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Seemingly more than any other sport, hockey has a long tradition of elite siblings. Brady and Matthew Tkachuck, the Hughes trio and Wayne and Brent Gretzky have all reached the pinnacle of the sport alongside their brothers. Maybe the most notable NHL brothers were Henrik and Daniel Sedin, a set of identical twins from Sweden who played their entire 17-year careers alongside one another with the Vancouver Canucks.
The on-ice tradition of sibling connection has continued in Marblehead with twins Kelly and Jack DeGrass playing for the Marblehead AAA PeeWee hockey team.
“It’s kind of cool to have your sibling on the same team as you,” said Kelly. “But it’s not much different than just having a regular teammate on your team.”
While they play on different sides of the puck, with Kelly playing defense and Jack playing as a forward, they still find ways to work together on and off the ice.
“It’s better because you can have another person to practice with when you’re alone,” said Jack. “You kind of know how they play, so it’s easier to memorize how everyone on the ice plays. There’s one less person.”
The DeGrass twins are playing together on the same team for the first, and last, time in their hockey careers. As they advance out of PeeWees (the under-12 age division), co-ed hockey also comes to a close. However, the DeGrass family sees the twins playing as teammates as an incredible bonding moment.
“I think it’s meant a lot to us as a family to have one season to play together,” said Megan DeGrass, the twins’ mother. “Especially because it’s their last year, their second year of PeeWees, they won’t have an opportunity to play again together.”
Outside of hockey, the twins take the role of a built-in best friend very seriously.
“If it’s your first time being on a new team, going to practice, having your first time going to a new school, anything, it’s nice to have a twin because you can go with them,” said Kelly. “You’re in the same grade, usually you’re on the same levels with that stuff, so it’s nice to have someone by your side if anything goes wrong.”
However, once they take the ice, the DeGrass sibling rivalry becomes very real.
“It’s motivating because you want to be better,” said Jack. “It’s always nice to be known as the better athlete, the better player. And, if they’re better [in] one game, you can use that to push yourself to be better the next game.”
When asked which is the better player, the answer was, of course, said in perfect unison: “Me!”
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