15 minute read
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
NHL Hockey Players Kevan Miller ’07 and Kevin Rooney ’12 set their sights on next season.
by James Murphy
Advertisement
Photo by Heidi Holland/Getty Images
In early March, the New Jersey Devils and the Boston Bruins battled in the TD Garden arena, with the Devils falling 1–0. After the game, Devils forward Kevin Rooney ’12 dressed quickly, swapping his uniform for the required postgame suit and tie, and he hurried out of the locker room. Rooney was raised in Canton, Mass., and a flock of his family and friends were waiting to greet him before he boarded the team bus home.
Also waiting for him: Bruins defenseman Kevan Miller ’07. The two had never been teammates—and only played against each other once, last year, when Miller acknowledged the rookie Rooney with a light tap of his stick on his helmet. (“I couldn’t believe he knew me,” Rooney said.) Now they were formally meeting for a quick photo for the Berkshire Bulletin.
Miller, who has been in the National Hockey League (NHL) for six years, was recovering from an upper-body injury and hadn’t played in the game. He is well respected as a strong and capable defenseman whose team feels his absence—and whose opponents relish the relief from bumping up against him. Rooney, who was called up from the American Hockey League (AHL), is becoming a dependable player for the Devils thanks to his speediness, footwork, and humble-yet-hungry attitude.
Meeting in one of the arena’s dimly lit hallways, the two players greeted each other.
“Keep up the good work, man,” Miller told Rooney. “Thanks for taking the time to do this.”
“Of course. Anything for Berkshire, right?” Rooney said. The two posed, hugged, and then Rooney was on his way.
The gesture was a display of Berkshire camaraderie trumping competition, two fiercely competitive players vying for the same glory—ultimately, the Stanley Cup—yet honoring their shared past as Bears and as players.
Five years apart, Miller and Rooney had an oddly similar journey to the NHL, opting to attend a boarding school that pushed them to achieve greatness beyond their sport rather than focus solely on hockey. Not drafted into the NHL, both players worked day in and day out to get there, seen as triumphant underdogs who scrapped for spots on teams and fought back from injuries. And both players have unfinished business on the ice.
Rooney ’12 and Miller ’07 met for the first time after the New Jersey Devils played the Boston Bruins in March.
Photo by James Murphy
Kevan Miller ’07: “PUT YOUR HEAD DOWN AND WORK.”
This year, the Bruins nearly hoisted the Stanley Cup trophy aloft, but in June they fell to the St. Louis Blues in Game 7 of the finals. To his immense frustration, Miller was watching the game rather than competing in it. Riddled with fluke injuries throughout the season—a broken hand from blocking a goal; a fractured larynx from taking a puck to the throat; a torn oblique muscle from being pinned awkwardly to the boards—Miller’s resilience and hard work put him back on the ice after every rehab, competing with his usual ferocity. He was finally benched for good after he fractured his kneecap vertically and then refractured it horizontally in physical therapy, requiring surgery again.
For someone as competitive and passionate about the game as Miller, getting injured once was tough; having to sit out the Stanley Cup Final was ridiculously cruel.
In an interview with National Hockey NOW, posted on YouTube in June, Miller reflected on his season, saying, “I don’t think frustrating does it justice, to be honest with you. When you put it all down on paper, there’s not one thing I could have done differently. I couldn’t have trained harder, I couldn’t have been more mobile, couldn’t have done anything to prevent the [injuries]. It doesn’t sit well. You watch your team go to the Stanley Cup Finals, but you’re not able to help the guys out— it hurts, for sure.”
It’s not Miller’s style to dwell for long. He’s dedicating his summer to getting healthy and has set his sights on next season. “The motivation to get back to playing is a pretty easy thing for me,” he says. “It’s part of my job. And I truly love playing hockey. It’s something that I’ve done my whole life now.”
Miller grew up playing hockey with his brothers—street hockey, that is, on the wide, leafy streets in Santa Clarita, Calif. He didn’t exchange his rollerblades for ice skates until a friend nudged him toward the sport, and within weeks he was routinely playing and practicing in the Iceoplex in Simi Valley.
“I fell in love with the sport,” Miller says, who taped pictures of Wayne
Gretzky on his bedroom wall to motivate him. “It was a goal to play professionally, and when I was practicing with my brothers, I would envision scoring a goal in the NHL. It was just something that I put on the wall, and I worked toward that goal, year by year, day by day.”
Photo by Heidi Holland/Getty Images
As Miller realized he could play beyond recreational hockey, he began to wonder: Where and how should I get to the next level? “My parents and I sat down when I was about 14 or 15, and I said, ‘I think I’ve hit my peak here in California. We should start looking at other places, whether it be the junior route or prep school.’ But we didn’t really know our options.”
As luck would have it, Miller’s Pee Wee hockey coach, Larry Bruyere P’93, had sent his son to Berkshire, and he urged Miller to consider the school. While many young hockey players opt to try out for a junior ice hockey league or attend schools focused solely on hockey, both Bruyere and Miller’s parents had a different vision: they wanted Miller to receive a well-rounded education and play several sports in order to boost his potential hockey prospects and prepare him for life.
“My parents were adamant about me going that route instead of juniors because they were pretty high on me getting a good education,” Miller says. “They didn’t know what type of career I might have, and neither did I. Berkshire, and then Vermont, helped prepare me for anything. There was always the knowledge and security that I had that education in my back pocket.”
Alex Moodey, Berkshire’s head hockey coach at the time, was not expecting Miller, since he applied late to Berkshire, arriving in his fifth-form year. Miller, who admits he came strutting in expecting a varsity spot, was immediately punted to the JV team, causing his first crisis of conviction. Knowing that his junior year was an important time to be visible to college recruiters, he worried, “Did I make a wrong decision to come east? Is my hockey career already over?”
His family, specifically his dad, told him to “put [his] head down and work hard,” which is what he did, eventually getting called up to varsity at the end of the season.
“That’s all you can really do when things don’t go your way—put your head down and work,” Miller says. “That was the biggest lesson taken away from Berkshire. Things aren’t necessarily always going to go your way, but those are the moments when you learn the most about yourself.”
In fact, it was this lesson that sparked Miller to begin to gather his mental toughness, which he says he called on again and again this season as he faced numerous injuries.
After Berkshire, Miller played in the Hockey East NCAA Division I for the University of Vermont Catamounts, where he served as captain of the team for the 2009–10 and 2010–11 seasons. Following college, he made his move to become a professional hockey player, and just like his time at Berkshire, he had to “put his head down and work” as he made incremental movements toward the NHL, called up and then reassigned to AHL teams on several occasions.
Rooney says he’s followed Miller’s career and was even attending Berkshire when Miller returned to speak to the hockey team about mental toughness. “Just like me, Miller did it the hard way— the way that people say you can’t do it,” Rooney says of earning a spot in the NHL without being drafted. “I’ve always looked up to him and tried to follow his path the best I could. He’s the guy that everybody respects in the locker room. His whole career, I’ve never heard a bad thing about him as a player or as a person.”
Now finishing his sixth season with the Bruins, Miller reflects on what it means to him to have achieved his goal to play in the NHL—while also emphasizing there’s still work to do.
“It’s hard to put into words,” he says. “It’s honestly a dream come true. I have to remind myself before every game, ‘You’re very fortunate to be here. You’re very blessed to be in a position that you are. You’ve had a lot of help along the away. And these are the times you’re going to remember.’”
Kevin Rooney ’12: “I CAN PLAY IN THIS LEAGUE.”
In a January 14 game against the Blackhawks, Rooney buried a rebound deep in the back of the net late in the second period, marking his first NHL goal. It was a monumental moment— one that he’d been working toward for years—and he grinned in celebration. He had arrived.
“It’s never been about statistics for me,” he says. “It’s been about showing up and playing hard every game. But once I got that first goal, I got more confidence within me to know that I can play in this league.”
Over the last few years, Rooney has either played in a hockey game every day or recovered from one—first for Providence College (leading the team to the NCAA championship) and then for the AHL’s Albany Devils, where he was the captain. His diligence and patience paid off, and the NHL took notice, finally committing to Rooney after calling him up several times, signing a one-way contract with him to play for the New Jersey Devils next year.
Photo by New Jersey Devils/Andy Marlin
—Kevin Rooney ’12
Although the Devils were ousted early from the playoffs this year, Rooney had enough time to make his mark this season when he was called up— and stayed up, playing 34 games and contributing six goals and nine points.
“It was a big season to show that they made the right signing,” Rooney says, whose goal has always been to play in the NHL consistently. “So hopefully next year, I will have gotten to the point where I’ve proven that I should be here and can be relied upon.”
“This is a great opportunity for Kevin,” Devils coach John Hynes told the Patriot Ledger in March. “He’s been in the organization and had numerous call-ups, and right now he’s really playing some of the best hockey we’ve seen—and he’s doing it at the NHL level, which is encouraging.”
Rooney was raised on hockey. His father was a former college hockey player and his uncle is former NHLer Steve Rooney, who played for the Montreal Canadiens. When Rooney played hockey for Providence College, he played one season alongside his cousin. Plus, he grew up in the Boston area, where people live and breathe the Bruins.
“We’ve always been a big hockey family, and that’s all I’ve known growing up,” Rooney says. “So I’ve just followed in my dad’s, my uncle’s, my brother’s, and my cousins’ footsteps in hockey, and then just worked my way through each level.”
When Rooney was a sophomore playing hockey for Canton High School, his speed on the ice began to set him apart. After one game, an assistant hockey coach for Northeastern University, who happened to be in the stands, pulled Rooney aside. “He said, ‘Hey, I saw you play, and I think you’ll want to go play in another league with that speed. You’re almost too good for this league,’” Rooney recounts. “That was the first time I was like, ‘Whoa! What do you mean?’ This was all I knew and all I wanted to do.”
Devoting himself even more to hockey, Rooney’s family began to look at his options, and like Miller’s family, they began thinking about Berkshire School. Rooney first set foot on campus while accompanying his older brother on a visit to see if Berkshire could be the right fit for his brother’s postgrad season. As it turned out, it was the right fit for Rooney—though he struggled at first to find his way.
“I was 16 when I got there, and it was the first time living away from family and friends,” Rooney says. “The first month there was really tough for me, with study hall every night. I was kind of in shock, like, ‘What did I sign up for?’ Once I got comfortable and made some friends, it was great.”
Rooney credits two upperclassmen on the hockey team for taking him under their wings—Eric Robinson ’11 and Trevor Mingoia ’11—and Rooney ended up playing hockey alongside Mingoia at Providence. “I became best friends with him and he helped me a lot at Berkshire,” Rooney says.
One of Rooney’s most important takeaways from Berkshire was “getting outside my bubble to meet people from all over the world. ...Now I’m in a situation playing professional hockey, and there are guys from all over the place, and being able to connect with them because of my time at Berkshire is such an asset,” he says. “That all started at Berkshire.”
THE MOST COMPETITIVE KIDS
Many young athletes are often encouraged to specialize in one sport, intensely training to elevate their talents. Increasingly, however, research shows that specializing in a sport can cause psychological stress and overuse injuries. At Berkshire, students are required to play a sport every season— even students who are laser-focused on becoming elites in college and professional athletes in their careers.
For Miller and Rooney, this nonspecialization approach meant they had to set aside their hockey sticks in the fall and spring to play other sports.
Miller says the three-sport mandate gave him a chance to branch out, playing soccer in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. “I had been used to skating and working on my skills almost year round, but at Berkshire, the ice didn’t go into the rink until right before the winter season started,” he says. “I didn’t have the option to focus on hockey, and I think it gave me a much-needed break from the yearround hockey. When it came time to put the skates back on, I was basically foaming at the mouth to get back on the ice and get the season started.”
Playing multiple sports, Miller says, ultimately helped him become a stronger hockey player. “Lacrosse is a very similar sport to hockey,” he says. “Angles, reading and reacting, physicality—these were all things that translated from the lacrosse field to the ice rink. I’m extremely glad and
thankful I chose to play different sports, because it helped me tremendously.”
Rooney, who played JV soccer in the fall and baseball in the spring, experienced a similar shift as an athlete, growing in ways he hadn’t anticipated.
“Playing more than one sport was a huge opportunity for me,” he says. “It allowed me to develop other skill sets that made me a better overall athlete. Hockey was always a mental and physical grind. To be able to take time away from the game made me appreciate it that much more when hockey season came around again.”
Rooney ’12 celebrates his first NHL goal after a game against the Chicago Blackhawks in January.
Photo by New Jersey Devils/Andy Marlin
When it came time for Rooney to recommit to proving himself to the NHL, he called on the resilience he gained playing sports at Berkshire. “I’ve always had to get by on my work ethic and passion, and that’s something I developed at Berkshire,” Rooney said. “Everywhere I’ve gone, I had to carve a niche for myself and just work harder than anyone else. I learned to do that during my time playing for Coach Driscoll and being a student at Berkshire.”
Athletic Director Dan Driscoll, who coached both student athletes in hockey, says Berkshire’s non-specialization philosophy helps cultivate well-rounded athletes and leaders, which he sees in Miller and Rooney.
“Kevan Miller almost went to play college soccer; he was a tremendous athlete. And Kevin Rooney also played baseball at a very high level,” Driscoll says. “I think what they both learned from it, which is reflective in the way they approach their jobs now, is they became the ultimate teammates. They played different roles in each sport, and with that came an empathy or an appreciation of the roles that every kid on every team has. That’s reflected in the ways they both approach their work today.”
Driscoll continues, “Playing different sports opened their eyes to the value and importance of every guy in the lineup. They’re two of the most competitive kids I’ve ever met, and I think competing in different situations and different roles benefited them in the long run.”
With the NHL season wrapped up, Rooney says he’s feeling more comfortable than ever playing at this level—though he isn’t letting his guard down. “There’s no room for error,” he says. “It’s a full-time job. I have to be there ready to perform. If I’m not, then somebody will be there to take my spot very quickly.”
Never without a plan, Rooney says of next season: “I want to become more consistent in the league and try to help the team any which way I can,” he says. “I want to be front and center on the penalty line, committed every night to help the team go further than we did this year.”
Miller, too, is already turning the page, not wanting to linger too long on the past. “When I’m done playing, whenever that may be down the road, I will have time to sit back and reflect on my career,” he says. “But I still have a lot of unfinished business to do. That’s what drives me: to win that Stanley Cup. And now that motivation is burning stronger than ever. I want to win one, and I want to actually play.”
James Murphy is the owner, editor-inchief, and lead NHL and Boston Bruins columnist for Boston Hockey Now. Murphy, who has covered the NHL, NCAA hockey, and junior hockey for 18 seasons, has worked for NHL.com, NESN, and ESPNBoston, as well as various other outlets in print, radio, and TV.
Article featured in the Berkshire Bulletin Summer 2019
