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Photos / SCSU Athletics, Quinnipiac Athletics, Peart Family "THERE WAS NO PRESSURE. IT WAS BACK TO THE POND OR PLAYING DOWNSTAIRS IN MY BASEMENT, GETTING TO WORK AS HARD AS I COULD EVERY SINGLE GAME AND HAVE FUN AND NOT HAVE THIS WEIGHT ON MY SHOULDERS." —Sadie Peart RAISED RIGHT Sadie's Story Sadie watched older sister Maddi dazzle on the ice first. "I always wanted to be just like her," Sadie recalled. Sadie's passion for the sport ramped up at age 12. "I started to really set some big goals for myself about then," she said. "I would rewatch Olympic games and Team USA vs. Team Canada and trying to pick out how and why they were so good. At that time, my details weren't as good, so just trying to fig- ure out how I could be like those players, like Amanda Kessel or Hilary Knight. "That's when I started to say, 'I want to go to the Olympics' and 'I want to play college hockey.'" Sadie set a Grand Rapids- Greenway career assists record with 155. She finished her high school career with 98 goals and 253 points. "For me in high school it was about find- ing my confidence," Sadie added. "By then I knew I wanted to play college hockey, and I think I started to see the skill that my parents had always been talking about, but really playing with older girls, I just needed to find that confidence and I did." Now in her final year at Quinnipiac, Sadie has amassed 117 points and 58 goals through 152 games. Jack's Journey Much like Sadie, Jack watched his older sib- lings. He quickly went from the little brother at the rink, to a hockey player himself. "I was the definition of a rink rat—our whole family was pretty much," Jack said. "We would try to catch each other's games, and then go play at home with our friends. It was a busy schedule, and credit to my mom and dad who had to do a lot—especially with my dad coaching a lot of teams—but hockey was what we all loved to do. "It was a part of us and our family." Jack and his buddies grew up Thunderhawks. He remembers watching the state championship runs, and vividly recalls Grand Rapids laying claim to fame in 2017, defeating Moorhead 6-3 in the finals. "As a kid, state is all you ever really want," Jack said. "Everyone wants to be in Saint Paul come March." Jack never got his state championship hardware but was named the 2021 Mr. Hockey and Reed Larson Award winner. "You never play for the individual honors or accolades, but certainly that was a pretty big honor," Jack said. "It just helped build my confidence as I went into college." Jack has found his groove at St. Cloud—and the Wild have noticed. "Every kid develops at his own pace," Wild general manager Bill Guerin said. "We're never trying to rush anybody through col- lege, and we're never looking at their college stats each night worrying about what might happen. Jack is one of those players that comes to development camp and you can tell he's focused and ready to work. He'll get there, and each year he'll continue to be bet- ter and better. That's how it works." On the Pond There are at least half-a-dozen ponds and outdoor rinks surrounding the Pearts' home. When they were kids, it was nightly (and daily) skates on any given one of them. "There was no pressure," Sadie said. "It was back to the pond or playing downstairs in my basement, getting to work as hard as I could every single game and have fun and not have this weight on my shoulders." Jack agrees. "There's no better way to learn from the game and remember the fun than when you're on the pond. I know in Minnesota we love talking about it, but that's because every Minnesotan has their pond hockey story. You get to be creative. You get to be out there because you love playing hockey. It's differ- ent. It's home." Jessi Pierce is a freelance writer covering the NHL and hockey in Minnesota. She hosts the hockey-centric Bardown Beauties Podcast and can be followed on Twitter @jessi_pierce. The Pearts credit mom and dad for their tireless work ethic and competitive spirit. 26