SECOND FAMILY STEPS FORWARD


The Phantoms’ Nick Shkreli recently lost his mother. But, he is coping, thanks to the Valley family who took him in and made him one of their own.

SPECIAL TO THE VINDICATOR

In August, a month before the Mahoning Valley Phantoms’ 2008-09 season began, Austintown residents Steve, Patti and Chad Burbrink knew little of hockey and even less of the Mahoning Valley Phantoms.

That all changed with one phone call.

“I got a call in late August from my uncle, Dave Burbrink in Cincinnati, who is friends with the family of [Phantoms forward] Jordy Trottier,” explains host father Steve Burbrink, “asking if I could host Jordy for the upcoming season.

“So we called the Phantoms to ask if we could do that, but we found out that he had already been assigned a housing family, but [Housing Director] Angie Mainhardt said the team would keep us in mind to host a different player if the opportunity came along.”

The chance arrived sooner than the Burbrinks might have expected when another phone call came through just three days later, informing the family that the team had just acquired Nick Shkreli from the Wichita Falls Wildcats.

Shkreli had requested a trade late in the offseason from the Wildcats to be able to play closer to his home in Romeo, Mich., so that he could be with his mother, Maria, who was battling a malignant tumor in her brain stem. The Burbrinks quickly agreed to host the then-18-year-old.

“Things went well from the start,” Burbrink said. “He came to our house and fit in nicely with our family and everyone was happy.”

For Shkreli, however, the happiness would be short-lived as he received word on Sept. 13 that his mother had slipped into a coma.

The second-year forward returned home immediately. Before long, Maria lost her battle to cancer at age 46.

“We didn’t know if he was coming back,” Burbrink said. “When something so tragic happens to someone so young, you don’t know what they’re going to do.

“After the funeral, we spoke for a few minutes and he told me, ‘My mother wanted me to play hockey,’ and he’d decided to come back.”

After missing four games, Shkreli re-joined the Phantoms for their Oct. 3 contest at Motor City. He registered his first point with an assist on Stefan Salituro’s game-winner as Mahoning Valley prevailed 2-1.

He has not missed a game since.

By his own admission, Shkreli was not 100 percent in October, posting one goal and two assists through seven games.

“Over the summer, I didn’t get much of a chance to participate in offseason conditioning because I was with my Mom most of the time,” Shkreli said.

Off the ice, Nick’s housing family did their part to support his return to high-level competition.

“Once he started playing again, it did take him awhile to get going and to get settled again here with our family,” Burbrink said. “One of the biggest things that helped Nick along was when Patti — not that she could ever replace Maria — she took the role of ‘mom.’

“That relationship really helped him fit in here, and about a month after Nick was back, things started gelling really well. He just took off.”

Shkreli said, “The Burbrinks really took me in and made me one of their own. I was having a really tough time and they did an amazing job getting me through it. The way they helped me really picked me up, off and on the ice.”

With his off-ice life starting to return to a state of relative normalcy, Shkreli’s on-ice performance got a shot in the arm when Coach Bob Mainhardt put him on a forward line with Trottier and Nick Kenney.

In the first 27 games in 2009, the Shkreli-Trottier-Kenney line poured in 32 goals and 49 assists, good for 81 points; a 3 points per game average.

In January, Shkreli was named to the North Division team for the second-annual NAHL Top Prospects Tournament in Ann Arbor, Mich.. The league’s all-star event ended up being a meeting of both of his families just an hour away from his hometown of Romeo.

“Patti and I went up to the tournament,” Burbrink said, “where we met his grandmother, his cousins, a couple of his uncles, his brother and we got to meet his father, Rick. It was a big thrill for me to finally get together with him; we sat and talked for the whole weekend and had a great time.”

Burbrink said the families already have plans to spend time together after the season draws to a close.

“We’ve already planned a summer trip to Michigan,” Burbrink said. “Rick owns a golf course in Dearborn so we’re going to go up there and play some golf and spend three or four days with the Shrkelis.”

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