Monday, February 28, 2011
Posted: 11:36 a.m.
By Chuck GormleyFor CSNPhilly.com
When they stand together, side by side, Kristen and Peter Laviolette look as though theyve been plucked off the top of a wedding cake.
She, the smiling bride. He, the dapper groom.
But as theyve learned in nearly 15 years of marriage, life in professional hockey can test a couples strength.
In the 14 months since he replaced John Stevens as coach of the Flyers, Peter Laviolette and his wife, Kristen, have proven that what doesnt tear a family apart ultimately makes it stronger.
For an entire year before taking the job as Flyers coach, Laviolette experienced the everyday joys of fatherhood. He coached his sons peewee hockey team, walked his daughter to the bus stop and took casual strolls along the beach with his wife.
It is a life the Laviolettes chose to live after Peter was fired as coach of the Carolina Hurricanes on Dec. 3, 2008, less than three years after winning the Stanley Cup.
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Confident he would someday return behind an NHL bench, Laviolette turned down an offer from Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren to coach the AHL Adirondack Phantoms in the summer of 2009, instead moving his family to Longboat Key, Fla., an island off the coast of Sarasota.
Having moved eight times in eight years, the LaviolettesPeter, Kristen and their three children, Peter, 13, Jack, 11, and Elisabeth, 9were enjoying their first extended stretch away from professional hockey when Laviolette received a return call from Holmgren.
On the Monday after Thanksgiving 2009, Laviolette boarded a flight for Toronto to begin a part-time analyst position with Versus and TSN. Four days later, with the Flyers off to a 13-11-1 start under Stevens, Holmgren again phoned Laviolette, this time offering him the head coaching job in Philadelphia.
He got the call sitting at the Toronto airport, Kristen said. He had two suits and had already checked through customs to come home. I met him at Tampa airport with everything he owned. I picked the kids up from school and told them Daddy was gone. He had a press conference that night and he never came back.
He went from Daddy being home to literally getting on a plane and never coming home.
Thus began what Kristen Laviolette calls the hardest year we ever had in coaching.
With Peter trying to get to know the names of his players while losing eight of his first 10 games in Philadelphia, Kristen was online in Florida looking for a house close to the Flyers practice facility in Voorhees. The couple made an offer on a home and were set to move in during last years Winter Olympic break, but when the transaction fell through, they decided it was best to keep the three kids in school in Longboat Key.
We werent going to move the kids twice, Peter said. I didnt have time to look at houses and it didnt make sense to rush into something and then not be happy with it. Thats when we decided to just stay in Florida. It was long, but my wife and I have a great relationship. The relationship that I have with my kids is great and I missed them crazy, but it was the nature of the beast.
We had never been apart, Kristen said. Weve always made a pact that where you go, we go. Were going to make it our life and our home and we tried. We had this little window to make the move and the house fell through. At that point we decided to ride it out until the end of the school year.
And what a ride it was.
The Flyers lost eight of their final 12 games of the regular season, squeaking into the playoffs with a dramatic shootout victory over the Rangers in the final game of the regular season. Over the next eight weeks, while the Flyers were capturing the imagination of a city with an incredible run to the Stanley Cup Finals, Kristen Laviolette was racking up frequent flier miles on her Southwest card, jettisoning the kids from Tampa to Philly at least a half dozen times, often with hockey equipment for her sons spring tryouts.
The gate agents knew us by name, she said. It was crazy. I just emailed their teachers and told them wed be back in a few days.
Meanwhile, Anna Maria Elementary School in Holmes Beach, Fla., had become Flyers Nation. Every time Kristen returned to school with the kids, she brought back another box of orange T-shirts.
We had the entire elementary school Flyerd Up, she said.
Throughout the Flyers playoff run Peter Laviolette took his laptop everywhere, Skyping with his kids as often as possible.
But it couldnt replace being with them, he said. The hardest thing as a coach is not being available for your family, even when theyre here, let alone when theyre not. I remember the year we won the Cup in Carolina in 2006 my kids went through an entire baseball season and I didnt even know what color their uniforms were. Youre completely into your job and you have no time for your family.
As much as the playoff run consumed Laviolette, his father says the six months he spent away from his family ate away at him.
Those kids lived for him to come home, Peter Laviolette, Sr., said. It wasnt easy on the kids. They love him to death.
We made the most of it, but it was really hard, Kristen Laviolette said. I felt like I was missing out on the team aspect because Peter and I are a team. He coaches, but Im his support. He needs me as much as I need him. My role and my job is to be a coachs wife. Ive been doing it forever with him and its what I know.
If not for filling in for a friend at work, Kristen Laviolette may have never met her husband. Working as a gate agent for Delta Airlines at Bostons Logan Airport, Kristen was asked if she could work behind the counter for a friend.
The same day the AHL Providence Bruins were flying from Logan to Hamilton, Ontario. Peter Laviolette, then a 30-year-old defenseman on the Bruins, introduced himself to Kristen, who is 10 years younger, and slipped her his phone number, inviting her to his teams next home game.
After leaving the Delta counter, Laviolette turned to his teammates and said, I just met my wife, and youll all be invited to the wedding.
Kristen, who is from Norfolk, Mass., said she vowed to never date a guy from neighboring Franklin, but after a few days of making him squirm, she called Laviolette and accepted his invitation to the Bruins next home game.
Laviolette scored two goals and an assist in the first period of that game, but didnt realize until later that Kristen didnt arrive until the second period.
Six months later Laviolette proposed and a year after that, on June 3, 1996, he made good on his promise to make Kristen his wife.
About 250 guests attended the couples wedding and returned to Kristens parents house for an outdoor reception in 95-degree heat. Just as Peters best man was delivering his toast, winds began to howl, the skies darkened and as heavy rain began to fall, a bolt of lightning struck a metal rod above a backyard water well, sending a charge of electricity through the water.
Twenty-six guests, including former Bruins goalie Rob Tallas and former Boston College quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, felt the charge of electricity and 20 were hospitalized. One guest remained overnight for observation, while the rest returned to the reception wearing their hospital bracelets.
People still tell us it was craziest reception theyve ever been to, Kristen said.
Peter Laviolette retired as a player the following season and began a head coaching career that took his growing family from Wheeling, W.Va., to Providence, to Boston, to Long Island and to Raleigh before finding a rest stop in Longboat Key.
At the end of last summer, the Laviolettes wisely decided to rent their next home, agreeing to lease the vacant Voorhees home of former Flyers left wing Simon Gagne, now a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Peter and Jack are now playing in the Flyers Youth Hockey program, where Jacks teammates include the sons of Kimmo Timonen and Kjell Samuelsson.
For all of the anguish that preceded it, Kristen and Peter say it has been one of the best moves their family has made.
I love Jersey, Kristen said. Its great. It was an adjustment. Were from Massachusetts so were used to the hustle and bustle, but we were down south for quite some time and its so slow down there compared to here.
There are still a few boxes left to be unpacked but after six trying months of being apart, the Laviolettes have every intention of seeing their three children graduate from high school in South Jersey. It would be a welcome sense of permanency for 13-year-old Peter, who has moved nine times.
Hes done, by the way, his father says with a smile. Hes not moving anymore. He told me to get my act together. Im not sure Ill ever know what permanent is, but were settled a lot more than we were at the beginning of the year. School is going well, friendships have started and bonds are being made. Its very tough at that age, but were still here and were getting through it.
Laviolette says there is no greater joy in coaching than getting a team to come together to form an unbreakable bond. And he believes an essential ingredient in that union is the nurturing of families.
Wives, especially coaches wives, make a tremendous amount of sacrifice because were not available, were just not there, he said. The commitment those wives make every day is really important to have a successful team because ultimately, people want to be happy and successful with their families.
That starts at home. The more people believe and the more they buy in, the bigger it gets and the harder it is to stop. Those wives have such an impact on their husbands and it can be in a very positive way.
E-mail Chuck Gormley at chuckspucks@msn.com
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