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February 20, 2010
OLY.004
by Jason LaRose
Her father? An NHL and AHL veteran with 147 big-league games to his credit.
Her brother? An NHLer with Anaheim and a Memorial Cup champion with the Vancouver Giants, who also wore
the red and white with Canada’s National Men’s Under-18 Team.
 Her fiancé? A former Central Hockey League goaltender of the year with a 43-28-8 record
over the past two seasons.
To say Meaghan Mikkelson is part of a hockey family would be a fairly large understatement. The Mikkelson
clan eats, sleeps and breathes Canada’s game, and talk between the hockey-playing family members is common
after games, whether it is face-to-face, on the phone or via text message.
One would think that with Meaghan on the sport’s biggest stage, at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, the
pointers and suggestions from dad, brother and fiancé would increase. Not so, according to the Team Canada
defenceman.
“It’s business as usual,” Mikkelson says of the post-game talks. “I think they (her parents) are having
more fun than I am here, soaking up the Olympic atmosphere and seeing the city. They’re just so excited to
see me play.”
While dad Bill, mom Betsy and sister Jillian – who flew all the way from England – are in Vancouver to
watch Mikkelson live her Olympic dream first hand, two other members of the family had prior commitments –
hockey commitments, of course.
Brother Brendan, who has suited up 22 times for the Anaheim Ducks this season, is playing in the American
Hockey League for the Toronto Marlies, while her fiancé, Scott Reid, is playing with the Alaska Aces of the
ECHL.
“We talk pretty much every day, especially right now,” Mikkelson says of Brendan. “He’s very excited for
me, and he’s playing games as well, so I’m keeping up with him too.
“I think he’s just really excited for me to be here and to be playing. It’s all over TV, so for once he
has actually been able to watch the games. We’ve been talking back and forth, and he’s been asking me how the
experience is and how everything is going. He’s just really eager to find out what it’s like to be here.”
While Brendan couldn’t be in Vancouver, there is still undoubtedly a Mikkelson presence at the Games, one
which Meaghan says will get bigger with the addition of more relatives as the tournament progresses. The
contingent in Vancouver includes Bill, who spent time with Los Angeles, Washington and the New York Islanders
during the 1970s.
Mikkelson says that of all the lessons her father, who was also a defenceman, taught her growing up, it is
a very simple one that stays with her now.
“Have no regrets,” she says. “Whether it is a practice or a game, or even a whole season, just being able
to look back at my performance, and how I am playing, and being able to say ‘OK, that was the outcome, but I
did everything I could to play my absolute best.’”
Last Saturday night, as she stepped onto the ice for Canada’s Olympic opener, in front of more than 16,000
red-and-white-clad fans, Mikkelson says her thoughts flashed away from the game, ever so briefly, and to what
it took for her to get there.
“Looking up at that crowd,” she says, “it’s a surge of emotions, thinking ‘I am at the Olympics, finally’
and you start to think about all the reasons you’re there. Even if it was just a split second, they (her
parents and relatives) were there.”
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