In the 2022 off-season, my friend Michael Geschwer invited me into his studio. I told him I would try painting for a week. At the time, my wife and I had aspiration of starting a family, and I set myself a modest but meaningful goal: to make a painting I would feel proud to hang in the nursery. The process was demanding—often frustrating, occasionally revelatory—but it kept pulling me back. As the summer unfolded, Mike began to introduce me to the technical grammar of painting: marks, lines, washes, and the way these elements can function as a distilled visual language. We spent time looking closely at artists of the past, and eventually encountered the work of Klein. That moment marked a shift for me—I realized that a mark could be made without a traditional brush, and suddenly my life as a professional hockey player felt conceptually aligned with painting. From there, I began translating the physicality, rhythm, and residue of the sport into a visual vocabulary of my own. Hockey became not just a subject, but a language—one I continue to develop as uniquely mine.

My first exhibition was both exhilarating and grounding. I felt a deep sense of pride in presenting the work publicly, alongside an acute awareness of how it might be received within the art community—a tension that naturally carried its share of nerves. Sharing the work at the intersection of the art and sports communities, and experiencing the generosity and thoughtfulness of that reception, proved formative. It affirmed the seriousness of the pursuit and reinforced my commitment to continue developing the work with rigor and intention.

There are meaningful parallels between hockey and painting. For years, my life as an athlete was shaped by repetition, study, and discipline—hours of practice, film analysis, and a sustained commitment to improvement. Painting demands a similar posture: a willingness to learn, to repeat gestures, and to invest time and energy without immediate resolution. The studio, however, offers a counterpoint to the intensity of the ice. It allows me to slow down, to work with deliberation and openness, and to engage a more reflective form of creativity—distinct from, yet informed by, the urgency and physicality that define my life as a hockey player.