Hockey has provided this Ukrainian family in NJ a refuge from the war back home
When Maksym Tkachuk first stepped on the ice with the North Jersey Avalanche youth hockey team, he immediately stood out to his soon-to-be coaches.
Then just 13, it was obvious that Tkachuk was a fast learner. He was quick on his feet and knew the game of hockey as good as any. It didn’t matter that he and his family had just moved to the United States from Ukraine, or that he barely spoke English.
His coaches knew from that first practice — this defenseman was one of them.
“The first time he ever played with us, we put him in our practice drills and he was doing the drills better than our guys that had been doing those same drills for over a few weeks,” head coach Tom Natoli recalled in a recent interview. “He's just one of those kids. He’s a special kid.”
In the past two seasons, the Tkachuk family has been to countless practices, games and tournaments across the region with their newfound “Avs Fam.” This newfound family, it turns out, has become a support system the Tkachuk family never imagined they would need.
Since moving to the United States, the Tkachuks — Maksym, who goes by Max, and his parents, Iryna and Vadym — have watched from afar as their home country wrestles through a war with Russia. Their ties to Ukraine remain strong. Their immediate family still lives there, and Vadym works for the Ukrainian consulate in New York City.
Ukraine War: A Ukrainian family finds a warm welcome in NJ, but longs to return home
In many ways, hockey has become a welcome distraction.
"It's difficult to express my feeling because he’s all I have and I'm so happy that he's happy, that he has this peace around the team,” said Iryna. “He doesn't know the sounds of war … He can play hockey, continue to practice and play with this great group of guys. You can’t even imagine what it means for me and my husband and for all our family who are still in Ukraine.”
Tkachuk has been playing hockey since he was about 4, his mother said. It was only natural that, when they first moved to New York City for her husband’s work, they tried to find him a team to play on, she said. Eventually, the family connected with Natoli and the Avalanche organization.
At first, Tkachuk would commute to practice at the Ice House in Hackensack by bus. The family at the time lived out of a New York City hotel. They later moved to Fort Lee, where Tkachuk is now a high school freshman.
Conquering the language barrier
When he first joined the team, Tkachuk said the language barrier made the transition “pretty stressful.” He had studied British English in Ukraine, so the American accents were a challenge. The coaches, though, got creative.
“We had to adapt and figure out some different ways to communicate with him and teach him the corrections on the fly, when we know that he's not really understanding us,” Natoli said. “We used a ton of visuals. We would use the dry erase boards to show him some different things … Max is the definition of a fast learner. By the end of the season last year, he was fluent in English.”
This Avalanche team that Tkachuk plays for strives to build a family-like dynamic between their coaching staff, players and parents. The coaches credit this mentality to the overall culture of the Avalanche organization, which is an elite youth hockey club in North Jersey.
Ukrainian flag on their helmets
“One of the things that we pride ourselves in is building culture,” Natoli said. “We always use a quote — ‘culture wins championships’ — and we make sure that’s one of the most important ingredients, and one of the biggest pieces for us as a coaching staff.”
It should come as no surprise, then, that the team all season has been wearing stickers of the Ukrainian flag on their helmets to show their support for Max and his family.
Tkachuck now dreams of staying in the states. He'd love to play hockey at the highest level. “I would love to go back to Ukraine, but I would like to say here,” Tkachuk said. “I would like to go back for a couple of weeks to see my grandparents, but I want to stay here mostly. Probably build a career here, go to college.”
His mother, though, says, “My heart is still in Ukraine.” She dreams of going back to a country not at war.
On Friday, on the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion, Tkachuk and his team will play in the first round of playoffs at the Ice House in a double elimination tournament, vying for a ticket to districts. If all goes well, this special team could be punching its ticket to a national championship. But there's still a long path to tread.
“This is one of those kind of special groups that, you know, have all the ingredients you really need to be successful and to get to that stage,” Natoli said.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Hockey provides this NJ Ukrainian teen refuge from war back home
