These moms raised the Stars into who they are today. For one trip, they got a glimpse of their sons' world (2024)

GLENDALE, Arizona — The Tower Suites at Gila River Arena are a posh place to watch a hockey game.

They feature a full kitchen with a well-stocked refrigerator, four rows of seats overlooking the ice, and enough room to fit both shuffleboard and foosball tables, while more than 20 people can comfortably enjoy themselves. It’s also rather private, unlike other suites; there are no neighbors and the space allows for a complete, undisturbed viewing of the events below.

This is where 21 women have gathered to watch a hockey game, each wearing a customized Dallas Stars jersey with the name and number of their son, who either plays for the team or is part of its staff.

The group of women traveled from all across Canada and the United States to watch their sons play hockey. Two made the trek from Sweden while two more arrived from the Czech Republic, taking a two-game dive into the NHL schedule as the Stars played against the Nashville Predators and Arizona Coyotes last week.

“This has been such a great trip. Some of us know each other, but we really don’t have a chance like this to get to know all the moms and really get to see them with their sons,” Jackie Seguin said. “I’ve been really looking forward to this; sure, I get to spend time with Tyler, but I really was looking forward to spending time with all of the girls.”

For roughly an hour during the Stars’ game against the Coyotes, from pre-game festivities through the end of the first intermission, I’ve been given a seat in the suite with the Stars mothers. Jackie Seguin, who acts like the captain of the group, invites me to sit down in a high-top chair that makes up the fourth row of seating.

She’s sitting next to Heather Benn — Jamie’s mother — and Donna Spezza, Jason’s mother. In the front row, Alena Faksova and Eva Hanzalova are watching intently, speaking Czech to each other and taking photos during warmups. In Czech names are given masculine and feminine properties; masculine nouns often end in a consonant and feminine nouns end in vowels.

It’s the reason that in english, Martin Hanzal and his mother Eva have slightly different last names. It’s the same reason that Hanzal’s wife and daughters have the last name Hanzalova, which can sometimes lead to a bit of confusion in American schools.

For Alena, this has been a special trip after making difficult decisions that helped Faksa reach the NHL. When Radek was an 11-year-old he moved out of the family’s house and lived in a hotel roughly 90 minutes away to play for a better team.

“She loved it, she got so many memories for the rest of her life,” Faksa said. “She can know how we travel and how we go on the road. She was always wondering, ‘How’s the flight? How are the hotels? How’s the food? The meetings?’ The moms deserve a lot and she said it made her year.”

Faksa said his mother particularly enjoyed the desserts on the trip; she and Hanzalova were able to order from the dessert cart in Nashville on Thursday through a somewhat elaborate game of charades with the server on the suite level.

On the other side of the front row from the Czechs, Trella Nill, the mother of Stars general manager Jim Nill, watches closely. Two rows back Anna Klingberg, John’s mother, and Margarett Nylen, Mattias Janmark’s mother, converse in Swedish.

“It’s such an interesting group,” Jackie Seguin says. “In many ways we are all so different, but at the same time, we really are all hockey moms. I think that’s something you understand no matter where you are from. We’ve all been watching our sons play for so long, to be able to get together like this is amazing.”

A moms’ trip has been in the works for a couple years now. When Jim Nill was hired by the Stars in April of 2013, his agenda included creating more a family feel around the franchise. In each of the past five seasons the Stars have had a trip for dads and male mentors. Each time the dads would come home, the moms would hear about the trip. Therefore, Nill would get needled by the moms, who said they also needed a trip with their sons.

One of the loudest proponents of this trip was Arlene Forbes, the mother of Stars video coach Kelly Forbes. Whenever she visited Dallas or when the Stars visited Vancouver, Arlene would talk to the Stars GM about traveling with her son.

Arlene never got to make the trip. She passed away in January after a battle with cancer. Kelly Forbes is one of the longest-tenured members of the Stars, he’s in his ninth season as video coach, and in some shape or form, many of the moms had come across Arlene at some point during their sons’ tenures in Dallas.

Arlene was unwavering in her positivity and she had an aura about her that really lit up a room. I’m saying this as someone who only met the women once, back in December about six weeks before she passed, and every story I’ve heard about Arlene fit perfectly with my meeting.

In many ways, the Stars dedicated this trip to Arlene. The team wore helmet stickers with her initials, while the coaches and broadcasters wore buttons with her initials as well. There was a jersey made for her, with Forbesstitched on the back, that Kelly kept with him throughout the trip.

Kelly said after practice on Friday that he felt Arlene’s presence on this trip. When the Stars landed in Nashville on Wednesday evening, the first song he heard was “Broken Halos” by Chris Stapleton. That’s one of Arlene’s favorite tunes.

The experience was obviously emotional for Kelly, but being around the rest of the moms has helped with the grieving process.

“I wanted to be around the moms and feel their energy, and do the events that Mom would have wanted to do,” Forbes said. “I’m not going to hide from it, I want to be there. It’s tough, but this is her dream trip and I wanted to treat it like she’s here, because she is here. I wanted to be around the moms and they’ve been great … It’s been so fun to be around them and it’s honestly helped me, it really has.”

The Stars have done everything to treat the moms like royalty. On Wednesday night in Nashville they enjoyed a five-star dinner and then explored the Music City. After watching the morning skate on Thursday there was a tour of the Country Music Hall of Fame and a visit to the Historic RCA Studio B before the game against the Predators.

In Arizona, the mothers took a spa day while the players practiced. On Friday evening, each mom was able to spend one-on-one time with their son.

The moms were nearly unilateral in saying Friday night was the best part of the trip. Even though most of them find time to visit Dallas during the season, quality time with their son is hard to come by. When Donna Spezza visits Texas, she’s also paying attention to four granddaughters. Dianne Comeau and Amy Pitlick are in similar situations; life is hectic whenever they visit Dallas.

“That’s the best part, getting to spend time with just Jamie,” Heather Benn said. “Whenever we come to Dallas so much is going on, or it’s a trip with other people. And it’s great to get together as a family, but you rarely get time like that with just your son.”

As the game begins, the mood in the suite varies depending on whose son is on the ice.

Jackie Seguin is rather talkative. We discuss how she served as the interior decorator for Tyler’s home and it was important to put something red in every room of the house — it apparently brings good luck — and the fact that Tyler makes fun of her cooking.

“I’m a terrible cook, as Tyler puts it, because he’s living the life,” Jackie Seguin said. “But he always wants me to cook, so it can’t be that bad.”

When Tyler is on the ice, though, the conversation comes to a halt and Jackie’s focus is on the ice with the occasional comment of “come on, Tyler,” or “that was close.”

One day earlier, Tyler described his mom as a more vocal parent.

“She yells a lot, she says ‘honey’ and ‘pumpkin’ a lot, but definitely very involved and emotional,” the Stars center said. “She screams when I score and I don’t think she’s missed watching a game in years.”

When Tyler steps off the ice, conversation flips back on and at one point we end up discussing how Tyler has jokingly said he’ll no longer be buying $5,000 purses for his sisters on a regular basis, orhis mother’s appreciation for how the Stars have treated Tyler.

“When he got to Boston they left him to fend for himself, nobody took care of him. Nobody. He was in an apartment as an 18-year-old alone,” Jackie Seguin said. “That is really hard, emotionally very hard. Nobody knows that, well I guess they do now because I’m talking to you. But Dallas had been really good to him and he loves it here, he’s staying for a reason.”

When Blake Comeau takes a penalty in the first period, Dianne Comeau shakes her hand in frustration at a questionable call. When the Coyotes score on that power play the entire suite gets awkwardly quiet for a moment.

Teri Cogliano and Tammy Ritchie are on their second moms’ trip of the season. In December both Teri and Tammy were on the Ducks’ iteration of this adventure. Tammy has two sons in the NHL, Brett and Nick, while Teri’s son Andrew was traded to Dallas in mid-January.

Teri almost didn’t go on this trip; Andrew and his wife Allie Bertram have their first child due next week, while Teri also had another grandchild born in the past two weeks. The timing has worked out perfectly, as she’s able to go on this trip and sandwich it around new additions to the family.

“This is really the only way I’d get to know many of these women, it’s not like there’s much of an opportunity to get to know the people around the team when a trade happens,” Teri Cogliano said. “I had known a couple of the other moms in passing, but really getting to know them and their sons has been a great experience.”

Cogliano was traded for Devin Shore on January 14. Shore’s mother, Andrea, had been looking forward to the moms’ trip and was making handmade scarfs for every mother on the trip. She was almost finished with the batch when the trade happened, and she then passed them onto Jackie Seguin, who added the finishing touches.

“She was crying when she called me, I know all of us were looking forward to this trip all season,” Jackie Seguin said. “It’s a business and we end up learning that at some point. I know I learned that with Tyler early in his career. We live near each other, so Andrea brought the scarfs over to me. I felt bad for her.”

Heather Benn has also seen the business side of hockey firsthand. The Stars traded her other son, Jordie, to the Montreal Canadiens during the 2016-17 season.

“For years it was really easy to see both of them when Jordie was living with Jamie,” Heather Benn said. “That was such a great setup for us as a family, every year for Christmas we would come down here. This year was the first year we didn’t come down to Dallas for Christmas.”

Heather Benn said the Montreal doesn’t have a parental trip, which makes her more appreciative of what the Stars have done. We also end up discussing how, for months, Heather and Randy had to take care of Jordie’s dog since Montreal has a pit-bull ban (which has since been lifted).

“It was only 20 percent pit-bull and they wouldn’t allow it,” she said. “Now they have a younger mayor that’s thinking forward and Jordie has his dog back.”

Late in the period Roman Polak is boarded by Coyotes forward Lawson Crouse. He’s slow to get up and throughout the suite, questions abound about who is crumpled in the corner. The fact that none of the mothers can quickly point out the player is good sign his mom isn’t there.

When Polak gets up and skates off, the mood lightens and a conversation starts about the Czech defender. Jacqui Fedun, Taylor’s mom, remarks that she wishes she understood Czech, because on the team plane the night before, Polak was telling stories to Hanzalova and Faksova, and both were laughing constantly.

Mom and dad constantly ask questions about their sons’ careers, but getting an inside look through trips like this answers questions they’d never think to ask.

Jason Spezza has played in the NHL since 2002. Donna has seen him play up-close many times. But she had never considered what happens on the plane when the team flies from one city to the other.

“They are like Clark Kent or Superman changing on the flight,” Donna Spezza said. “Like, they step onto the plane wearing suits and looking sharp, then the minute they step onto the plane everyone is getting into more comfortable clothes like sweatpants. Before the plane lands it’s back into the suits. I had never thought about that part of Jason’s life.”

The first intermission nears its end, meaning it’s time for me to return to the press box for the remainder of the game. Jackie Seguin is walking around with a Thank You card for Stars team services director Jason Rademan, better known as “Stretch,” who organized the day-to-day details of this trip. The card is partly a thank-you note, partly a reminder that the dads went on five straight trips before the moms got their first one.

“It’s time to even up the score,” Jackie Seguin said. “Right, Stretch?”