03/22/2026
Ten years ago, my fifteen-year-old packed his bags and stepped into a life most kids his age can’t imagine. It felt both far too early and exactly right for him.
He left home for prep school, and from there the path carried him through the USHL the BCHL and eventually the NCAA. Each stop a little farther from home. Each year a little more his own.
It meant billets and long bus rides. Tough seasons and hard losses. Injuries pushed through, exams studied for in hotel rooms, and a lot of growing up in rooms I’d never seen.
Hockey has a way of doing that. It asks for everything: discipline, humility, resilience, the willingness to get back up after a hit.
There’s a quiet grief that lives inside that pride. When your child leaves so young, you miss the ordinary years, the kitchen conversations at odd hours, drives to practice the small unremarkable moments, the subtle, almost invisible ways a teenage boy becomes a man. You don’t get to witness it. You only get to recognize it, later, when he’s standing in front of you.
But what ten years gives you, if you’re lucky, is perspective.
This weekend, his team won the AHA championship and punched their ticket to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in program history. Back to back. He was there for both.
The independence, the discipline, the character he carries weren’t given to him. He built them. Often far from home. And moments like this are why.
Arlo, you left home young to chase something bigger than comfort. Watching the man you’ve become has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.
I’m so proud of you
Xo mom
