Christmas has renewed meaning for Abols as a father and Flyer originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Not even a year ago, Rodrigo Abols was taking his rookie lap in Philadelphia.
This was not your typical NHL debut; a 29-year-old from Latvia, with his wife and son in the stands.
But the long journey, the never-ending travel and what probably felt like his final chance, have all been worth it.
“When I’m done with hockey,” Abols said before his first game, “I’m glad at least I came here and gave it another shot.”
Now, his wife Paula and their 4-year-old son Aleksi are enjoying their first Christmas with Dad being a full-time NHL player. And that was not a surefire thing this fall.
As Abols returned to the area for training camp, Paula and Aleksi stayed back in Latvia. Last season, they lived in a hotel here as Abols went back and forth between minor-league affiliate Lehigh Valley and the Flyers.
This season, they arrived later after Abols made the big club with an impressive camp and the Flyers told him to seek permanent residence toward the end of October.
“She has been massive,” Abols said of his wife. “She sacrifices a lot for me to have a chance to play here, holding the fort down, especially this season. The first three months being home, we thought that was the right call for everyone, for her mental sake, for Aleksi because he has got kindergarten and she has got help back home. But now that we have a place here, she can come over for a month.”
Despite entering camp without the hype of some younger prospects, Abols was arguably the Flyers’ biggest standout. Head coach Rick Tocchet tested him with six of the Flyers’ seven preseason games.
The 6-foot-4 center answered the challenge.
“I laugh because early in camp, we had him playing in Game 1 and we were looking at lineups for Games 2, 3 and 4. At first, we didn’t have him in any of those games,” general manager Danny Briere said in October. “After Game 1, Tocchet came back and he said, ‘I want to see him again.’ So we put him in Game 2. After Game 2, he said, ‘I need to see him one more time.’ We put him in Game 3 and Game 4 and Game 5. At the end, we were trying to give him a break and find a way to give him a little bit of a breather.”
His wife had to be ecstatic as she followed from back home.
Abols met Paula before they were even teenagers.
“We’ve known each other for super long,” he said two weeks ago.
He played Latvian youth hockey with her brother Bruno. Eventually, Abols and Paula started dating.
“I wasn’t so interested in her brother anymore,” Abols said with a laugh. “Just kidding.”
As the Flyers went into the holiday break on a good run, so did Abols. He had a goal, two assists and a plus-3 rating over the last three games before Christmas. Abols has played in 31 of 36 games for the Flyers, who are 19-10-7. He has two goals and three assists as the club’s fourth-line center.
He’ll enjoy Christmas with his wife and son, perhaps in New York again.
“That’s the classic,” Abols said, “and it has been kind of our tradition before Aleksi was born.”
Christmas has become different as parents.
“I think there was a stretch when you grow old or grow out of the Christmas excitement I guess,” Abols said. “Now I have a 4-year-old, so he understands what Christmas is and what it means. It’s more exciting just to see his joy and kind of make his day. Definitely now the Christmas spirit is more back than maybe a couple of years before when it was just the two of us.”
Prior to taking a shot with the Flyers last season, Abols spent the previous four seasons in the SHL, Sweden’s top pro league. Six of his first seven professional seasons were in the SHL.
“Pretty much ever since I’ve turned pro, every Christmas has been on the road,” Abols said.
Last season wasn’t an easy transition with a wife and young son. Abols and Paula were taking a leap for his NHL dream.
“I think that’s one thing that burned her up last year, was just being at the hotel a lot and staying here the whole year,” Abols said, “so that kind of takes a huge toll on her.”
This season, he’ll play for Team Latvia at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. Paula may head home to Latvia at some point before rejoining Abols in Italy.
“She might go back before the Olympics to acclimatize, get the jet lag out of the system,” he said, “so she can come to Milan and kind of enjoy her time there and not be on a different time zone.”
Aleksi is just starting to soak up the thrills of his dad playing in the NHL.
“I don’t think he quite grasps what the NHL is, but he just finds it cool to come to the games,” Abols said. “He’s super excited to see me. He has grown so much in these three months. The first week, when he got here, I couldn’t even recognize him. He got so much smarter, so much wiser, so much funnier. It has been awesome.
“You realize you have to appreciate every moment you get with him and that’s what I try to do. After games, he’s coming up, he’s running, hugging, he’s asking if I scored and then he’s like, ‘Flyers had four, Sharks had one. Flyers won!’ He’s definitely having a lot of fun.”
His parents helped fuel his passion for hockey by giving him a sticker page with all the NHL logos.
“So he picks and chooses the ones he likes,” Abols said. “Last year, we put the Flyers ones somewhere, he already used them up, so he was like, ‘I don’t have Flyers ones!’ It’s pretty cool he learns the logos that way. He was asking me who we were playing. ‘We play the Sharks.’ He was like, ‘Oh, that’s the team that bites the stick!'”
Abols is grateful to have the support of Paula and Aleksi here in America, especially at this time of year. The game can be a grind, so far away from home. The journey is better with them.
“It has been fun, definitely much needed in a tight schedule,” Abols said. “When you’re alone and if maybe you’re not playing your best hockey, you can get very down on yourself. So they definitely help me take my thoughts away from the rink.”