Ruler at Heights

Gerbe, 5 feet 5 inches, is the big man for BC

Ice has always factored into the story. That is why, perhaps, that images of a young boy's passion are easily frozen for those in Nathan Gerbe's tale.

"I just remember how, when he was 5 and 6 and 7, he kept begging and begging to play," said Terrie Gerbe. "He would come off of the pond and follow me into the kitchen. 'I can do it,' he would say. 'I can do it.' "

In harmony with her husband, Joe, Terrie had agreed to start their two oldest sons, Joey and Jeff, in hockey when they were 3 and 5, but for various reasons chose to delay Nathan's entrance into the organized stuff until he was 8. "I felt so bad for him. All he wanted to do was play."

Seven years later and hundreds of miles removed from his boyhood home in Oxford, Mich., Gerbe remained unable to contain his true desires.

"Always, he would look at you and you know he was saying, 'Can I play? Can I play? Can I play?' " said Mike Hastings, the coach and general manager of the Omaha Lancers of the US Hockey League.

Well, could he? An answer comes from within the Boston Bruins' locker room, where rising star Phil Kessel talks glowingly of the time he spent alongside Gerbe while playing for the US national team.

"He's my favorite guy I've ever played with," said Kessel. "He skates unbelievable. He has great skills. He makes great passes. For me, he was the easiest guy to read off of."

Though they wear different uniforms - Kessel the Bruins' black 'n' gold, Gerbe the Boston College maroon 'n' gold - the former linemates play in the same city, which has afforded them the chance to maintain a close friendship and talk all the time.

Go ahead, suggest that it must be "small talk," and have a good laugh; Gerbe will sit it out. More strikingly, so will a long line of admirers that stretches from Chestnut Hill to Omaha. The fact he stands 5 feet 5 inches and weighs 165 pounds in a world that is becoming increasingly crowded with behemoths long ago became a footnote in the Gerbe story. Hastings offers an explanation:

"On that day when they gave out hearts, Nathan somehow got switched up," he said. "He got a heart that gave him a big man's mentality."

It helps explain why Terrie Gerbe has never harbored any fears. "You can't worry for them. You've got to play with what you've got."

It helps explain what unfolded the night Hastings looked down his bench and saw a pair of wide eyes staring back. Gerbe, a mere 15 years old, was the youngest kid on the team. "Heck, 75-80 percent of the league was two years older," said Hastings, who nonetheless signaled for the kid to get some rare ice time.

"Sure enough, the puck goes into the corner and there goes Nathan, along with a kid who was about 6-3," said Hastings. "Next thing you know, there's a fight. Later, I'm like, 'Listen, Nathan, you don't need to prove anything to any of us. We know how tough you are. We don't need you to fight. We need you to play.' "

Though his competitive fires raged, Gerbe's hockey sense took hold. Hastings's message connected, so when a big game against Waterloo a few nights later remained tied inside of a few minutes, Gerbe reacted to a loose puck with instincts and a skill that is a gift from above.

"He takes three steps inside the blue line and scores a big-time goal," said Hastings. "I've never seen a kid who enjoys scoring a goal like him. I mean, the emotion and enjoyment running through that young man's eyeballs that night was incredible."

It's an image forever frozen.

Sibling (tough) love

By his mere position in the Gerbe household - the second oldest of six children, the oldest of three boys - Joey Gerbe blazed a trail for his siblings. When Joey would head to the track at Oxford High School a few miles from their secluded home in the woods, the others would put on their sneakers and tag along. When he would head out back to shovel the pond, the others would lace up their skates.

Their world was fueled by fresh air, not Xboxes and iPods, and what governed play was a universally accepted concept as old as dirt. That is, older brothers never give the youngest brother a break.

"No, we never let up on him, even out on the pond," said Joey, now 29 and years removed from a hockey talent that was good enough to carry him into the Ontario Major Junior League. The next brother in line, Jeff, played Junior A hockey for Danville, so if it seems Nathan was up against stiff competition, well, so be it. It's enough of a frozen image to get Joey laughing.

"What I remember is how [Nathan] hates to lose," Joey said. "If something happened or if he was on the losing team when our friends would come over, he wouldn't speak to us."

The silent treatment, however, did not mean that Nathan would separate himself from the action. To the contrary, "He just kept following [Joey and Jeff] onto the ice," said Terrie. "Even with Nathan being little, they never let him win, but I think they instilled in him a good work ethic."

Joey and Jeff did more than that. They are the ones who finally pushed the issue with their parents. Nathan, they insisted, had outgrown pond hockey. He needed more, and finally the parents agreed. At the age of 8, Nathan Gerbe joined his first organized hockey team, and if there was one thing that shined through, it was that the youngest Gerbe could score.

"Pretty goals, too," said Terrie. "He would always score pretty goals."

Parents would say flattering things and 8-year-old Nathan would be smitten with the praise. But Terrie Gerbe chose to embrace a perspective that came with being the parent of two boys who had played hockey for years and three daughters (Danielle, Breanne, Shannon) who were figure skaters, soccer players, and volleyball players. "It was a little bit embarrassing to hear people tell him he was so good, because we knew he wasn't," she said. "He couldn't skate very well. He could go around players and go in and out and, yes, he scored pretty goals, but he looked ugly getting there."

The problem, she said, was simple.

"He couldn't stop," said Terrie, who laughs at a frozen image of a child with whom she always felt a special kinship. She loved him no more than her other five children, of course, but being the youngest child meant Nathan had special circumstances. With older siblings out playing their sports and with Joe having an involvement in teams that included Joey and Jeff, it was almost as if a parental stress had been removed from the equation by the time Nathan got into hockey.

"With Nathan, we seemed to sit back and enjoy what we had missed with the older ones," said Terrie. "But it's like he did things backward. He learned to shoot, shoot, shoot, and score, score, score. Then, he learned to skate."

Oh, how he learned, because in his three years at BC, Gerbe has established himself as one of the nation's most skilled collegiate hockey players. With 24 goals and 48 points in 35 games, he not only leads the Eagles in scoring, he is tied for third nationally. That can be credited to one reason. "He is an elite skater," said BC coach Jerry York, whose team will open its Hockey East quarterfinal series against Providence tonight.

Check that. It can be credited to another reason, too: Gerbe's unfailing commitment to not accept his size as a deterrent. It is that resource that is the basis for so many of the frozen images of a player held in great esteem.

Uniform admiration

Ron Rolston confesses that his lasting image of Gerbe sounds negative, but he insists it is not. Gerbe had entered into the US National Team Development Program after his 25-game stint with the Omaha Lancers in 2002-03. His first season in Ann Arbor, Mich., 2003-04, Gerbe played for current Boston University assistant coach David Quinn. The next year he played for Rolston, who had come to the NTDP from two years as an assistant at BC, a program under York's thumb that had shown a commitment to small, fast players with great skills, the most notable of whom had been Brian Gionta and Ben Eaves.

Gerbe concedes he felt an affinity for Gionta, the star of BC's 2000-01 NCAA championship team, but Rolston remembers a film session behind closed doors that served as a reminder that Gerbe was not Gionta.

"I'll admit, I was a little hard on him," said Rolston, whose talented roster of forwards included Kessel, Peter Mueller (now with the Phoenix Coyotes), and Jason Lawrence of Saugus (now a standout with BU). It was a crew united enough to win the Under-18 International Ice Hockey Federation championship in the Czech Republic, but that night when the film rolled, there was a layer of tension that could have gone either way. "I showed film that had eight or nine one-on-one rushes [by Gerbe], all of which got snuffed out and play headed in the other direction."

The coach's point had been delivered. More to the point, it had been absorbed.

"He got barbecued by me, but he took it as a teaching point and I admired that," said Rolston. "He played with so much energy, he was a joy to be around, on and off the ice."

From so many corners, the sentiment is echoed.

From Don Fardig, with whose family Gerbe lived while he played in the NTDP in Ann Arbor: "He always played way bigger than his size. He was feisty and he'd get in your face, but he could back it up. I'm proud as hell of him."

From Hastings: "Every step of the way, there's always been a question about [his size], but I would tell people, 'If you've never hit a home run, how do you know you can reach the fence?' Any anxiety I had about him was gone after a practice or two."

From Joey Gerbe: "I just always told him, 'Keep working hard. If you're good enough, people will see that.' "

From York: "Scholastically, he was considered a long shot, but he has taken advantage of all the learning tools we offer, he has used tutors, and he's got a 3.25 GPA. He's an unbelievable example of a kid who wants to go to school and doesn't take any shortcuts."

From Hastings: "He's the consummate pain in the butt to play against. He puts pressure on other teams, but he's got that special gift."

From Danny Hardig, a junior forward with Michigan, Don's son, and Gerbe's teammate with the NTDP: "He was a great teammate, and you know there's never a chance that he'll back down."

That feisty nature, of course, has at times hurt Gerbe. Earlier this season he served a one-game suspension after an opposing coach sent film to the Hockey East office that showed a stick violation. The report enabled some critics to draw less-than-flattering opinions of Gerbe, but again, there is a voice that offers support.

From Kessel: "I watch games and he doesn't get a lot of calls on him. The other teams hook him, they hold him, they run him. They're always around him. It's frustrating when people do that and he's not getting the calls. But he still goes out there and plays hard, every shift."

If there was a consensus sentiment, that would be it - that he gives away size, but not an inch of heart. Those who've known him and played beside him will shout it from the rooftops, but it is left to Gerbe to answer the question that resonates: What makes him tick?

No challenge too big

As he extends a handshake, you are provided a glimpse at the young man's power. This strength is what convinced York that Gerbe could play at the Division 1 level. Of course, even York accepts the fact that it all begins with the heart, so Gerbe is asked once again about the passion that burns within.

"You can't have any quit in you. Once people see quit in you, you won't go far," said the junior forward. In hockey, that translates into a simple philosophy for one who stands 5-5 and weighs 165: "If you get taken out, get up and get the puck."

Having come from close-knit siblings and a home that was always busy with activity, the decision at age 15 to move in with an Omaha family and play in the USHL wasn't easy. But Gerbe doesn't have any regrets and it made the move to the US national team that much easier. He insists the caliber of player with whom he played was crucial for his development, and besides, he wanted to prove that no challenge would chase him away.

"I think I've heard it all my life, that I'm too small," said Gerbe, who in 115 games has 60 goals and 113 points. "There'd always be another excuse for why I couldn't make the next level. Sure enough, I'd make the next level. When I was younger, I let it bother me. But with the national program I realized small players could compete. I had reached the point where I had to come to terms with life."

Always, Gerbe would draw strength from his siblings, especially Joey and Jeff, and Terrie and Joe were always a source of encouragement.

"Small kids add to a team," said Terrie. "They have something tall kids don't."

Gerbe concedes that he needs to constantly focus on maintaining his composure, that he knows he gets rattled with the constant holding, hooking, and checking. Kessel said there's more of it at the college level than in the NHL, that his friend absorbs a ton of punishment, but Gerbe simply shrugs.

"I can't complain about it. It's a tough sport," he said. "I get hit pretty good. I just have to get up and play, no matter what."

It's a good attitude and what's even better is the fact that Gerbe truly embodies that attitude, at least according to Hastings, who stays in touch with his former player.

"We all talk about how the game of hockey mirrors life, that you'll go through a lot of peaks and valleys," said Hastings. "Well, he has handled more challenges than most players. I always felt he would become something special - and he has."

Jim McCabe can be reached at jmccabe@globe.com.