Claimed: The Biography of Gabriel McAllister

[CowboyinAmerica 2,889]

 

The Biography of Gabriel McAllister

 

Full Name: Gabriel McAllister

Position: LW

Age: 20

Handedness: Right

Height (inches): 5'10”

Weight (lbs.): 170

Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois

 

You would be forgiven if you forgot about Mount Greenwood. Technically a neighborhood in Chicago, the small community on the southwest side of the city couldn’t be further from the bustling metropolis—largely insular, largely conservative, and just about every person you meet has at least some sort of Irish heritage. Chances are, you know your neighbor from Brother Rice, or St. Rita, or Marist, or Mother McCauley, or… well, there aren’t many high schools around that aren’t Catholic, are there?

 

And then there’s this—nobody really ever leaves Mt. Greenwood, at least not if they can help it. Sure, they may work downtown—there’s a higher proportion Chicago police officers and firefighters than anywhere else in the city—but in the end, they’ll be back to home. Gabriel McAllister saw this future. The road was laid out ahead of him.

 

Like many young boys in the neighborhood, Gabriel was a third-generation Irish-American; his grandparents on both sides came to America shortly before the outbreak of World War II. His father Tim was a police officer, and his mother Martha was a nurse at the local hospital. It’s been said that there really wasn’t much special about Gabriel, at least not to the naked eye. He got average grades, he got in a bit of trouble but not too much, and he seemed to be a nice enough looking kid. Maybe he’d join the police force himself, or maybe he’d even be a priest?

 

His life was mapped out by the time he was born, but there was one wrinkle that Jesus, Mary and Joseph decided to throw into the picture. Gabriel was a demon on skates.

 

One for the Kennedy

 

 

Of course, nobody knew that fact when Gabriel McAllister started at Brother Rice High School in 2009, the all-boys, all-Catholic, all-the-time school on the edge of Mt. Greenwood. He was another face in the crowd; think about the Irish stereotype, with the requisite red hair, short stature and an eye for mischief, and you’ll have Gabriel. At first he had trouble fitting in, but he soon learned the secret: At an all-boys school like Brother Rice, athletics is social currency. He enjoyed playing hockey when the local lakes froze up with his friends, and even though he had never played in an organized league, he thought now may be the time.

 

Brother Rice may excel athletically, but when it comes to hockey, they’re the Seattle Bears of the Chicago Catholic League: a lot more history than any recent success. Sure, the team won the Kennedy Cup—given to the top Chicago Catholic league hockey team each year—in 2001, but ever since Eddie Olczyk graduated back in the mid-80’s, there hadn’t been much to root for. By the time Gabriel came to school, the hockey team was a bit of an afterthought, which makes it more understandable why a guy who had never played competitively like him was actually able to make the team.

 

The first game of Gabriel’s freshman year was a big one, against fellow Mt. Greenwood Catholic school Marist. Of course, Coach McCauley had seen him in practice, and it sure seemed like the kid could fly. But rarely, in the coach’s experience, did that actually translate to the game. After all, as Mike Tyson once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

 

Gabriel’s parents in the stands, Tim and Martha, didn’t expect much more. They had never really pushed their son into athletics, but they understood how much he wanted to be successful on the team. It’s just that, well, Chicago had never actually had a VHL team, and nobody around here really cared about the lower league NHL team that hadn’t won anything for a few decades. In the end, it seemed that the only person who had any confidence in Gabriel McAllister was Gabriel McAllister himself.

 

It took 10 minutes into the game before Gabriel received his first shift; he almost tripped jumping the boards. But suddenly, there was the puck on his skate. And there went the first defender, who seemed to be standing in place as Gabriel whizzed by. And there was the second defender, laying out to knock the puck away just a second too late. And there was the goalie’s glove, not nearly quick enough to the top right corner of the goal. And there was Gabriel McAllister, at the bottom of a pile on the ice as he put Brother Rice up 1-0 on his very first shift.

 

Brother Rice won 4-2 that day, and Gabriel ended the game with 2 goals and an assist. But perhaps even more than the win, it was the acceptance in the locker room, and from the coaching staff, that seemed to be his true prize. In fact, it was a stunning realization that perhaps the average kid from the average family on the southwest side of Chicago maybe wasn’t so average after all. Maybe there was something there.

 

Gabriel McAllister certainly didn’t grow much over the remaining four years of high school, and he still was that shaggy red mop for hair with a few freckles, and he never had the best grades or a whole lot of money. But out on the ice, while streaking up the left wing to start a breakaway, none of that matter. Brother Rice would win the Kennedy Cup during his freshman year, and his sophomore. In the all-boys school, Gabriel was suddenly a demigod, incapable of doing wrong as long as the puck kept finding the back of the net. Even a leg injury near the end of his junior season didn’t derail his skyward trajectory for too long. And when he announced that he’d be staying in the Midwest and going to North Dakota to play college hockey, the team sent him off with a rousing pep rally. Gabriel McAllister could do no wrong.

 

A New Start

 

 

Gabriel McAllister kept fucking up. It might seem obvious that college is a bit harder to acclimate to than high school, but halfway through his first year at North Dakota, he still couldn’t quite get the hang of things. The team kept the playing time very hierarchical; despite scoring 4 goals already in 10 games, he simply couldn’t see the ice. Being far away from home for the first time, away from that Mt. Greenwood community that had so natured him, was even tougher. He wasn’t keeping up with classes that well, and his social life that had so depended on being a sports star in high school was non-existent.

 

For many, this would be the start of an inspirational story. Maybe Gabriel would learn something about himself, or possibly learn the value of hard work. Over time, he would work his way up through the ranks on the team, and learn to connect with people on a personal level rather than fall back on his athletic prowess. Maybe he didn’t have to be that average guy, and would learn to embrace the things that made him above average.

 

Gabriel McAllister did none of that. Instead, he quit.

 

Six months after leaving North Dakota, Gabriel could be found doing construction by day, back on the south side of Chicago. By night, he would play pick-up games of hockey against whoever he could, the dream of playing in an organized fashion near dead. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say that he regretted his decision to leave; he was home among family now, after all, and he felt comfortable living in the Mt. Greenwood neighborhood. Perhaps, he though, that preordained life would find him after all, and he would go down in the annals of history as yet another high school star that would never leave the place where he found his fame.

 

And it would have been a perfectly fine life, to be sure, if not a bit average. Except, as what seemed to happen to Gabriel, there was a wrinkle in the plan. Because, you see, part of the Season 52 World Cup was played in Chicago. That meant that a number of VHL personnel, including players, happened to be in the area. One of them was Hans Wingate, a Hall of Fame goalie who now works as an assistant coach with the Toronto Legion’s youth teams. A day before the USA would play Scandinavia, he went in search of a rink and came upon a player, in red hair and freckles, dominating a pick-up game in a way he had never seen.

 

Perhaps it was the providence of the Virgin Mary smiling upon him once again, a reminder that he still had a life of being above average ahead of him, but Gabriel ended up running into Coach Wingate in the parking lot following the pick-up game. At the time, he didn’t think much of it when Wingate gave him his card, and told him to give him a call after the World Cup. He also didn’t think of it much when Wingate then traveled back to Chicago, with his former agent in tow, during the S53 regular season for a private workout.

 

But when the agent, Zach Warren, signed Gabriel on the spot, it started to become real. Now, at the S54 trade deadline, Gabriel McAllister is declaring for the VHLM, and will be a member of the S56 VHL Draft as long as all goes well. That isn’t to say, though, that he doesn’t have hesitations. After all, he tried to leave home once already; he failed miserably. Now, he’s doing so with even more pressure, and the prospect of an actual career to fail.

 

This biography is not yet fully written. It remains to be seen whether Gabriel McAllister can be successful in the VHLM the way that he was in high school, and the way he wasn’t patient enough to achieve in North Dakota. Who knows whether Jesus has another chance in him if Gabriel gives this one up. All he has left to do is hope, play his hardest, and pray.