Pro, college players crash a Honeybaked pee wee practice

By @MichaelCaples –

FARMINGTON HILLS – It’s that time of year for hundreds of youth hockey teams to return to the ice and start preparing for their upcoming season.

Not many of those teams are joined by famous alums, however.

When the Honeybaked ’02 squad skated onto the ice for their first team official practice, they were joined by a few professional and college hockey players who once upon a time were Honeybaked youngsters themselves.

Bryan Rust (Novi), Kenny Ryan (Franklin), Andrew Huckleby (West Bloomfield) and Daniel Cesarz (Redford) joined the collection of youth hockey players both for a chance to get some work in before their respective training camps, and to have some fun with players in their former youth program.

“It brings back a lot of memories, putting on the Honeybaked jersey,” said Rust, a Notre Dame product who signed his first NHL contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins over the offseason. “What it means to play for Honeybaked, because it’s such a big-time team in the youth leagues. It’s nice to come back. I know when I was younger, guys who would play college and pro would come back and skate with me, and I know when I was that age it meant a lot to me have those guys come out and skate, so I’m trying to return the favor.”

For Huckleby, a defenseman at Finlandia University that brought along Rust and Ryan for the skate, said that it’s fun to watch and work with potential college and pro players at such a young age.

“It’s kind of freaky to ever think that we were like this, that we were ever so little,” Huckleby said. “All these things, it’s going to click, how big of an opportunity it is to play here, how good they’re actually going to get, being out here with the guys. We’re all 23, 22 and we’re all best friends hanging out. Life-long friends out here, it’s pretty cool.”

Ryan, a Toronto Maple Leafs draft choice and U.S. National Team Development Program alum, said it brings back great memories to return to a youth hockey practice, especially with the program he grew up playing for.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Ryan said. “We were talking – this is kind of where it all started for us. I started playing here when I was 8, until about 15, never played for another team. Still some of my closest friends are guys that I played with for Honeybaked. I’m in a buddy’s wedding this weekend, we’ve been lifetime friends, and it’s just a great organization that’s right in our backyard.”

Keith Robertson, head coach of the Honeybaked pee wee squad, said that the visitors showing up at practice is an event his kids now look forward to every year.

“It’s great,” Robertson said. “It’s good on both sides. The big guys, they enjoy coming out, they don’t realize how much of an influence they have on kids this age. They talk about it all year. We had a couple out last year, and they thought it was the coolest thing, especially being from Honeybaked. They were in this spot at one point in time, and now they have NHL careers and college careers. It’s exciting for them, especially at that age.”

However, he hopes that his kids take away more than just how hard the pros could shoot the puck.

“The hard work – how hard they work, every drill they’re giving 100 percent,” Robertson said. “Just the hard work, showing up to the rink, they talk to them out there and they skate, nobody’s pushing them, nobody’s on their case, they’re skating, they’re working out every day, working out with us and working out on their own. That’s something to be learned from.”

At the end of the practice, the kids made the walk from their own dressing room to the one next door, so that each of them could personally thank each player for coming to their skate.

“It’s obviously very special to me, because when I was that age, I was looking up to guys like me who had just signed NHL contracts,” Rust said. “I obviously wanted to play in the NHL, every little kid who plays hockey wants to play in the NHL. Just to have a couple guys who have NHL contracts and a guy who plays college hockey here, it’s obviously huge to the kids and it’s just fun to be back.”