Ben Harpur hated hockey and, to be fair, there are plenty of reasons why a 4-year-old might not like their first exposure to the sport. The arena is a loud and cold place, filled with indistinguishable echoes and a big white floor that can be painfully slippery.



His parents settled into a rhythm: They would watch him for five minutes, and then they would sit with him for another 55, trying to gently coax him back onto the ice with the rest of his tiny teammates.



“Didn’t want to go out,” said his mother, Margery.



“Just sat there,” said his father, George. “Wouldn’t do it.”



Margery suspected she knew why. Ben was their middle child, but their first into hockey, and he started skating a year or two later than many of his peers. He was such a competitive child, she thought, that he would have hated knowing he was a step behind the pack.



Eventually, he started skating.



“And then he...