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Fischer Never Far From Brother, Bulldogs
February 6, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Connor Fischer couldn’t imagine a better design. He immediately knew his brother Ryan would have loved the jerseys Grandville’s hockey team will wear Saturday against top-ranked Detroit Catholic Central.
The Grandville “G” on the front is patterned after Captain America’s shield, with the American flag trimming the bottom and stars and stripes on the shoulders.
There’s definitely a superhero quality to the sweater, fitting for a game played to remember Ryan, who died unexpectedly in his sleep 11 months ago the night before Grandville took on DCC in an MHSAA Semifinal. He had a heroic make-up; Ryan was truly an all-American kid, set to begin at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in the fall, who excelled in class, on the ice and football field and was gifted with a big-picture understanding and personality that drew others to him.
Connor sees his brother a little simpler – just a great guy with a goofy laugh, who like Connor clicked his heels when he walked. But to his younger brother, Ryan continues to mean so much more.
“Growing up … I realized I wanted to be like Ryan. I strived to be like him. He was my building block, my stepping stone,” Connor said. “People who knew Ryan, know Ryan and I are different in a lot of ways. Undoubtedly there are a lot of similarities, and if people are able to compare me to him in any way it’s the greatest compliment I could receive. Because that’s how I want to be. Who better to be like than Ryan Fischer?”
The “Captain America” comparisons used to get on Connor’s nerves a bit, but now he sees those comparisons as positive – ways others help his brother live on – just like he and the Bulldogs will this weekend when they play to help raise money for a pair of scholarships in Ryan’s name.
Grandville will face Detroit Catholic Central at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Van Andel Arena, home of the Grand Rapids Griffins, a minor league affiliate of the Detroit Red Wings. Tickets cost $15, with a portion of proceeds donated to the scholarship fund that bears Fischer’s name, and one ticket gets fans into both the high school game and the Griffins’ game against the Rochester Americans at 7 p.m.
Grandville has a mighty following. The Bulldogs have drawn crowds as large as 1,400 this season – but they’re hoping for more than twice that many fans as they recall both a painful memory and a beautiful friendship formed with Fischer’s untimely passing.
Fischer was a co-captain of last season’s team and a leader in various capacities – he served four years on Grandville’s student government executive board and was a member of the MHSAA’s Student Advisory Council, among other duties. A senior forward, he played a main role in helping the Bulldogs to their first MHSAA Semifinal since 2001.
Fischer never woke the morning of March 7, an examination showing he died from an enlarged heart. At the urging of his parents, Scott and Roni, Grandville did face DCC that night. The Shamrocks won 3-0, and in one of the most memorable gestures of sportsmanship in many people’s memories, skated to surround the Bulldogs as they knelt after in front of their net while fans pointed both index fingers into the air to symbolize Fisher’s number 11. (See video below.)
Connor, then a freshman, was not on varsity last season; he is the only sophomore on Grandville’s top team this winter. He didn’t see last year’s game – but the significance of Saturday’s rematch is not lost on him.
“The first thing that went through my mind is DCC is a great hockey team, the best in the state. It’s a great chance to go out there, play a high level of hockey, play great competition,” Connor Fischer said. “But look past that, they’re people from across the state that really do care. They see something bigger than a hockey game, just as I do, just as my family does and the whole team does.”
Building brotherhood
The Fischers were not a hockey family until Ryan, at 3 or 4, saw a hockey game and thought it was “the coolest thing ever,” Connor said. Soon Ryan and Scott were building rinks in the yard every winter, and when he was about 4, Connor joined his brother on the ice.
Their friendship was rooted as much in lemonade stands and playing Star Wars in the backyard as in sports. But athletics definitely provide a strong family tie. Older sister Kelsea is a sophomore gymnast for Division III power University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Ryan also was a captain of Grandville’s football team, and Connor plays the same sports as his brother and has taken up lacrosse in advance of this spring’s season.
As younger kids, Connor was a tattle-tale. Ryan would get mad at him. “But when I was in middle school and he was a freshman, he realized I would be the only brother he was going to have. I’m beyond thankful for that, beyond thankful he realized that at such a young age,” Connor said.
“When he was with his friends, he’d say, ‘This is Connor. He’s the coolest brother ever.’ … It made me feel special, just like he always made everyone feel special.”
In Connor’s words, Ryan was a little bit more personable, Connor is more conservative but laid-back.
But they shared a similar way of thinking. Connor lives situations now that Ryan did a few years ago, and without always knowing for sure, he’s pretty sure Ryan handled them in similar ways.
Ryan’s death has made Connor grow to be much older than his 16 years. Like Ryan, Connor has early thoughts of following his parents into the military – both did ROTC at Michigan State University and were officers in the U.S. Army, and Connor is considering a similar route. But he feels no expectations to be Ryan, only to grow as himself.
“His maturity is well beyond his years, and he’s absolutely sincere in everything he does with it,” Scott Fischer said. “He’s had his own legacy, his own path, as much as he’ll always support the legacy of his brother.”
Among those Connor leans on are friends who are more like family. Grandville hockey coach Joel Breazeale lives just down the road, and the Fischers and Breazeale’s three sons have been friends since most of their lives.
The hockey team has become an extended family as well. Breazeale has coached nearly 30 years, and experienced losses of players from other teams. He’s watched as certain trigger points this season have brought raw emotions rushing back. But he’s also seen something like he’s never experienced with others he’s coached – a bond so strong that the competitive juices that might rule a locker room have been replaced by tolerance and understanding of each other’s personalities that point to the former teammate whose influence remains strong.
“It’s through the grace of Ryan and what all of these boys have shared,” Breazeale said. “They embrace each other, embrace the challenges they’ve faced together, and they move forward. They take on challenges with another perspective. They’ve just grown tighter, and those traits were synonymous with Ryan.”
Always with us
Saturday’s game will be one of the final scheduled fundraisers for the Fischer scholarships, which will be given annually. Response has been tremendous and allowed for two awards – the original, which will go to a hockey player from the Ottawa Kent Conference this year and be expanded for players statewide in 2016, and a second for a Grandville High School senior. Both are for $2,500, and Scott hopes that as the fund grows, the scholarships also will grow to keep pace with increases in cost for higher education.
The hockey community has played a huge part. Grand Rapids Catholic Central coach Mike Slobodnik and former longtime East Kentwood coach Ron Baum piloted the scholarship foundation. When Breazeale mentioned the possibility of playing Saturday’s game at Van Andel, the Griffins’ management jumped at the opportunity to help and will open up ticket sales at the gate to give fans plenty of opportunity to attend.
There was never a doubt who Grandville hoped to play – from competitive and personal standpoints. The Bulldogs are 14-2-2 and ranked No. 8 in Division 1, with a chance to see how they match up with Regionals a month away.
“This made so much sense,” Breazeale said. “This is a big deal, that DCC made this investment to play Forest Hills Central (tonight) and then play us, and we appreciated that. Obviously our program has come a long way in the past 4-5 years, and for us to have become as competitive as we have been, it’s a nice acknowledgement that we’re moving into that realm. … No matter how the score ends up, it’s big for our program.”
A plaque commemorating Ryan was placed in Grandville’s football locker room this fall, near the door to the field. A similar smaller plaque hangs in Grandville’s hockey locker room at Georgetown Ice Arena; Connor and Thomas Breazeale are the last to hit the ice every day and always make sure to give it a glance.
Connor was ill at the start of this week, his temperature reaching 103 degrees. There was no way, he said Wednesday night, he wouldn’t get on the ice for at least a few seconds Saturday. But that’s it as far as personal goals for what will be a titanic matchup for his team.
“I don’t want to score a goal in his honor, nothing like that,” Fischer said. “Ryan always looked at the team before himself. There’s no better way to honor him than to help to win that game.”
Connor can’t say that it feels like this year has gone by quickly or slowly. He’s not sure how to describe it. The little things spin his mind to his brother – saying the pledge of allegiance, going past his old stall in the hockey locker room, or seeing the clock read 11:11.
He admits he was a little scared joining the varsity hockey team this winter, entering that locker room for the first time. But his teammates embraced him, and he embraced them. And Ryan’s No. 11 jersey hangs in Georgetown’s rafters, another reminder to all of them he isn’t far from their hearts.
“It’s the same coach, the same players. I feel like he’s never gone,” Connor said. “He’s never going to be gone.
"It’s amazing to know that.”
Click to order tickets for Saturday’s Grandville/Detroit Catholic Central game and enter the promo code FISCHER. Also, click for more information on the Ryan Fischer Legacy Scholarship.
PHOTOS: (Top) Connor Fischer taps a plaque commemorating his brother Ryan before a junior varsity football game in the fall. (Middle) The jerseys Grandville will wear Saturday include a number of patriotic symbols including trim of the American flag. (Below) Clockwise from left, Connor Fischer, Ryan Fischer and sister Kelsea Fischer. (Bottom) Ryan Fischer was a captain for Grandville's varsity hockey team last season. (Photos courtesy of the Fischer family.)
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Hancock Finishes Long Trip as Champion
April 14, 2016
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
As the Hancock hockey team bus rolled into town to end last month’s Division 3 championship run, coach Dan Rouleau warned his players that the celebration was just getting started.
“I told these kids on the bus coming home, they were going to be rock stars over the next month,” he recalled Thursday. “And they certainly are.”
That’ll happen when a hockey-crazed community earns its first MHSAA title since 1999, along the way beating 17-time champion Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook Kingswood 2-1 in overtime in the Semifinal and four-time finalist Grand Rapids Catholic Central 4-2 in the championship game.
And despite the Bulldogs’ No. 2 ranking heading into the postseason, the run was made all the more incredible considering Hancock, with 262 students, had the lowest enrollment of among hockey schools in Michigan this winter and was paced by two underclassmen leading scorers and a sophomore goaltender.
“I told the guys before the season started that we’ve got a chance to do something special. I really felt like we had the chance to do this,” said Rouleau, who was an assistant for the 1999 team that won the Class B-C-D title. “When we were looking at who was coming back for the other teams, when we got to the Quarterfinals we told (our team) there are seven teams that could beat you guys, and seven that you could beat. It was that close.”
The Bulldogs are the Applebee’s Team of the Month for March after finishing the run as the best of that final eight, but also with a school-record 24 wins to go with only six losses – four decided in overtime and the other two by only one goal apiece.
Seniors Jack Fenton and Dylan Paavola made the Division 3 all-state first and seconds teams, respectively, bringing a veteran presence to the group of blueliners. But behind them, all-state goalie Dawson Kero was only a sophomore. Sophomore right wing Teddy Rendell was the team’s leading scorer with 24 goals and 36 assists, making the all-state first team, and freshman left wing Alex Nordstrom made the second team with 33 goals and 26 assists. (They were centered by senior Danny Hill, who joined Fenton and Paavola as captains.)
But on-ice dominance was only part of what made Hancock’s run so memorable. Here’s some of the rest:
Hancock, just over the Portage Lake Bridge on the Upper Peninsula’s Keweenaw Peninsula, is one of Michigan’s northernmost towns – and located 540 miles from USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, home of the MHSAA Finals. Hancock also is 100 miles from Marquette, where it faced Sault Ste. Marie in a Quarterfinal on March 9, two days before it would take on the Cranes in their Semifinal.
First-year athletic director Steve Aho knew if his team won Tuesday in Marquette, it wouldn’t return home but would keep going all the way to Plymouth – so he was charged with planning for a potential five days of hotels, transportation, meals and more. He also started on plans for a fan bus that would bring students to the championship game if Hancock won the Semifinal that Thursday.
Neither trip would come cheap, of course. But that’s where Hancock’s wide-reaching web of supporters stepped in.
Teams making the long trip downstate frequently fund-raise to offset costs, Aho said. In this case the Bulldogs decided to try a GoFundMe crowd-funding web page, asking for $6,000 to combine with what the MHSAA gives teams for travel.
Aho had the team’s seniors write their story before the Quarterfinal, so the request would be in their voice and from their perspective. He published it immediately after the Bulldogs beat Sault Ste. Marie – and by Wednesday, $3,000 had been raised with funds coming in from alumni spread all over the Midwest and beyond. Within two days, the $6,000 was raised, which when combined with funds from the MHSAA paid for the trip.
Rouleau said as the bus traveled south, his players watched the donations come in on their phones – and also the inspirational messages left by alums, including the Chicago Blackhawks’ Tanner Kero. “These guys knew they were involved in something special at that point,” Rouleau said.
Meanwhile, the school’s athletic boosters paid for most of a fan bus that was filled with 51 (for 53 seats) who made the trip to root on the Bulldogs – then got right back on the bus for the long trip home.
But what a trip back it was for the team. A Marquette County Sheriff’s deputy escorted the bus through that county, then passing the Bulldogs off to a Baraga County deputy. From Munising homeward (about 150 miles) the parade continued to grow until it swelled to roughly 40 rescue vehicles followed by fan vehicles for another mile (see the long line arriving in town on the video below).
It was a trip none of the players or coaches will forget. Rouleau had enjoyed the 1999 championship with his son and nephew on the team, but this run certainly rivals if not surpasses the first – not only is Rouleau now the head coach, but he also was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease six years ago and was hoping he’d have another opportunity to take a team downstate before his health would make him step down.
With the players Hancock should bring back next season, his team's next trip to Plymouth might come after a much shorter wait.
Past Teams of the Month, 2015-16:
February: Petoskey boys skiing – Report
January: Spring Lake boys swimming & diving – Report
December: Saginaw Heritage girls basketball – Report
November: Ann Arbor Gabriel Richard volleyball – Report
October: Benton Harbor football – Report
September: Mason and Okemos boys soccer – Report
PHOTOS: (Top) Hancock players celebrate after their Division 3 Final win over Grand Rapids Catholic Central last month. (Middle) The Bulldogs turn to salute fans who also made the 500-mile trip to USA Hockey Arena.