Broc Little's family soaks up Olympic experience, even if he is too busy

PYEONGCHANG, South Korea – It’s pushing an hour after the U.S. men’s hockey opening win at the Winter Olympics and the aim-to-please Korean volunteers charged with clearing the Gangneung Hockey Centre before the next game are losing patience.

“Go home,” one yells through a bullhorn at primarily family members milling about to congratulate U.S. players. When that doesn’t work, another sets off a warning siren, trying to get the job done without verbal confrontation, which the hosts assiduously avoid.

Don and Lisa Little of Carefree are moving toward the exit but slowly. They have yet to see their son Broc, a forward for the U.S., and don’t get many opportunities between training and games.

“We literally have not communicated much at all, and we haven’t tried much,” Don said. “We were told beforehand, 'Just expect you won’t see him.' I leave him alone, I don’t want to be in his head.”

A woman from North Carolina named Little spies the Little jerseys that Don, Lisa, their younger son Tyler and Broc’s girlfriend are wearing.

"Where can I get one of those?" she asks, proud to be a Little, too, at least by name association. Broc purchased them – blue for the guys, white for the girls – and for now, they are pretty much an exclusive item.

This is not a team of NHL stars like in the previous five Olympics. Until now, Miss Little from North Carolina likely had never heard of Broc Little, who’s never played in the NHL and currently is employed by HC Davos, a pro team in Switzerland.

Yet here he is, starting for the U.S. in the Olympics in South Korea, in a career-defining if somewhat-quixotic bid for the first American men’s hockey medal won by a non-NHL team since the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" gold.

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Broc and Ty first learned hockey growing up in Phoenix in the 1990s before a move east where Don built a makeshift rink in the back yard and the boys competed for the Cookie Dough Cup.

“The trophy was made out of a cookie dough container,” Ty said. “And now we’re playing in the Olympics, so we’ve stepped it up a bit.”

Quite a bit, judging by the fact that the man shaking hands with Don as the Americans are slowly herded toward the exit is four-time Olympian and Hockey Hall of Famer Chris Chelios, now a U.S. assistant coach. The gesture is not lost on Don, whose love of hockey from his childhood in Massachusetts set all of what is happening now in motion.

Don moved with his parents to Arizona in the 1970s and was, he insists, a first-rate deliver of the Phoenix Gazette and Arizona Republic. He and Lisa, an Arizona native, married in 1985. Broc was born in 1988, and Ty 19 months later. The Littles lived mostly in Arizona until 2000, when Don gave up a lucrative job and moved to Boston, primarily so the boys could advance hockey and educational paths.

After Broc completed a stellar hockey career at Yale, Don and Lisa moved back to Arizona in 2011. They now own the Black Mountain Coffee Shop in Carefree, and Lisa is an executive with Wendy’s restaurants.

Their original Olympic game plan to commute from Seoul – two hours each way – immediately proved impractical after watching a night U.S. women’s hockey game. So they moved to the Olympic coastal area and, by good fortune, found accommodations on the Sun Cruise Resort & Yacht in Gangneung.

“It has been an adventure,” Don Little said. “A lot of things that would normally aggravate you a lot are less aggravating because of being here.”

To that point, the Littles are close to giving up on seeing Broc after the 2-1 win over Slovakia when he suddenly appears, wearing shorts and a U.S. shirt honoring the Olympic team’s general manager Jim Johannson, who died Jan. 21.

At 5-9, Broc is not much taller than his parents and shorter than his brother. He only has minutes to chat with his family and hug Beatrice Bergman, whom he met while playing in Sweden and now lives with in Switzerland. He turns 30 in March but looks younger.

There is talk of getting together later, but another game awaits the next day, so this could be the extent of their direct contact.

It’s always business before pleasure for an Olympian, and family members are left to fend for themselves. 

Fortunately, no one is freezing on a relatively balmy 30-degree day, unlike some of others here when the wind chill plunges well below zero. So other than being hungry, the Littles are in no rush and happy to bask in the sun and the win.

The Olympics in person, Don said, are “way cooler and, obviously, with your son playing, it adds to it. The coolest thing is meeting so many people from all over the world. My biggest take out of this is there’s wicked awesome people all around the world. It’s amazing to meet so many nice people from everywhere.”

Added Lisa: “People are excited we’re here and to have the Olympics. For the most part, they’re set up pretty well to tell people where to go and what to do.”

One volunteer, just getting off his work shift, even spent two hours serving as a guide for the Littles until Don finally insisted that he had more than done his civic and Olympic duty.

Naturally when traveling abroad, not everything is perfect.

Ty had two extra tickets to the U.S.-Canada women’s hockey game that he tried to sell, a no-no here. That fear of being arrested, however brief, was a bit terrorizing.

Like most U.S. parents at every Olympics, the Littles are effusive in their praise for the P&G House, a hospitality center designed specifically to solve family issues that could otherwise distract athletes.

Bergman met Broc four years ago when he was first playing in Linkoping, Sweden, and has progressed to where she moved with him to Switzerland and has temporarily put her nursing career on hold while she learns yet another language. She gets along well with her potential future in-laws, smiling at old stories like the Cooke Dough Cup and enjoying her first Olympics, even without Broc for most of it.

“It’s huge because there are so many good players out there in Europe and Russia,” Bergman said. “Maybe not that many people know how many good players there actually are. It’s a huge deal for him. He could just cross his fingers and hope he would make the team. I was pretty confident in him, but he wasn’t as confident as I was. I’m very happy and very proud.”

Pride is the operative word, no matter the eventual outcome. The U.S. went into a game against the Olympic Athletes from Russia on Saturday leading its tightly bunched preliminary group in trying to advance to the quarterfinals.

“I think what was rewarding was after we won (over Slovakia), just looking at each and giving each other a hug and that feeling of being my brother, their son, her boyfriend winning a game at the Olympics,” Ty Little said.

While all would be excited for Broc to score an Olympic goal, it’s far from the priority. He had six shots on goal through the first two games.

“I am less worried about him than ever,” Don said. “I’m worried about the team. I don’t care who puts it in. Win. Move, make the right decision. I’ve never been so excited for other players as I am here. If you dove and blocked a shot, that’s just as good as scoring a goal, and he’s been doing that. He’s working his butt off at both ends of the ice. In the end, if he doesn’t get any points, I’m OK with it. He’s doing everything he can. There’s great players on that ice that aren’t scoring.”