EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — When Nathan Gerbe was 13 years old, his father, Joe, started taking him along to job sites in and around Detroit so the youngest of his six children could understand the life of an underground construction worker.



“Underground construction … that’s the piping, the sewer systems, all the stuff that has to be in place before the structure starts going up,” Gerbe said. “I was the cement mixer that summer. I mixed cement all summer … by hand.



“Yeah, it sucked real bad. (laughs) And my dad always says that I was the worst worker he’s had.”



But those long, arduous days in 2000 taught Gerbe some important life lessons.



First, that he didn’t want to be a construction worker, underground or otherwise. But also that he better be prepared to work as hard as one if he was going to forge a career in professional hockey.



“It was done to teach me the real...