San Jose Sharks hulking defenseman Brent Burns has a big heart when it comes to the military.
With his hulking 6-foot-5 frame, his menacingly inked arms and a dark mess of beard that tilts away from the “lumberjack” stereotype and says something more like “Chewbacca” at first glance, San Jose Sharks defenseman Brent Burns has an intimidating look about him. So when Burns makes you an offer—even a friendly one —it’s hard to refuse.
In 2008, when Burns made an offer of assistance to Shane Hudella, then serving in the National Guard in Minnesota, Hudella knew that he couldn’t refuse. The chance encounter took place in the tunnel before a Minnesota Wild game—Burns’ team at the time. Hudella was there promoting military service, and Burns, along with the late Derek Boogaard, said they’d like to do whatever they could to help military families.
“I had two boys playing hockey, and knew how much it costs,” Hudella said. “Knowing soldiers and how much they make, I had the idea right then and there to start a non-profit to help them.”
Burns, whose grandfather fought in World War II, has always been a big supporter of the armed services, and has said that he would’ve been a soldier if his talents hadn’t afforded him a place on the pro hockey rink.
“I was talking about wanting to start something with the military. He was wanting to start a charity reaching out to hockey guys,” Burns said in an interview with ESPN The Magazine. “It was kind of a perfect thing.”
From that brief meeting in a Minnesota hockey rink less than a decade ago, Defending the Blue Line was born, with the simple goal of “keeping hockey alive for the children of our nation’s heroes.” Toward that goal this year, Defending the Blue Line paid out more than $100,000 in grants and gear to help 212 kids nationwide.
Burns was there from the start, and today is one of more than 50 NHL players who get into the act. Every time the Sharks take the ice at home, Burns provides a luxury suite that’s reserved for active duty service men and women, and their families, who are known as “Burnzie’s Battalion.”
Over the years, the suite has been a place where those families —more than 7,000 of them at last count – have spent a special night together before mom or dad is deployed, or where they have celebrated a family member coming home after a long tour of duty in a place like Afghanistan or Iraq.
On a smaller stage, Sean Gibson turned to Defending the Blue Line a few years ago when his daughter Makenzie, now 12, got more and more interested in goaltending. Sean and his wife Ann have 40 years of combined military service under their belts, and had heard about the organization via word of mouth at the Minnesota National Guard’s 133rd Airlift Wing. Through Defending the Blue Line, Makenzie initially got some much-needed goalie gear, and the organization enlisted another passionate volunteer.
Defending The Blue Line founder Shane Hudella with several young military family members.
Over the past summer, father and daughter participated in Defending the Blue Line’s 2015 Warrior Camp at a central Minnesota military base. There military kids from Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, Iowa and elsewhere lived in the barracks like soldiers, getting a taste of their parents’ lives away from home. When they weren’t getting the feel of being in the service, they were on the ice at nearby St. Cloud State University for a few hours a day, getting top-level hockey coaching.
“These kids of military families have a lot of the same experiences, from their parents deploying to moving around the country,” said Gibson, who got his start in the Navy, and now works in civil engineering and medical logistics for the National Guard.
This year Defending The Blue Line will help more than 200 military kids play hockey.
“It’s good for them to have time with other kids who can relate and know what they’re experiencing.”
Hudella said the organization’s efforts to help military kids are doubly important in those tragic but not uncommon cases where a parent is deployed and does not come home.
“So many of those kids look to their hockey coaches to fill a little bit of the role of that missing parent. It’s important to help those kids stay in the game,” said Hudella, who himself served overseas in Operation Desert Storm in 1990 and later in South America.
“For a player who has lost a parent, those few hours they spend in the ice each week are a real escape, where they can be with their friends, focus on hockey and just be a kid again.”
The organization was born in Minnesota and is still based there, but Hudella and his small staff – just three full-time employees – have expanded from coast to coast, with operations in more than a dozen states and a dozen NHL teams plus several more minor league and college teams have programs in place to provide occasional free tickets to military families. Free hockey equipment comes via donations from some of the sport’s top names and is available to skaters as young as 4, and goalies age 7 and up. While the gear is stored and cleaned in Minnesota, shipping a set of skates or shin pads to a kid with parents serving at Fort Bragg, N.C., or elsewhere around the country is not uncommon.
The NHL Players Association’s Goals and Dreams Foundation has been a major contributor, and USA Hockey provided a three-year grant worth $45,000 for the effort. Other funds come from program sales at hockey games, a summer golf tournament where dozens of NHL players come out to support the cause, and countless individual donors.
In addition to hockey gear and game tickets, Defending the Blue Line has found a number of well-known hockey camps to donate time and space for more than 2,000 military kids to attend and work on power skating, shooting and goaltending, free of charge.
Hudella and company’s efforts are no longer limited to hockey, or to the United States. They’re expanding to baseball, with a sister campaign called Defending the Base Line, helping military families afford the equipment and fees needed to get their kids on the diamond. They’re also talking to armed forces officials and NHL teams in Canada, in an effort to aid military families there.
“We’ve been so thankful for the help we’ve gotten, and to be able to give back as well,” Gibson said. “It’s great to be able to get the word out and help more families all the time.”