Why Thanksgiving matters to young NHLers who can’t get back home

Dave Isaac | NHL Writer

VOORHEES — A little more than two weeks ago, Joel Farabee finally got the call he was hoping for.

After he played his 10th NHL game, which guaranteed his entry-level contract couldn’t slide to next season, the 19-year-old winger was told he could check out of the hotel two blocks from the practice facility. That means he’s staying in the NHL … unless he gives the Flyers a reason to send him back to the minors.

“It’s good to be out of the hotel now,” he said. “Some more room. It’s been good so far.”

The hotel had little kitchenettes in the rooms, not exactly great tools to start cooking and Farabee was eating a lot of meals out or at the rink anyway.

He’ll have at least one home-cooked meal this week at Chris Stewart’s house.

The veteran forward is hosting most of the team’s young players, including Farabee, Morgan Frost, Phil Myers and veterans Michael Raffl and Scott Laughton, for Thanksgiving and Farabee now has even more reason to give thanks.

“It was just cool for him to even ask me,” Farabee said. “I think it will be cool to spend it with teammates and his family and stuff like that. Should be a lot of fun.”

Hosting a dinner is sort of a rite of passage for a veteran NHLer who remembers what it was like when they were young and couldn’t get back home to share the day and meal with family.

In 2009, his second season in the league with the Colorado Avalanche, Stewart was invited to defenseman Adam Foote’s house for Thanksgiving dinner.

“I remember when I was younger I had to go there and play mini sticks for three hours with the kids in the basement,” Stewart recalled. “Talk about paying it forward, I’m the older guy now and I’ve got some kids with some mini sticks. I told the boys to get some rest and sleep because we need a couple goalies on Thanksgiving Day.

“I’m Canadian but my three kids are American so we’re doing Thanksgiving dinner. … We take a lot of things for granted in life so if you take one day to reflect on how truly blessed we are, I think it’s good to do it as a team.”

This year Stewart is thankful to be back in the NHL after a season abroad. He stuck with the Flyers as a training camp tryout and is in a much different spot in his career than most rookies, for whom it may have been a while since they were able to spend Thanksgiving with family.

Last year, Farabee was with Boston University’s hockey team in Belfast, Ireland for a tournament at Thanksgiving, so he couldn’t go home to Cicero, New York. Some have been lucky, like James van Riemsdyk, who only had a short drive his rookie year to have dinner with his family in Middletown, Monmouth County.

“It all depends on certain things, obviously schedule-wise what’s going on and stuff like that,” he said. “Even when I was in Toronto, I was lucky enough where sometimes my family would come up and we’d spend it together at my place.”

He’s the exception to the rule, though.

Justin Braun, a Minnesota native, was taken in by goalie Thomas Greiss in his first year with the San Jose Sharks and defenseman Brad Stuart his second year.

“I feel like most of these guys left home at 16 and haven’t been back so they’ve been away for a little bit,” Braun said. “It always seems like even in junior you might get a little bit of a break to head home. I think it helps the team camaraderie and guys aren’t sitting by themselves during the holidays. You never want to hear that. We have a good group here that will make sure everyone’s taken care of.”

For that, Farabee is thankful.

And also that he’s finally had enough time to go back to Allentown, Pennsylvania to gather the rest of his belongings and start living outside of a hotel room.

“I don’t think it really changes my mentality,” Farabee said, in terms of how the decision translates to the ice. “If they wanted to, they could still send me down. At the end of the day I’ve got to compete for my spot here, keep working and help the team as much as I can. If I continue to do that, hopefully I stay.”

“At the end of the day this is your extended family,” Stewart added. “You spend more time with these guys in this dressing room than your own family. It was funny, Farabee told me his mom is sending something over. She sent something in the mail that’s gonna get here tomorrow. Mother Farabee’s making her contribution to dinner too, so that’s good.”

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Dave Isaac joined the Courier-Post in April 2012 after covering the Flyers for three seasons elsewhere. Contact him on Twitter @davegisaac or by email at disaac@gannett.com.

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