00:00Hi, my name is Andrew Wittenbach, owner of the Long Island Sports Hub. I am Ethan
00:04Wittenbach's father. He's currently at Quinnipiac playing Division 1 hockey and
00:08leading the entire nation in scoring. He's also a fifth-round draft pick of the
00:14Calgary Flames and we're really excited about this ride that he's on.
00:20It starts with my dad who is from Europe. He's a Swiss citizen and came
00:27over here when he was about 20 but before he came here he was a professional
00:30hockey player in Switzerland, grew up playing there his whole life. It was a
00:34big part of our life from from early on. I have two brothers, all of us who picked
00:39up the game pretty much immediately. We were about five, six, seven years old back
00:46in the early 80s when the New York Islanders were just starting their
00:49dynasty and it happens to be that you know our next-door neighbor was Butch
00:54touring. We had that access to a professional hockey player right in our
00:58backyard. We continued on our journey and and went and played Long Island hockey
01:02for many years and and then turned that into playing it at Cornell for three or
01:09four years and in the early and mid 90s and then after that we kind of all went on
01:16our way to start careers and families and and here we are now kind of seeing
01:21another generation come through which is really exciting. We opened this facility
01:25and brought a rink into it. It was a mostly a multi-sport facility without a
01:30hockey and my partners and I all hockey families wanted to get hockey integrated
01:38into the facility and on this 2016 we opened up the rink and and happened to be
01:44right around Ethan's birthday and and we we held his his birthday here and that was
01:49the first ever time we all skated on the ice. What better way to to christen the
01:53the new the new rink with with that? Watch kids and and guys that are doing it at
01:58the highest level try to mimic them their training habits their skill their
02:04their their their their their skating some of the things that they watch and you
02:08can see it up close there's no better education than that and Ethan has had a
02:13front row seat to that for so many years having grown up in the facility along
02:19with other other kids that he played with and and are all now playing at
02:25higher levels as well and so it's very cool to watch that stream of kids come
02:29through here and and now it's it's pretty interesting to to see the the the new
02:35generation of kids will look at Ethan in that that in that way that Ethan looked at
02:40all these other guys and and it's his time to give back and and he he's got he's
02:48got the gift of of doing that for for people he wants to be a mentor he wants to
02:53inspire kids and and he's the first one to to be there to help with a clinic or to
02:59jump out on the ice with younger kids and I just love to see that and and it's
03:03really endearing to to watch him you know we were getting out of here late at
03:08night and and dinner was was cold and in the fridge by the time we got there but
03:13all for the best reason right because the kids didn't want to leave what they
03:18loved and I I've always said this to people people like oh you know yeah he's
03:23a rink rat when I tell you that in Sioux Falls this is junior hockey last year he
03:29literally would open up the rink before the rest of the staff got there like he
03:34wasn't happy unless he was here at the rink or at wherever team he's playing on
03:38he wanted to be there he never wanted to leave and so that's that's to me just
03:44love beyond the the normal and and it's a passion and it's a it's a it's a a
03:52happiness that he gets and we're just lucky that we were able to give that to
03:59him and and he really took it to levels that we never could have expected it's
04:05been a crazy journey from watching out of the games on the couch to seeing him
04:10play in college along with thousands of other people it's he inspires me he I
04:18strive to do better because of him he's my role model and every day I look
04:24forward to just like trying to be like him he's like the big brother and anyone
04:31could wish for and I love watching him play hockey and where he's at right now
04:36it's what he's doing it's special and I couldn't be more proud of him certainly
04:41an unbelievable moment a family moment we're still reeling if you will from it
04:47even with all the things that are going on it's it's something that you really
04:51don't put an expectation on you you hope you know your your kids growing up with
04:57a dream it's a lot of kids dreams and we learn as you go through the process how
05:03difficult it is and but hard work and commitment and motivation and perseverance
05:12those words they may sound cliche but at the end of the day if you really follow
05:19through on them great things can happen and he never stopped and and there were
05:24times when he was down confidence was down and he had great people around him to
05:31pick him up and he just kept driving forward and for us to watch him on that
05:36day finally reach the pinnacle for a junior hockey player it's there's nothing
05:42better and I think as we talked it's one of those things where it's the
05:48excitement that sets in and then it's the okay now we got real work to do you
05:52know so there's that next you know a chapter that needs to begin and and he's
05:57begun it in a way that none of us ever could have dreamed
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