For Staals, hockey is the family business

It all started on a 500-acre sod farm in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Henry Staal built a rink — 50 feet by 100 feet complete with boards — and watched his four sons develop their hockey skills. Little did Henry know that one day he would be the father of the new first family of hockey.

“My dad made us a rink when we were kids, and we pretty much spent every winter up there all winter along,” Eric Staal said. “I had a couple of cousins who lived next door, and they would come by and play as well, but for the most part it was myself and my youngest brother against the two middle ones. It was 2-on-2 games all night long, all day long. We had a lot of fun.”

Henry’s eldest son, Eric, is already a star in the NHL. He led the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes in points during the regular season (with 100) and in the playoffs (with 28) last season — as a 21-year old.

The second son, 20-year old Marc, is one the top defenseman prospects in the game. Jordan, the third son, is the youngest player in the NHL at 18 years, five months and seven days but has 24 goals and is one of the league’s top rookies.

At 16, Jared is the youngest and is in his first season of major junior hockey, playing on the same team as Marc in the Ontario Hockey League. With Jared playing for Sudbury, Henry and Linda Staal are spending their first hockey season with an empty nest.

“It is certainly a lot quieter than it once was,” Henry said. “There is a lot less driving through the snow.”

Henry and Linda have spent a lot of time traveling this season. It is an 11-hour drive from Thunder Bay — a city of slightly more than 100,000 on the northwestern shores of Lake Superior — to Sudbury and a seven-hour drive to the nearest OHL team in Sault Ste. Marie.

They spent about two weeks on the road around Christmas, traveling to Buffalo, Pittsburgh and parts of Southern Ontario to catch up with all four sons.

It is not easy to get the entire family together, even during the offseason. They were all together at a draft for the first time this summer when Jordan was selected No. 2 overall by Pittsburgh.

“Everybody went to the first two Stanley Cup games in Raleigh,” Henry said. “Marc, Jordan and Jared really got into it. For guys like that, I know they would rather be playing, but they got into it with the rest of the ‘Caniacs.’ It was really nice. That was the first time since the previous August that we were all together.”

The Washington Capitals have seen plenty of the Hurricanes and Eric the past couple of seasons because both teams play in the Southeast Division. But the Caps get only their third look at Jordan when they travel to Pittsburgh tomorrow to face the surging Penguins on national television.

Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin will be in the spotlight, but Staal’s play is one of the main reasons the Penguins are the hottest team in the NHL. Pittsburgh has points in 15 straight games (13-0-2) , and Staal has 12 of his goals in that span.

The Penguins have tried to be cautious with him. It was a surprise when he made the team in training camp, but then he proceeded to score five goals in his first 10 games.

That 10th contest was an important one because it ended the speculation Staal might be sent back to his junior team. Had he been sent to Peterborough of the OHL before his 10th game, Staal’s arbitration clock and free agency eligibility would have been delayed another year.

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