “And he puts his whole self into everything he does. His eagerness to learn — not just more about his position but about those around him — and help out wherever he can is such a rare quality."

Keep laughing, or else: A Lewis Black concert-goer’s diary

Only by attending a Lewis Black concert can you grasp the incisively infuriated comedian’s all-encompassing outreach. And only by these means can you absorb the deepest insights from what he has to say.

As with sporting events, even a full-length viewing from one’s residence is no substitute. I know this having gone to Black’s show this past Friday at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC) in North Carolina. It was my first high-profile concert or performing-arts event of any kind, and the experience yielded exquisite enlightenment.

Going in, the sights and sounds confirmed the scope of diversity the way only in-person mingling can. Some fellow ticketholders filing into the 2,700-seat auditorium looked young enough to be high-school seniors. Another not-so-negligible (frankly much larger) percentage was AARP-eligible.

One attendee in the lower bowl of the balcony sported a buzz cut, a Pennywise sweatshirt and jeans. Another brandished a beard, glasses, a turtleneck, jacket and trousers. By the looks of it, everyone from the baby-faced student to the seasoned professor had an interest in this show.

Still others from a middle age group showed up in dress shirts. Casual Friday held but sparse sway on this crowd in a college-heavy community.

As people sought their seats, I overheard conversations in more than one language. And everyone was presumably prepared to hear Black’s favorite second dialect: Blue English.

There were, of course, an array of viewpoints filling these chairs as well. Black was apt to acknowledge as much, as he has been through two decades as a household name.

Naturally, there are those whose perspectives present him as biased for one party or another. Such is the life of a political humorist, just as it is for a political reporter or commentator.

Although, it is one thing to don the latter-day Gyges ring and critique him on a comment thread. It is another to leave one’s confines and shell out no fewer than $40 for a live hour-plus serving.

The difference is not unlike what Black cited when faulting TV viewers who keep Dancing with the Stars alive. Parents who do so, he said at DPAC, squander their right to criticize their children’s gaming binges. If nothing else, he noted, the kids are involving themselves with the contents of their screen.

Contrary to any controversy one may raise, Black is what most level-headed observers dub an equal-opportunity offender. But even that label is a tad off the mark. He is more of an equal-opportunity assessor. His assessments simply come with unfiltered candor and creative visuals.

This past Friday, he epitomized this characteristic when highlighting the common threads among partisan cable-news consumers. He likened turning on one’s go-to network in the morning to igniting one’s hair on the stove.

That exaggeration was closer to the mark than any assertion that Black seeks to offend. He merely shares a common collective sense of concern.

The more laughter he draws by expressing that concern, the more hope we have. Even if we are contributing to a given problem, we are not oblivious if we pass his demanding laugh-at-ourselves test.

A year and change after the latest national election, the campaign’s odor inevitably lingers. It was therefore fitting that Black revisited it. He was apt to remind us that 60 percent of the electorate expressly did not care for either major nominee. Yet that collective majority combined with the two parties’ powers-that-be to anoint those candidates anyway.

He elaborated by likening one candidate to “the woman who’s been in your carpool the last 20 years.” To illustrate the foolishness of touting the other nominee’s business record, he cited the failures of three casinos. “Bankrupting one casino,” he shouted, “is a feat!”

Either way, the material for the political portions of his 2017 concerts was bound to come from streams of Potomac rapid-level chaos. It was little wonder he kept insisting he needs to put in for a research team. While prior shows, albums and specials confirm he has been here before, the mill of absurdity never gets less maddening.

Likewise, his admonitions that he is supposedly losing his purpose are getting more repeat. Whenever his reading of a dual headline-punchline didn’t evoke immediate guffaws Friday, he warned against losing one’s sense of humor.

It is safe to trust Black is not serious about quitting. (Leave it to a regal comedian to joke about abandoning jokes as an occupation.) But he is rightly concerned about widespread numb funny bones. Those must thaw if we are to cope with what troubles us in a healthful manner.

Strangely, Black never broke out his trusty “I will repeat that” tactic on this night. Doing so might have helped to stoke the inured ludicrousness detectors in the audience.

A minor omission, to be sure, but he did bring topics that would have called for it. Not the least of those was the report that Americans aggregated more than $700 million in spending on Valentine’s Day presents for their pets.

For that bit, he demonstrated the exclusive beauty of the spoken word. Unlike my vocational variety of communication, his has a luxurious selection of deliveries to drive a given sentence.

Black has always made deft use of those options to fill an ostensibly mundane statement with wholesome amusement. He did it again at DPAC when he calmly, but firmly, reminded everyone, “Your pet doesn’t have a calendar.”

Given the spending figures, some live viewers should have heard that and, however unwittingly, laughed at themselves. And incidentally, the local calendar had some fodder that missed the cut for more assisted self-deprecation.

Black performed at DPAC on the eve of the Raleigh Christmas Parade, which unabashedly took place five days before Thanksgiving. You know, the occasion that he has variously lamented as being reduced to “a comma” or “Christmas halftime.”

The day before he came, the Raleigh News & Observer even had a story to potentially set him up. As reporter Brooke Cain had written Thursday, the parade’s strategic scheduling oddity is “all about shopping. Shocking, right? The Greater Raleigh Merchants Association has always put on the parade, and what do merchants want? They want you to shop.”

That is plainer than dawn on Black Friday. Yet the locals have clearly gone along with it.

Between that and his assessment of the active administration, Black could have reprised his President Santa Claus proposal. Almost precisely 10 years ago, he presented that suggestion on his Anticipation album. At the time, he suggested making Santa a formal aspect of the office since the economy depended on the character.

His reaction to the reaction back then: “And for those of you who didn’t applaud, how bitter are you?”

If nothing else, he found one way to recycle that query this year. He devoted what he considered his obligatory early nugget of good news to the subject of his mother turning 99.

Once again, he deftly gauged a percentage of vocal enthusiasm below 100. Only this time, he asked the silent sector, “What kind of a bitter p***k are you?” It was just the right added pinch of intensity to keep one of his time-honored phrasings fresh.

That speaks to Black’s competence as his own marketing strategies staff. He maintains mugs that we never tire of drinking from, and that fit any fashionable flavor of the time.

In the previous decade, same-sex marriage was his choice of an over-debated issue whose importance ranked behind “Are we eating too much garlic as a people?” On this night, he tacked the same question onto a speech about anthem-kneeling in the NFL.

That particular rant was more improvised; the spawn of a selected fan question/submission for an end-of-show livestream. Black characteristically repressed reservations about appearing partisan to confront the rhetorical inquisitor with determined dissent.

Whether that swayed, or at least propitiated, the submitter is only for that submitter to determine. But this author knows he got his own critical-thinking takeaway from one of Black’s prepared addresses.

Not surprisingly, Black took glee in the findings of a University of Rochester study linking intelligence with cursing. He singled out highlights of the study and articulated his interpretation to an effect only those like him can achieve.

In writing, in particular, I have tended to look down on profanity as a destructive, lowbrow tactic. It tends to correlate with other slang, as well as excessive capitalization and punctuation. Those are the loud, lazy strategies that define comment threads in ways that bode poorly for society.

Even through my years of appreciatively watching and listening to Black’s DVDs and CDs, I have sustained this view. And don’t get me wrong, I still believe profundity is preferable to profanity in most settings and contexts.

But at DPAC, I literally looked down on Black from the balcony and absorbed his refreshed defense of off-color speech. With the backing of the Rochester researchers, he explained how its use can signal a fascination with English.

Now that he has mentioned it, why can’t that make sense? Plenty of people keep their mouths clean while still squandering their civility. One can omit one’s intelligence without using NSFW material.

Surely the inverse can occur. How could I have been so oblivious and swift to generalize?

There was no better messenger for this nugget. The way Black walks the walk validates the notion of a place, however limited, for sophisticated swearing.

Unlike nameless, faceless and frankly gutless trolls, Black thinks his rants through. He throws in the verbal grenades and often laces them with original twists to underscore a situation’s head-spinning nature.

Not that anyone should expect to see print equivalents phase into mainstream editorial boards. But perhaps more compromises can come about in the form of fresh minced oaths. This way, no linguistics lessons go to waste and readers can watch a commentary wink in a you-know-what-I-really-want-to-say fashion.

Even if I pen commentaries for a publication where Black’s vocabulary is game, it will not be my style. But barring restrictions (like those here), I will look critically for a meaningful point behind someone’s speech. It will help doubly when there is a visible person putting that point forward.

And as long as the point is fair, I might even laugh at its expression. At least that is one thing we do the same, with no lingual, generational, ideological or social inhibitions.

Kind of like converging on a theater for a Lewis Black concert.

Alyssa Holmes: A tale of two Burlingtons from Ontario to Vermont

Alyssa Holmes hopes her choice to follow Jim Plumer’s half-joking counsel marks a storybook beginning.

The prelude has been gripping enough. Holmes hails from Burlington, Ont., a middle-heavyweight of a city wedged between Toronto and Hamilton. Her neighborhood there is none other than Vermont Crescent.

(Photo by Brian Jenkins, courtesy of UVM Athletics)

 

Plumer implored her to bring her hockey talents to his capstone class at the University of Vermont. UVM is a flagship institution in Burlington, Vt., the big fish of the comparatively modest Northern New England state.

Historically, the homonym is hardly a hollow coincidence. UVM’s city has celebrated a sisterhood with Holmes’ hometown for nearly a half-century. And when she committed, the blueliner unwittingly reopened the vent on what has lately been a dormant partnership.

There was a time when the two Burlingtons staged an annual athletics festival, rotating the hospitality duties each year. Beginning in 1969, the Burlington International Games (BIG) let young Vermonters and Ontarians convene for friendly cultural clashes. The cities later integrated a third community — a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa — to the bonanza.

But by the time the event’s 40th anniversary passed, the luster had faded. The games had discontinued by the year Holmes turned 11.

In a phone chat with Pucks and Recreation, Holmes admitted she has no memory of the festival. Being in an exponentially growing city that boasted 175,000 residents at the 2011 census, it was not impossible to miss. But given the range and richness of her subsequent sports resume, the BIG’s demise could not have been more untimely for her.

Not that she is dwelling on the what-ifs.

“I didn’t know it was even a big thing,” she said. “For sure, if I had the opportunity participate in the event, I would have. But yeah, it’s a cool connection.”

The end of the formal Burlington get-togethers has yet to match the duration of the gap between the cities’ hockey gift exchange. Holmes is the first women’s Catamount from the Ontario town in question and the first overall in 13 seasons.

Per the Internet Hockey Database, three members of the UVM men’s all-time roster came from the Canadian Burlington. Winger Mark Litton and center Rob McConnell both enrolled in 1980. They had previously capped their respective upbringings as Burlington Cougars in the Ontario Junior League.

Forward Scott Mifsud later spent parts of three season with the Cougars, then committed to the Catamounts in 2001. He ran away with the team’s scoring lead with 48 points as a senior in 2004-05.

The Cougars have no women’s equivalent, but Holmes started generating hometown headlines in 2012 at the latest. By that point, she had medaled at a local cross-country meet for four consecutive years. Representing the Sacred Heart of Jesus School, she topped her division in 2012.

The next fall, Holmes elevated to the Corpus Christi Secondary School, where she lettered in five different sports. As a freshman, she joined the Longhorns soccer team on a perfect 20-0 tear to a regional championship. She later keyed Corpus Christi to regional and provincial titles in field hockey and volleyball, respectively.

Individually, Holmes nabbed the school’s athlete of the year laurel as a sophomore and senior. She added a $3,500 athletic scholarship from the town’s Rotary Club of Burlington Lakeshore this past spring.

In a statement to Pucks and Rec, Rotary Club spokesperson Jay Bridle noted that Holmes combined her comprehensive athletic resume with “sustained high academic achievements, along with balancing a part-time job.” He was also apt to note that she roamed a Vermont Street in their town.

Her subsequent move to study and skate in Burlington, Vt., lends the narrative a “uniqueness” that “was not lost on the committee,” Bridle offered.

The Rotary Club doled out its 2017 student awards on June 13. UVM announced Holmes as a member of its incoming recruiting class 13 days later, though she committed the previous fall. That formality fulfilled and sweetened Plumer’s prior statement to Holmes that “you have to come here now because you’re from Burlington, Ont.”

Trivia aside, the university’s athletic therapy studies program radiated the allure for good measure. Rigorous activity consumes Holmes to the point where she is pursuing a degree in exercise and movement science.

Her adopted Burlington’s trademark Green Mountains promise to help sustain her love of running and competitive fever as well.

“I love the outdoors. I just love the atmosphere and the landscape,” she said. “And I know there’s a lot of marathons around here. I would for sure want to compete in one of those.”

Does she think she could match her medal-caliber mojo from middle school? Is she subject to eagle eyes from the Lakeshore Rotary Club and beyond in her bid for a follow-up? Does her de facto status as a Burlington sisterhood revival ambassador raise the urge to please both cities?

“Not yet,” said Holmes. “But I think, in the future, I might because in my hometown it might be talked about more. But right now, there isn’t a lot of pressure, I would say.”

Regardless, better late than never for the versatile Ontarian who missed out on the BIG to test Vermont’s varied grounds. Or for her to start appreciating her long-lost extended geographic family.

“To be honest, I didn’t really know much (about the Burlington connections) until this year,” she confessed. “When I was looking at the school, I didn’t really think of that. But I think it’s kind of unique because not many people have this opportunity.”

Life After Hockey: Kelsie Fralick seizing new days with Old World tongues

(Photo courtesy of Kelsie Fralick)

 

Attende, quaeso. Nunc goaltending pro superbia Boston: una numero, Kelsie Fralick. (Your attention, please. Now goaltending for the Boston Pride: No. 1, Kelsie Fralick.)

Fralick terminatur ad tres salvet ad tres shots ad eius debut in superbia. (Fralick finishes with three saves on three shots in her debut for the Pride.)

Kelsie Fralick and John Garrett have much to discuss. Should they ever meet, their choices of site, subject matter and speech would be equally flexible.

Fralick, a former backup goalie for the 2016 Isobel Cup champion Boston Pride, now grooms aspiring Classics sages. Garrett, the Vancouver Canucks goalie-turned-TV color analyst, ranks fifth among the greatest scholars in Floyd Conner’s Hockey’s Most Wanted.

Fralick, a product of Connecticut College’s Division III program, made one regulation relief appearance in her one-year professional career. But she also had a best-selling NWHL jersey.

Garrett never sparkled on the stat sheet in his 16-year WHA/NHL journey, but had one unmistakable moment of glory. He landed a 1983 NHL All-Star Game roster spot by default when Vancouver’s No. 1 netminder, Richard Brodeur, withdrew due to injury. When he went, he came away with the showcase’s MVP honors.

Garrett’s fascination with Latin was more instrumental in securing his mention in multiple hockey books. As quoted in Conner’s 2002 tome, he reasoned that the so-called “dead” dialect was still relevant. In typical goaltender eccentricity, Garrett quipped, “If I meet an ancient Roman, just think of the great conversation I can have with him.”

Fralick, a first-year Classics teacher at Blair Academy in Blairstown, N.J., has her own defense. At times she even needs to convince those who have already enrolled in her class.

“Just because it isn’t spoken doesn’t mean that there is any less value in learning it,” she told Pucks and Recreation. “We don’t speak like William Shakespeare or Chaucer, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have any value.”

Fralick has fed her craving for Classical cultural understanding through ample national and international travel. While she has yet to encounter a centurion, she has found a Latin-speaking sanctuary.

Every summer, the North American Institute of Living Latin Studies conducts a variety of Rusticatio seminars. Most workshops are weeklong, adult-only immersion experiences where fluency is an understood prerequisite. While bonding in a virtual, modernized Rome, goers talk as the Romans talked.

“There are people speaking Latin out there,” Fralick said. “You just have to know where to look.”

With its protocol, Rusticatio is a refreshing change of pace for those who Fralick affectionately dubs “Latin nerds.” It is akin to an intensive hockey camp for pucksters whose communities and schools undervalue their sport.

As an academic discipline, Latin is foreign even among foreign languages. Its long-ago fade from the catalog of official languages lends it a mystique that does not touch French, Spanish or Chinese.

It comes in handy for Dead Poets Society-style speeches, old-fashioned Catholic masses or time-honored government or military slogans. Otherwise, Americans are generally inclined to sneer at its use as archaic or pretentious.

There are exceptions to that norm, but it is a norm all the same. Likewise, in most U.S. localities, baseball and football interest perpetually supersedes that of hockey the way French and Spanish do Latin in schools. For the youngest organized athletes, the offerings are practically a steady diet of soccer outdoors and basketball inside.

Conversely, much like with Fralick’s second language, you need to know where to look for high-end hockey development. The game comes from a foreign land (Canada), takes place on an uncharted surface and requires extra equipment.

“I think the stereotypes that go along with Classics and hockey perpetuate themselves because people think they don’t belong,” Fralick mused. “So they don’t try.”

Fralick has had the fortune of attending and working at schools that appreciate and accommodate both of her passions. Her scholastic alma mater — Hotchkiss in Lakeville, Conn. — doles out Classics diplomas to qualified graduates. Her first employer — St. Paul’s in Concord, N.H., (alma mater of Hobey Baker, who ranked sixth on Conner’s list of skating scholars) — has a similar offering. It also ices boys’ and girls’ hockey teams at the varsity, JV and club levels.

And while Blair has no rink to speak of, it handsomely caters to Classical interests. Fralick is instructing Latin at three levels and introducing Greek to her most learned pupils.

“If you go into a Classics classroom and take a look at the students,” she said, “there is no way you’d be able to say that the children of the one percent are the only takers.”

“Same with hockey,” she continued. “You walk into a locker room, and there is no way you’d be able to say that all the girls in there are from middle-to-upper-class families.”

Fralick’s own narrative screamed blue-collar on the ice, then added a worldly twist off it. She took up hockey at the relatively late age of 10 in her home Philadelphia suburb of West Chester, Pa.

Fralick stayed in Chester County through middle school, attending Upland Country Day, before enrolling at Hotchkiss. She remained in the Nutmeg State for four more years after the Connecticut College Camels signed her on.

In between, her family and various schools took her on journeys to South America, Europe and both polar caps. As one of those excursions, she spent six weeks exploring the Etruscan and Roman ruins of Orvieto, Italy. She also has a nosebleed’s view of the hallowed Roman Colosseum as her Twitter cover photo.

At Connecticut, she was a can’t-miss two-in-one phenomenon and philanthropist. Early in Fralick’s sophomore season, Bettina Weiss of Her Campus dubbed her “one of the friendliest faces on Conn’s campus.” As an upperclassman, she would land consecutive Hockey Humanitarian Award nominations.

Studying Classics and anthropology, she sustained her longtime long-term teaching ambitions while dazzling the Camels’ crease. Once she assumed the starting job, the team’s struggles to get above .500 magnified her individual output. She twice finished a season with a goals-against average below 2.00 and mustered a 2.20 average as a junior. Over her final three seasons, she never retained a save percentage below .929, and stamped a career .932 success rate over 76 games.

The NWHL launched after Fralick graduated in 2015. While far from the lone Division III product to enter the revolutionary paid circuit, she was Boston’s only signee of that ilk. Two months after the inaugural draft, she signed to join Brittany Ott and Lauren Slebodnick in the Pride goalie guild.

While teaching in Concord, she would see action in a fraction of one game. On Jan.10, 2016, she played a de facto closer role for Ott, stopping all three shots she faced in an 8-1 rout of the New York Riveters.

But her defining individual athletic moment came two months earlier. Before play commenced, Fralick learned via the blog Stanley Cup of Chowder that her jersey was among the NWHL’s top 10 selling replicas. With its Boston focus, the post’s title stressed Fralick, whose thread was No. 9, and Pride teammate Hilary Knight (second).

“To be mentioned in a headline with arguably the best player in the world was an incredible honor,” she said. “That said, I come from a big Italian family, and my colleagues at St. Paul’s School were very excited about my being part of the league. So I knew that pretty much all of my jerseys were sold to friends and family while Hilary’s were likely purchased by her fans nationwide.”

Come what may, she had several supporters flocking to the Hub from north and southwest of the state border alike. Many of them reaffirmed the web reports by sporting her sweater in the stands.

Fralick’s answer to Jim Morris’ MLB pitching stint culminated in Boston’s Isobel Cup run. She retired a champion, returning to St. Paul’s as a teacher-coach rather than a teacher-coach-athlete. She briefly reapplied the student label en route to a master’s in education from the University of Pennsylvania.

“Without sports, I wouldn’t be where I am today, hands down,” she said. “Playing hockey really prepared me to be the best student I could be and the best person I could be. I had to manage my time efficiently, I had to be organized and I had to give 100 percent in everything I did if I wanted to go anywhere or accomplish anything.

“I developed some good habits throughout my athletic career that have helped me become an efficient teacher, a good coach and a person with whom my students can relate and feel comfortable.”

As of this year, Fralick has a field hockey team to tutor in Blair’s fall sports season. She will likewise coach lacrosse this spring. On the surface, that makes for a lighter yearly load than what she bore in her two years at St. Paul’s. But she knows as well as anyone that her labors of love pale in comparison to, say, the 12 Labours of Hercules.

For motivational Classical literature, Fralick recommends “not the entire story, the actual story of Hercules is pretty sad. But I would say that people should read the part where he performs the 12 labors.”

In most versions of the tale, the majority of the labors bear self-explanatory glamorous benefits. Hercules must slay three creatures or monsters, capture three others alive and acquire five objects. In between, the fifth assignment — the start of the second period, if you will — entails cleaning the Augean stables.

Fralick likes to separate the labors into “mundane” and “crazy” categories. The mixture of grunt work and heart-stopping missions ought to hit home for student-athletes, especially those playing rugged sports.

“Hercules doing all of these tasks is pretty inspirational,” Fralick said. “There was doubt that he’d be able to complete them all in the allotted time.”

Somewhat paradoxically, one of Fralick’s toughest tasks as a rookie coach was remembering to eschew drills with a Herculean feel. St. Paul’s appointed her to the JV post in both ice and field hockey.

For the former scholastic sensation, regal collegian and major-league mainstay, the objective had long been Ws over development. It was far less complicated than, say, distinguishing deponent verbs from the passive voice.

At St. Paul’s, Fralick needed to remember that she was not running a Rusticatio for athletes. Some players had varsity aspirations. Others wished to further involve themselves in school, to extend their learning in a different manner.

“It took me a little bit of time, and a lot of frustration and soul-searching,” she said. “But I finally got to a place in my head where I would push them to be the best they could be, but to also remember that they are playing because they have to and because they want to have fun.

“I have loved JV sports ever since because now I understand the mindset and can push them when I need to. But I can have fun with them when they need it.”

It bears noting that the freshman Camels from Fralick’s senior season are now skating into their own swan songs. She has logged associations with academic and athletic institutions in four other states in the interim. But the relative brevity of her now-completed transition from student-athlete to teacher-coach cannot escape her.

“I am able to draw on not-so-distant memories to high school and college and think of a drill that would address a theme I want to work on with the girls,” she said. “You also have to acknowledge that, in this day and age, students are quick to Google their teachers and coaches. They are able to see what I’ve done to get me where I am today.

“So the girls respect me a lot more knowing that I was just in college and just finished pro, so they know that I know my stuff. And the boys think it’s cool that their Latin teacher isn’t really such a nerd.”

Fralick’s pedagogical principles stem from influences as old as nearly two-and-a-half millennia. At Connecticut, she took to YouTube for a testimonial on the ancient Greek author Xenophon. With her joint focus on Classics and anthropology, Fralick was drawn to the frank, firsthand account of a Spartan military campaign in the Anabasis.

“He wrote without frills, and you can immediately see that he was definitely a military man,” she remarked.

Of the genre, she added, “Ethnography is the readers’ way to step into the shoes of the people who are being documented. Xenophon was writing a combination ethnography-military exploits book. So Xenophon was the author my brain needed for my sanity, but he was also writing something that I genuinely wanted to read.”

Having pushed off her plunge into Greek until college — “biggest regret from my high-school days,” she said — Fralick lauded Xenophon’s style for easing her introduction. And her enthusiasm for expert experiential writing gives her yet more company from the broader goaltending family.

Case in point: The Game by Ken Dryden, who placed second on Conner’s aforementioned ranking. One more: Open Net by the late George Plimpton, Conner’s single-most wanted scholar to have played the sport.

As for Conner’s No. 5 man on North America’s opposite coast, Fralick admits she was unfamiliar with Garrett until recently. But now she knows there are at least two people who could lobby for a rink-based Rusticatio if they wanted.

“Actually, to that same point, the goalie who came in after I graduated Conn studied Classics as well,” she said. “But in terms of (Garrett’s) quote itself, I totally agree. The material we read in Classics would lend itself to a really interesting, deep, educated discussion from literature to military to everyday life. It really would be an amazing conversation.”