When Kelton Hatcher started ice skating at age 3 in Dallas, he didn’t think much of his dad being a defenseman in the National Hockey League. He was just a kid at the rink with his older brother, Chase, and their father.
But that mindset changed three years later after Derian, who captained the Dallas Stars to their only Stanley Cup championship in 1999, signed with the Philadelphia Flyers in 2005.“
As I got older, I started to take in how cool it was,” remembered Kelton, who grew up in Haddonfield, N.J. “I used to go into the Flyers’ locker room and hang out with the guys, and watch their practices. It was special to be able to experience that.”
Over a decade later, Kelton, 19, is still walking around the dressing room of his dad’s team. Except nowadays the club is the Ontario Hockey League’s Sarnia Sting and he’s the Hatcher patrolling the blue line, with Derian serving as head coach.
