Jeff Daniels talks about being a hockey dad in Michigan

By @MichaelCaples –

Jeff Daniels has quite a lengthy feature on the Detroit Free Press’ official website right now.

After all, the Chelsea native is a famous actor and musician (can’t wait for Dumb and Dumber To to arrive in theaters in November).

But naturally the part that caught our eyes was when Daniels started talking about being a hockey dad.

From Alan Miller’s Freep.com article:

“I’m a big fan of soccer, however, we went hockey and never looked back,” [Daniels] said. “Ben was 8, and Luke was 5 when they started in hockey in Ann Arbor. All those 5:45 a.m.’s on Yost Arena ice on Saturday and Sunday. All the way through the end of high school.

“I tell parents now, it’s not whether the kid excelled, it’s not, ‘Why didn’t you shoot instead of pass,’ ‘You’ve got to work on your slap shot.’ It’s not that,” he said.

“It’s the drive there and the drive back. And you talk about anything else except about the game. And we believe that the time we spent doing that, and not focusing on pounding your kid to be better at the next game when he’s 12 damn years old, is one reason we’re so close as a family when the kids are in their 20s.”

Pretty awesome stuff right there. Here’s the article in full, if you’re interested.