Her very own hockey player

At nearly every Everett Silvertips home game Nellie Harris is there to watch Jovan Matic play hockey.

"That’s my boy!" she’ll say excitedly when he scores a goal or checks an offender against the glass.

But Matic, 17, is not actually her boy. He’s not her son or her grandson — he’s her roommate.

Last year an entire team of young hockey players descended on Everett, every one of them in need of a host family for the WHL season.

Harris, who has four grown daughters and 13 grandchildren, did not fit the initial "host families wanted" description.

Most players were sent to homes with couples and children, and Harris lives alone in a fifth floor condominium.

But the 67-year-old widow was eager to take care of someone again — to pack lunches, to do laundry and to cook dinner.

Along came Jovan Matic (pronounced Yo-von). Matic is a polite, studious young player from a Vancouver, B.C., suburb who needed someone to take care of him. He was looking for a quiet place to relax and concentrate on school and hockey, he said.

They turned out to be a perfect match.

Harris had always lived in a bustling home, had always enjoyed having people around she could take care of. She grew up in a family with eight children, and has a large family of her own.

In the two years since she lost Al, her husband of 45 years, Harris’s home was quiet, and far too empty.

The woman who had spent virtually her whole life taking care of others didn’t know what to do with herself.

"I thought, ‘OK, God, if you wanted me like this, what are you doing now?’" she said.

Then, in May 2003, she saw a newspaper article about hockey players needing homes. How could she not provide?

"I’m just glad to have him," she said.

Having boys around is something new for her — along with her own four daughters, Harris spent years helping troubled young women.

In 1988, Harris started a program called "Special Delivery," at Overlake Christian Church in Redmond.

The program helped support girls and women with unexpected pregnancies and give them alternatives to abortion.

"I was always bringing home these dysfunctional young girls," she said. Her husband and daughters were patient and understanding.

Along with having a teenage boy around, the sport of hockey is also a new frontier.

"Al would have loved this," she said, of Jovan’s stay. "My husband’s the one that got me into sports."

Big sports fans, the couple had season tickets to the Seattle Mariners and the University of Washington Husky football team.

But what did Harris know of hockey before the Silvertips? She held up both hands, making zeroes with her fingers.

"Zero. Zilch. Nothing. The first time I saw the players get in a fight, I thought, ‘Do I have to go down there?’"

Since Al’s death and her retirement, Harris has been trying to keep busy. To Harris, "keeping busy" seems to mean finding things to do for other people.

Having someone to care for has been marvelous. She dotes on Matic in that way only grandmothers know. She even wants him to come back and stay next season.

"It’s been such a good thing for me personally," she said. "I’ve always had family living with me, and it’s hard not having that."

Jovan grew up in Burnaby, a suburb 10 miles east of Vancouver, B.C.

The child of Serbian parents, Jovan spoke primarily Serbian until he started kindergarten.

At that point his parents, Alex and Mary Matic, enrolled him in a French immersion class.

For years Jovan would speak French at school and on the playground every day, and then he would go to his grandparents’ house after school and speak only Serbian.

Between the Serbian at home and the French at school, Matic didn’t get to learning English until about five or six years ago.

"I knew a bit from TV and stuff, but I started to learn English properly about fifth or sixth grade," he said.

No matter what language he was speaking, Jovan’s love of hockey was an unswerving force from the time he first set his skates on the ice at 4 years old.

"Once you love something you never really stop loving it," he said.

His sister, Sanja, 18, said she’s proud of him for working so hard to further himself in the sport.

Even in the summer, when many of his friends are going to the beach, staying out late and partying, Jovan usually passes in favor of working out and getting his rest.

"He’s really serious about it. It’s quite amazing for a 17-year-old boy to wake up at 6 a.m. to go to training instead of staying out late the night before with his friends," Sanja said. "He is probably the biggest hockey nut ever."

Jovan said his family, his hockey teammate "brothers" and Harris have been enormously supportive through his first season. He’s had highs and lows — he scored the first goal in Silvertips history, but also had to sit out some games after a concussion and a cold.

Jovan’s father Alex has only missed one home game — he drives the two hours from Burnaby for every Everett puck drop. His mother Mary and Sanja often attend as well.

Though driving two hours back to Canada after every Silvertips home game may seem tiring, his family is not complaining. Last year Jovan played for the Broncos in Swift Current, Saskatchewan — 900 miles from their home.

"It’s been so easy in Everett," his mother said. "It feels like a hop, skip and a jump away."

Harris also tries to make it to all of the Silvertips home games.

"He is really disappointed when I don’t, so I’ve really made an effort," she said

Jovan’s goal, as with most Western Hockey League players, is a career in the National Hockey League. The big league.

Not only would he be pursuing his dream, but he could also afford to help his sister through medical school and support his parents so they could retire early, he said.

The odds are that only a handful of players from each WHL team will go all the way to the NHL.

But Matic, who loves watching cooking shows and can make his own pasta sauce from scratch, has a plan for that scenario, too.

He graduates high school in mid-June with his French and English diplomas, and for every year he plays WHL hockey he earns a full year’s college scholarship.

"If I don’t make it to the next level, I’ll take my five year university scholarship," he said. "Then open up a restaurant."

Though the Silvertips were looking for families and couples to host the 25 hockey players, they visited with Harris and thought she’d be a good match for Matic.

"I think they just liked what they saw, I guess," she said. "I have so much experience with young people."

The Silvertips weren’t the only ones to pay Harris a visit —Jovan’s mother and sister drove down to meet her.

"I said, ‘Nellie, you know we’re here to check you out,’ " Mary Matic said. "Nellie laughed at that. As soon as I met her, I knew it was going to be OK."

Harris said as a mother, she appreciated and understood Mary Matic’s visit.

"His mom and I have the same heartbeat," Harris said. "She was nervous to send him, so when she drove down here and checked me out. I told her, ‘My goal is for him to succeed. Period.’ "

So imagine her thrill on Sept. 19 when her boy made Silvertips history by scoring the team’s first-ever goal against the Kamloops Blazers. The Blazers won 4-1.

Another highlight for Harris was having Matic attend her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. But for Christmas he went home. That was hard; she missed him.

"It was good to have him back home. I gotta get over this," she said, then laughed. "In March he goes home. I’m surprised at how attached I am to him. It’s just good having someone else there."

Harris calls Matic polite and kind.

"He’s an extremely honest person. He seems committed to whatever he does. He’s loyal. He has integrity. And he always says thank you."

The feelings are mutual, Matic said.

"She’s a very sweet and caring person," he said. "She makes me feel very welcome."

In the evenings they watch "Everybody Loves Raymond" and talk about the sports page.

Harris also works on a gift for Matic — a Silvertips scrapbook full of clippings of him and his teammates.

Part of the reason his stay hasn’t been awkward, she said, is that she doesn’t have to act as a disciplinarian. All she has to do is care about him.

The Silvertips have strict guidelines for their players, and having those rules, including a curfew, makes it so host families don’t have to worry about chastising someone else’s teenage son.

Besides, Harris said, the Silvertips are busy. The players have regimented schedules that don’t allow for much other than school, meals, practice, games and much-needed rest. If the boys are lucky, they’ll get some extra time to catch a movie or go to the mall.

Because Matic is so busy, Harris feels it is her job to step up to make life easier for him.

She does his laundry.

She fixes him meat and potatoes and salad for dinner. If she can’t be there for dinner, she’ll leave him a frozen pizza in the oven.

"He’ll eat anything except broccoli," she said. "He hates broccoli."

She also packs his brown-bag lunches for school at Everett High School, where he’s a senior. He likes ham and cheese sandwiches, mozzarella cheese sticks and Doritos.

"He also likes really ripe bananas and water. Lots of water. I buy it by the case," she said.

The Silvertips pay host families $250 a month, which about covers food for the 6-foot, 1-inch, 196-pound Matic.

Right now she’s also putting up a younger player, Jordan Funk, 16, who was brought up from the junior leagues. Funk is sleeping on the futon in her study.

"You don’t do it for the money," Harris said.

Her once-quiet condo is now filled with the sounds of video games, laughing teenage boys and frequent phone calls for Jovan, who many call, "Yo."

She bought him a prepaid cellphone so he could keep track of all his friends and relatives, and so he could check in to let her know if he’ll be home for dinner.

He bought her a black and green Silvertips fleece.

"She’s like a grandma. She makes me food, does my laundry, looks after me and really worries when I get sick," Matic said. "I’ve got it better than most the guys. I probably have it the best."

"It’s hard coming into someone else’s house and living there," she said.

"It is," he agreed. "But living with a complete stranger — it all turned out for the best."

Reporter Jennifer Warnick: 425-339-3429 or jwarnick@heraldnet.com.