Junior Hockey -- Ice Men Cometh: Thunderbirds Learn More Than Hockey

They hadn't showered. Or brushed their teeth.

And they cringed when their big chartered bus, as un-cool in the Meadowdale High School parking lot as a paneled station wagon, chugged right up to the front door that morning.

Its shiny doors yawned open and through them shuffled several self-conscious Seattle Thunderbirds, already reluctant to emerge from their major-junior hockey cocoon into a world that views their routine as both peculiar and prestigious.

"We just got back from Prince George, and we were on the bus all night," left wing Tim Preston said. "It was about 10 or 11. Coach figured we'd have time to make a class or two.

"We were gross," he said, resigned to the reality that their cleaning up first "wasn't a top priority."

Clearly, though, schoolwork is.

It has to be. That's one of the promises Western Hockey League general managers make to parents when they take their sons from home to prepare them for the professional game and adult life. For every season in the WHL, a player earns a year of college tuition.

But the WHL process strikes a deeper chord. Ron Schaefer, of Spruce Grove, Alberta, who saw one son play four years for the Medicine Hat Tigers and another attend T-bird training camp, described it this way: "If some talent scout approached us and asked if he could take our daughter to Hollywood and make her into a movie star - have her live with some family while she went to school and worked - we'd say, `No way we'll let you do that!' But a hockey scout tells us he'd like to take our son from home and turn him into a hockey player, we say, `Sure!' "

Parents across Canada give up their sons for hockey, almost as ritual, and increasingly, Americans are easing into the practice long considered exclusive to Olympic-hopeful gymnasts and figure skaters.

So Russ Farwell, T-bird general manager, takes seriously his role as guardian of 16-to-20-year-old family treasures.

"With the new freedom, the players have to have a plan," Farwell said. "We just tell them up front that as long as they're focused we'll get along fine.

"Keeping them out of trouble is seldom an issue. Before we commit to a guy, we find out if he can fit into our system - you won't win without character people on your team. You won't find more focused kids in the first place, but Don (Coach Nachbaur) also has that hammer over them. He controls their ice time."

Keeping the high-school-age players on track academically, while strongly encouraging their college-age teammates to take courses occupies only a part of Farwell's attention and that of Nachbaur and assistant Rob Sumner.

Their primary task is teaching hockey technique and extracting, individually and collectively, the most they can from players' potential. They're always available to discuss any subject.

In the wake of the Graham James sexual-abuse scandal at Swift Current years ago that came to light just last year, the league instituted a sexual awareness seminar sponsored by the Canadian Red Cross. The club periodically flies in Boston-based counselor Max Offenberger for drug and alcohol awareness talks and private talks with players.

"Max is not really a sports psychologist. He's a put-your-life-in-order kind of person," Farwell said of the man who advises several NHL and WHL teams. "We don't use him as a performance-enhancer. (His services are) just something we can add to make sure we cover all the bases. It costs us a fraction of what the NHL pays."

Farwell, who led Medicine Hat to Memorial Cup titles in 1987 and '88, was general manager of the Philadelphia Flyers for three years. So he has faith in the value of preventive measures.

All that has reassured parents such as Chris and Debbie Trsek, of Langley, B.C., who originally had preferred to send son Ryan, a left wing, through the college hockey route. Fellow Langley residents Norm and Trish Morisset and Robin and Penny Preston said they believe their sons, David and Tim, are in trustworthy hands . . . they're "relaxed," Penny Preston put it.

"When we first met with Russ and Don," she said, "we got a good sense of them as human beings. We haven't always felt that way with other organizations."

Victoria, B.C., resident Don Pollock, father of fourth-year defenseman Jame Pollock, so admires the T-bird management style that he said, "If Russ Farwell ever needed something and I could help him, I'd be on the first ferry to Seattle."

The T-birds carefully screen and constantly interact with host families, referred to as billets. These billets cooperate with management in reinforcing study and curfew times. But they serve as much more, for they embrace a young hockey player's life for at least seven months of the year.

"They're trying to be adults, but they're still kids," said Marcia Evich of Edmonds, who, along with husband Peter, has been housing T-birds for 16 years. "And sometimes they slip into that childhood, where they need a hug or a stern talking to. They need a good support system.

"We try to be as supportive as we can, but we can't let them get by with things," she said. "But the kids are wonderful, and Don and Rob are exceptional to deal with."

In Bret DeCecco's case, the structured life with the T-birds and at Dennis and Patsy Burke's home in Lynnwood represents security. He returned home to Sherwood Park, Alberta, after one season in Seattle and was flabbergasted at his own family's haphazard habits.

"He couldn't believe we were so disorganized," mom Barb DeCecco said of the remaining four at home. "He got us all together and set rules: We need to eat at a certain time. If you're not going to be home for dinner, you have to call. Things like that. He was so used to being regimented, but it was wonderful how he took charge."

Torrey DiRoberto's mother, Joan, got a bit teary-eyed in Upland, Calif., when she realized her son does his own laundry. Even billet Bob Ross, who's also a hockey official, was taken off-guard last year when he discovered Matt Demarski, a T-bird center, cleaning the bathroom without being asked. "I live here, too. Shouldn't I help keep the house clean?" was Demarski's logic. Such are reminders that these T-birds often arrive as shy teenagers and develop into confident, capable young men.

Perhaps Charlene Cantu, of Warren, Mich., whose son Kris helped lead Seattle to the WHL championship series in 1996-97, knows more surely than anyone the influence Farwell and Nachbaur have on impressionable hockey hopefuls.

Kris Cantu is in his second pro season for the Roanoke Express, the Calgary Flames' East Coast Hockey League affiliate. He had transferred to the T-birds after difficulties in the Ontario Hockey League that left him skeptical and a bit sullen.

But a season in Seattle made all the difference in his hockey and personal life. In a letter to a friend, Charlene Cantu wrote from her heart:

"(Kris) often talks about how excellent a coach Don is and how brilliant he thinks Russ Farwell is. He has more respect for them than anyone he has met through hockey. I think anyone he plays for now will have difficulty measuring up to them in Kris' mind. Even now he feels he doesn't want to let them down.

"He has grown into a fine young man before my eyes. I know they had a lot to do with that. When kids leave home so early, sometimes emotionally they aren't prepared to handle all the things that happen in life away from hockey. Kris received the kind of direction he needed.

"I always sensed there was some anger in him down deep. When he came home it was missing," she wrote. "He is so thankful for the opportunities he had. He was given options and choices. There was positive reinforcement, not the negative he had experienced before. He said it never occurred to him to break the rules because he earned the respect of Don and Russ.

As with Farwell and Nachbaur, Charlene Cantu looks at the bottom line.

"I think the Seattle organization should be commended for the quality, loyalty and dedication of those who are spending the time we are missing with our sons. Kris has played in two other locations for the Canadian Hockey League since he was 16, and neither of those organizations measures up to the Thunderbirds," she wrote. "I am certain it wasn't always easy but must be very rewarding when they are sending fine young men such as Kris out into the world."