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Salisbury boy rubs elbows with hockey legends
Organizers says 'Heaven orchestrated' trip of a lifetime for Jeremy O'Dell, who lost parents last year in horrific accident


By Aloma Jardine
Times & Transcript Staff
Published Saturday November 17th, 2007
Appeared on page A1

Jeremy O'Dell found himself elevated to near superstar status among his Grade 5 classmates this week.

After all, it's not every 10-year-old that can boast of helping to coach a team of NHL legends to victory or of hobnobbing with some of the biggest stars in the sport -- past and present.

"Some of my friends wanted my autograph," he says.

Jeremy, his sister Kali, 13, and their grandparents, Rick and Sue McNulty, were guests of the Source for Sports at the Hockey Hall of Fame's induction weekend festivities last weekend after Jeremy was the grand prize winner in its Canada-wide Super Sport rewards program for minor hockey players.

Out of more than 40,000 names, Jeremy's was the one drawn to win the prize package.

It's hard to imagine a more fitting recipient.

Jeremy and Kali's parents, Greg and Laura O'Dell, were killed in a car crash a little over a year ago on their way home to Salisbury. The vehicle the family was riding in was in a collision with an allegedly impaired driver. Jeremy was severely injured in the crash.

Jennifer Wilson, regional marketing and events co-ordinator for Source for Sports, was the one who pulled Jeremy's name during the draw.

"Somebody up in heaven orchestrated this," she says. "We have 156 stores across Canada, so we are a close-knit group. When our membership heard about it, they were like, 'Pull out all the stops.'"

And they did. Jeremy got to meet his dad's favourite player, Felix Potvin, his favourite player, Mats Sundin, all of the inductees, most of the Maple Leafs, and other legends of the game.

"They were really nice," Jeremy says, declining to pick a favourite. "When I realize how famous they are, I'm sure I'm going to be saying, 'Wuhoo!'"

He does say his 10-minute one-on-one meeting with Felix Potvin was "awesome".

"He signed my jersey and all my cards of him and trust me, I had a lot of cards of him," he says.

Mats Sundin also met him individually and gave him a signed game stick.

Rick McNulty is nearly as breathless as his grandson as he tries to capture in words an experience that defies description.

"They were so down to earth and unbelievable," he says of the hockey players they encountered. "It was incredible."

If Jeremy can't pick a highlight, the rest of the family can.

The Hockey Hall of Fame made Jeremy the honourary assistant coach of the original six team at the Legends game and during the opening ceremony he was introduced in front of a crowd of about 15,000.

Wilson says all the extra perks were a surprise to Jeremy, but she worried the huge crowd might be a bit intimidating to a 10-year-old.

She needn't have. Jeremy came out smiling and waving.

"He was right at home on the bench with these (players)," she says. "He was perfect for this, he really was."

Jeremy says he might have been nervous if he had known how many people were watching.

"Now I know I should have been nervous," he says, but at the time, "I was thinking, 'This is going to be awesome!'"

Kali says the moment Jeremy walked out onto the ice was her favourite part of the whole trip.

"I don't think I've ever seen him that happy," she says. "He was just staring blankly. He was so excited he couldn't even understand what was happening."

McNulty says Jeremy got to visit the dressing room before the game and between periods and a sign over one of the stalls in the locker room, right between Wendel Clark and Mike Gartner, read "Coach Jeremy O'Dell".

"Him and I both got to sit on the bench with the players during the game," he says. "He was the envy of every kid in the rink."

McNulty says Jeremy and former Canadien Chris Nilan really took a shine to each other, with Chris even letting Jeremy wear his Stanley Cup ring for a while.

"I can't say enough about the players, they are such gentlemen," he says.

When the teams got ready for group pictures at the end of the game, Jeremy got shuffled to the back in the fuss.

"Mark Messier held up his hand and said, 'Whoa, whoa!' and he skated around behind the group, found him and put him on his knee for the team picture," McNulty says, getting a little choked up as he recalls the hockey legend going out of his way for a little boy.

The contest normally only covers a trip for two with tickets for the induction ceremony and the Legends game, but Wilson says given the circumstances, they decided to fly the whole family in and provide four tickets to both events plus pack in as many extras as they could.

"We had a lot of help from a lot of other people to pull it together," she says.

Kali says the induction ceremony was amazing.

"Jeremy wouldn't eat anything of course, it was all lobster and rice," she says. "He likes fried chicken and hot dogs."

Although she wasn't a huge hockey fan before, she says she's a lot more into the game now after getting to meet so many players.

"They were all so nice to Jeremy, it was just amazing. You would walk in and watch his face light up," she says. "You'd think the hockey players would be mean and rough, but they were so funny and nice. You see them fighting on the ice and you think, 'Oh my gosh, they must be mean.'"

Kali also got to meet Jaydee Bixby, the runner up on last year's edition of Canadian Idol.

Bixby was singing between periods at the Legends game. When Jeremy heard he was from Canadian Idol he knew Kali would want to meet him, so someone went and retrieved her from the stands.

The only disappointment of the trip came at Jeremy's very first NHL game, when his beloved Maple Leafs lost to the New York Rangers in a shootout.

"We were sitting right behind the Rangers goal, we could see the shots from close up," he says. "Toronto kept tripping a lot, the ice was very slippery. That was the bad part."

The good part was that McNulty, a die-hard Senators fan, finally came around to Jeremy's point of view and started cheering for the Leafs.

"After the way that the Leafs organization treated us, particularly on the Saturday from the practices to meeting Mats Sundin and the rest of the Maple Leafs and the game on Saturday, yeah, I have to say I'm a Leafs fan," McNulty says.

The family moved from Salisbury to Quispamsis over the summer, as most of their extended family lives there.

McNulty says both Kali and Jeremy have settled into their new schools and are doing well.

He says with the first anniversary of the car crash coming just two weeks ago, the trip really couldn't have come at a better time.