Early last September, Chris Wuchterl left his son in the hands of an Everett family and drove back home to Edmonton.
In the 5 1/2 months since, he admits there’s hardly been a moment when he hasn’t wondered what his boy, Michael Wuchterl, was doing.
"I think about it too much to mention," Chris Wuchterl said. "We’re both getting to the point where it’s been a long time."
When you’re a talented young hockey player — or the parent of a player — you acknowledge that separation at an early age is the flip side to the life you dream about.
"I played hockey myself," Chris Wuchterl said. "I knew what was coming."
In this case, it happened sooner than anyone thought, launching Michael Wuchterl into one of the premier levels of developmental hockey in the world, the Western Hockey League, and a daily routine unlike anything he had experienced.
Wuchterl was a 15-year-old who established a reputation as a hard-nosed, hustling winger for his Midget AAA team last winter in Edmonton.
Despite his talent, he didn’t believe he had a chance to win a place on the Everett Silvertips’ roster when they held their preseason training camp last August in Strathmore, Alberta.
The first-year Silvertips were considering older, more experienced players to comprise their team, and Wuchterl was one of the youngest (his 16th birthday wouldn’t come until Dec. 9) and smallest (5 feet 10 inches and 180 pounds) in camp.
"But," he said, "I was going to work my butt off and see what happened."
He skated hard and hit harder, and when the Silvertips broke camp, Wuchterl remained with them.
"The next thing I knew," he said, "I was in a car with Mitch Love riding back to Everett."
He had packed only enough clothes for a few days of training camp. He would need enough for the entire winter.
Dad packed the rest of Michael’s necessities into his pickup truck and delivered them to Everett, then turned around and left his boy behind.
Only one thing kept Denise Greene and her 17-year-old daughter, Jennifer, from signing up last summer to host a hockey player in their home: Todd Greene.
No way, Todd told his wife and daughter.
The women didn’t take that as a final answer, although their suggestions became more subliminal. They would find a way for the questionnaire that prospective host families must submit to the team to "mysteriously" appear under Todd Greene’s nose around the house.
"We kept leaving it out in places where he would see it," said Jennifer, a senior at Everett High School. "Finally, he said yes."
Nobody regrets that decision.
In the time they have hosted one of the youngest Silvertips, the Greenes say Michael Wuchterl has become one of the joys of their lives and, the family hopes, they are the same to him.
Still, they all had to adjust.
It took time for Wuchterl to settle in a country that is just different enough from his own to rattle a teen-ager. After his abrupt departure from Canada, Wuchterl had been deposited into a new family, a different high school and a community with no true feel for its new hockey team.
On top of it all, he became homesick.
Wuchterl missed the life he had in Canada, especially his dad and 19-year-old brother Ryan.
"It gets hard at times, but my host family has made it a lot better," he said. "I’d rather be home right now, but we’re here to play hockey."
Hosting one of the youngest players in the WHL brought challenges to the Greenes.
Besides having another mouth to feed and more clothes to wash, they must drive Wuchterl to and from school, practices and games. He did turn 16 in December but he won’t get his driver’s license until he returns to Canada after the season ends this spring.
Of the concern over a teen-age boy living in the same house as a teen-age girl, Denise Greene said it hasn’t been an issue.
"That has been fine," she said. "They bicker like a brother and sister."
Wuchterl has the bedroom at the top of the stairs and there’s no mistaking it belongs to a hockey player.
Leaning against the television is a framed photo of the Silvertips lockerroom at the Everett Events Center, with the players’ jerseys hanging in each locker. Michael proudly points out the jersey on the far right with the undeniable evidence that he has made it to the WHL — "Wuchterl, No. 29."
There are a few hand-made "Go Tips" signs on one wall and a couple of hockey photos on another. The one he likes most is the poster-sized image above his bed showing him on the ice in his Silvertips uniform. Denise Greene snapped that photo and had it enlarged and framed.
In December, the Greenes orchestrated a surprise 16th birthday party when Wuchterl’s father and brother came to Everett without his knowledge.
The Greenes enjoy doing these kinds of things because they know they help Wuchterl feel more comfortable in the first year of his life away from home.
"It has been hard on him being so young and living here by himself," Denise Greene said. "Some families have two players, and I think that helps the younger players. We want to do this again next year, and if he wants to come back and live with another player, we will have two."
It’s a Tuesday in early February, and the Silvertips play Prince George at 7:05 p.m. at the Everett Events Center.
Thirteen hours before faceoff, the kid who will be cheered by thousands is no different than almost everyone else his age. Michael Wuchterl loves his sleep, and it doesn’t matter whether his bed is in Everett or Edmonton.
"Michael is not a morning person," Denise Greene says.
She is in charge of the school-day wakeup call, which begins around 6 a.m. and often needs repeating. Nearly 1 1/2 hours remain before his first class at Everett High, but Wuchterl sometimes needs all of it to rumble out of bed, take a shower and get into his clothes.
Earlier this winter, he joyously learned a major difference between schools here and Edmonton: snow days.
"We don’t have any of those like you do here," he said. "When that happened, I was really glad. I just went back to bed."
No chance on this dark morning because the streets of Everett were merely damp as usual.
Denise, Jennifer and Michael left the house before 7 a.m. for the short trip to Everett High School, where Denise is a para-educator. Michael finished his breakfast — an energy bar and a bottle of water — in the car.
What does a Canadian do during the Pledge of Allegiance?
Before his first-period Biology class, Wuchterl stood and faced the American flag during the Pledge but he didn’t place his hand over his heart.
"I don’t want to disrespect anyone," he said. "I’ll stand up and respect you guys. I think it’s good that you guys do that because at my old school, we didn’t really do anything like that."
He’s getting comfortable with these kinds of things, though.
"This has become my second home," he said. "When I first came here I didn’t know the words to your Anthem. But now, I’ve learned the words and I sing along with it before every game."
Four other Silvertips players — Cody Thoring, Jovan Matic, Curtis Billsten and Devin Welsh — attend Everett High. Wuchterl has just one class with a teammate, Human Relations with Thoring.
He also has classes in English and Algebra. They’re basic subjects, but Wuchterl says the transition from a Canadian school isn’t seamless.
"There’s a big difference," he said. "The stuff I’m learning now, some of it I learned already and some of it is new. I don’t know how it’s going to be when I go back home after the season."
He will return to Canada as soon as the Silvertips’ season ends — the final regular-season game is in mid-March, although the team probably will qualify for the playoffs and could play into May — and finish his school year there.
Wuchterl said he finishes most of his homework at school. There’s also plenty of time to study during road trips, although he says it’s easy to put it off because of team meetings, 24-hour sports on TV and, of course, plenty of time to sleep.
Game days can be the most difficult times to focus in class.
On the day of the Silvertips’ home game against Prince George, Wuchterl admitted his mind was more into the game than it was on his classes.
"We played this team just the other night, so I know it’s going to be a physical game. I know I’ll have to come out hitting hard," he said. "They say you should put school before hockey, but when you’re at school and you’ve got a game that day, you’re thinking hockey."
After a morning of Biology, English and Algebra classes came the lunch break.
Wuchterl and Thoring, a senior, hooked up in the Everett High lunchroom and grabbed a couple of seats at the end of an empty table.
Faster than the hockey players could unload their lunch bags, most of the other seats at the table were filled by girls.
"That tends to happen," Wuchterl said. "Most of them are friends we have made. They’re all good people. All the people I’ve met are good people."
This is a great time in a kid’s changing life to have new friends, but it’s no time for a girlfriend.
Wuchterl said he had a girlfriend in Edmonton but broke that off after he made the Silvertips roster.
"I didn’t want to try a long-distance relationship," he said. "I just wanted to focus on hockey."
Wuchterl said the hockey players immediately became objects of other students’ curiosity when school started in September.
Who are these guys? Where are they from? Will they talk funny? Will they want to fight?
"At first they would ask a lot of questions," he said. "But they don’t treat us any different than anybody else. A lot of them come to watch us play hockey and they’ll come up to us and tell us we played a good game last night. Other than that, it’s just normal friends."
In the hallway after the fourth-period Human Relations class, Everett High basketball player Tyler Levin had a little fun with Wuchterl. Levin, a 6-foot-4 center for the Seagulls, playfully waved a couple of clenched fists at Wuchterl’s face and said, "Let’s go!"
Wuchterl just smiled at his buddy and walked on to his fifth-period class.
"He remembered the Seattle game when I fought Benke," Wuchterl said.
That game last month and Wuchterl’s role in it were hard to forget. The Silvertips had played a listless first period and fallen behind the Seattle Thunderbirds, so Wuchterl decided to liven up his team and a near-capacity crowd at the Everett Events Center.
Wuchterl challenged 6-5, 220-pound Seattle defenseman Erik Benke to a fight, even though he was seven inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter than the T-bird.
"I told him, ‘Let’s go!’ " Wuchterl said. "And he looked at me and said, ‘You? You’re kidding, right?’ "
When Wuchterl dropped his stick and gloves, it was obvious he wasn’t kidding. The hockey experts who saw the fight say Wuchterl got the best of the bigger Benke.
Wuchterl said he learned to be tough, and not back away from bigger players, from his older brother Ryan.
"My brother is one of the biggest kids I know," he said. "If I would get on his nerves, he’d let me have it. He would toughen me up. I’d try and fight back but there was always the size factor."
Wuchterl has faith he won’t be 5-10 forever. Every man in his family is 6 feet or taller.
"My feet are size 11, so hopefully I’ll grow like they did," he said. "But if I don’t, I’ll just have to keep playing like I’m 6-4."
In the halls of Everett High School, nobody needs to keep their head up. Hockey players get into fights on the ice, not at school, Wuchterl says.
"A lot of kids will ask us, ‘What happens if you get into a fight at school?’ "Wuchterl said. "That’s not going to happen. Most of us are easy-going guys and it would take a lot to get us mad at school. If we did, there would be consequences from the team. We’re good guys."
When school gets out, the game face goes on.
After, of course, a good nap.
On game days, Wuchterl returns home in mid-afternoon and climbs back in bed.
When he awakes about 1 1/2 hours later, he’ll take a shower, pull on a nice shirt and pants and tie the necktie that is required of all players on game days (he learned to tie a tie when he was about 6 years old).
Then he’ll come down to the dining room, where Denise Green has left a plate of chicken and rice.
"Gonna need my carbs," Wuchterl says.
He eats alone as Jennifer Greene finishes her homework and Denise waits in another room.
Soon, Denise fires up the hockey taxi again and shuttles Wuchterl to the arena. He arrives about two hours before the game and spends much of the time preparing his equipment, stretching and running along the concrete corridors with his Silvertips teammates under the arena.
The game against Prince George turned out just as Wuchterl had predicted, with plenty of hard hitting. Wuchterl dished out a few hard knocks, took a few and delivered a glove to the snout of a Prince George player who had tried to rough up Silvertips defenseman Ivan Baranka.
He also had two great scoring chances in the third period but lifted one shot over the net and slid another barely wide.
"That one was behind the goalie, too," he said, shaking his head after a 2-0 loss. "It was one of those games."
In a corridor under the arena where friends and families wait for the players, the Greenes braced themselves. They have known Wuchterl long enough to learn how much he dislikes losing.
"When he comes out, he won’t be happy," Todd Greene said.
He wouldn’t emerge any time soon.
After the game, Wuchterl replaced his uniform and pads with a T-shirt and shorts, then began a late-night regimen of weight lifting and cardiovascular work. He did take a short break and came out to say hello to those waiting for him, but after signing a few autographs he returned to the weight room to resume his workout.
"We might be here another hour," Todd Greene said. "A lot of the time we’re the last ones here."
The family often takes Wuchterl out to eat after a game, but not on this night. Losing can kill an appetite.
"I’m going straight to bed," Wuchterl said. "I need all the sleep I can get."
Only a few hours remained before the next 6 a.m. wakeup call.
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