Portrait of a young hockey player, young artist

This is he, Branson Starheim, eight-year-old son of Carmen and her late husband Scot, who I promised to shoot a portrait of tonight. I didn't arrive until near the end of the game, so I did not see Branson score the first goal of a contest that ended in a tie, 2–2. He gets out there to rough it up with 10-year-olds who are much larger than him. He is also the artist who created the the brightly colored, lively, cross held in the hands of his mother in the photo I posted earlier today from Metro Cafe. I am told that at a recent game, Branson made the sign of the cross, looked up, gestured upward with his hand and then skated onto the ice to play this game for his dad, to whom he had just sent his love.

Text added at 8:57 PM. The Squarespace nightmare continues.

Carmen remembers the burglary - and the tears that flowed at the last hockey game her husband ever got to watch their son play

I back up to this morning, just after Shoshana served my coffee to me. Carmen came in. I had hoped we might have a nice chat, but all sorts of people kept coming in – Amanda the hockey mom; Jay, my fellow pilot and lover of airplanes, Ollie Kent, Carmen's four-year-old neighbor who came with his mom; others whose names I do not know. Some of the talk was about the burglary, and how violated Carmen and Shoshana felt to have had someone smash his way into their space, and then snoop about doing whatever he wanted in there.

Here, Carmen describes a much more joyful moment, yet a moment ringed in a halo of deep sadness. It was Branson's final hockey game of the past season – for state championship - and the last his father would ever see him play. His father knew it, too.

Branson's team was one goal behind and the game was drawing to a close. With just seconds to go, little Branson knocked in the tying score. Tears flowed from his father's eyes – tears of joy, of pride, of gratitude; tears of sorrow and of longing for all those future games death would force him to miss. Tears flowed from the eyes of all of Branson's teammates and their parents. Only Branson did not cry. His father had taught him to be strong and he was going to be.

They lost the state championship in overtime, but this could not diminish that special moment Branson had given to his team, his mother and his dying father.

Branson and his 6-9 year-old Avalanche teammates play on Aces ice - part 1: Branson, pre-game

One Friday night when I was in the middle of the process of putting together my David Alan Harvey Loft workshop series, I took a break to drive to Anchorage where Branson and his Alaska Avalanche hockey team of six-to-nine year olds was about to compete in a six-minute, running-clock, exhibition game on the same ice where the Anchorage Aces would take on the Stockton Thunder.

Branson arrived early with his dad and mom, Scot and Carmen Starheim, owners and operators of Metro Cafe. Here is six-year old Branson with mom Carmen at the gate to the Sullivan Arena. Dad Scot had disappeared to take care of some task that needed taking care of.

Once inside, the family accompanied Branson to the VIP room, where he got to dine on diced beef, pasta, salad and corn chips. Afterward, he needed to pick his teeth.

In the VIP room, Branson engaged a very tall man in some hockey talk. Clearly, the man was impressed. Branson knows his hockey talk.

Branson joins his family in the bleachers to watch the first period of Aces-Thunder competition. Carmen adjusts Branson's hair so that he can be presentable to pose with his grandparents, Tony and Eva Villasenor, originally from a small village in Mexico. They did not move to Anchorage until Carmen was ten. Her early life was spent barefoot on dirt floors. They had no cameras and so Carmen has only one photo from her early childhood in Mexico.

Branson with his grandparents.

Branson with grandparents, mom, aunts, uncles, cousin and friends.

The Avalanche exhibition will be played during the break between the first and second periods. As the Aces skate onto the ice, Branson and his dad point out different players to each other.

The Aces score the first goal. Branson and his dad celebrate.

Soon it is time for Branson to go down to the doors that open onto the ice and to get ready to compete. His dad joins him.

Branson, stick in hand, helmet on head, ready to go do battle on the same ice where the Aces now skate. He and his teammates will compete against each other before the same crowd that the Aces do their own battle on.

I will post Part 2 later today, which will feature not only Branson but his whole team, the Aces, and Boomer -their polar bear mascot.