On fathers, sons, and the moment Dominik and Cooper Shine will never forget

One of the best stories of the NHL season happened on Monday night.

Cooper Shine is going to have to wait to get his first pair of skates.

On Monday morning Cooper, and his dad, Dominik Shine, were on the way to Perani’s in Grand Rapids to go skate shopping. A pretty monumental thing for both father and son, when they were interrupted by a phone call from the Detroit Red Wings.

Dominik, after nine years in the AHL, was getting his first NHL call-up. There was a two-year NHL contract on the table, his first non-AHL deal, and at 31-years-old, the long-time Grand Rapids Griffins forward was headed to the show.

After a quick detour to Dick’s Sporting Goods to buy a ball, Cooper needed something, the Shine family motored across the state to Detroit, where Shine played 13 shifts in the Red Wings 5-2 victory against the Los Angeles Kings.

Shine blocked a shot on his first shift and in the third period delivered a big hit on Warren Foegele, in between he played simple, smart hockey that earned him at least one more day in the league and his first NHL practice tomorrow morning.

It’s a pretty remarkable story for a player who was considering retiring a year ago.

“There was a point last year where, you know, I had my first child and you know in the American League, you’re away from family a lot,” Shine said. “And I was kind of thinking about maybe being done. Then once I had my kid, I realized it’s really special for him to see me play. So I thought maybe I’ll play just one more year and see what happens.”

And on Monday night it turned into a fist bump through the glass from father to son before dad’s first NHL game as the league’s oldest “rookie” since Evgeny Medvedev made his debut at 33-years-old since in 2015¹.

Elmer Söderblom was at the podium with Shine after the game, as the story was re-told to a throng of reporters — many who are writing this same story right now² — he couldn’t help but smile thinking about a watching Shine’s journey.

Shine has played 462 AHL games for the Grand Rapids Griffins, all of them on an AHL contract. He’s spent nine years with one franchise, a rarity in minor-league sports, and embraced the often-forgotten, but vital role of mentoring Red Wings prospects knowing he’d likely never get the call himself.

Emotionally and mentally speaking it’s one of the toughest jobs in hockey.

To give you an idea of how little Shine was thought of outside of the Griffins locker room consider that in the past three years, on multiple trips to Grand Rapids, I never took the time to speak with Shine. It wasn’t a slight on him as a person or player, but just like most fans and media members, I viewed him as an AHL-contracted player that was part of the background.

I was really close to being in the same camp as Red Wings coach Todd McLellan, who admitted that as of 12 hours ago he had no idea Dominik Shine even existed³.

So I don’t know Shine well, and I can’t give the best version of his story. But I can connect with his journey on Monday.

While we were waiting for players to enter the room for interviews, my wife texted me that my 4-year-old son was still up and missing me, asking me if I could send a quick picture or FaceTime with him to make him smile.

One of the things about working in sports, especially if you travel for the job, is there are times you feel like an absent father, a degenerate that’s leaving before dinner to go cover a frivolous game. “I miss you dad,” is one of the most wonderful and heartbreaking things you hear at the same time.

I’m sure Shine has felt that, the times he’s had to take a Tuesday night bus to Milwaukee or Chicago or Des Moines to play a hockey game, leaving Cooper and hearing about milestones that happened while he was away⁴.

It doesn’t make up for the lost time, nothing does, but the key shared moments tend to permeate and the stories become those core memories that build foundational islands of personality⁵.

And no matter what happens in his hockey career, even if this was his only NHL game, Dominik and Cooper will be able to share the story of what happened when dad got the call he’d dreamed of, but never thought would happen.

1. Technically David Ayres was older than Medvedev, but that EBUG story is something completely different than someone grinding in the minors for close to a decade.

2. So thanks for reading my version!

3. I at least knew he existed, here’s a story where I at least mention him, in passing, from a game in Grand Rapids.

4. My daughter took her first steps while I was waiting for an Uber to fly to Vancouver for the 2019 NHL Draft. The fact I almost missed was a real eye-opening thing for me that helped me figure out slightly better work-life balance.

5. Yes, this is an Inside Out reference.