Nothing soft about wanting to be a father

Ryan Reaves: “I want to race home and hang out with the family and do things that the kids want to do. (Photo courtesy: Vegas Golden Knights)

LAS VEGAS — It's not often Vegas Golden Knights fan favorite Ryan Reaves gets caught off guard.

You're talking about someone with impressive quick-trigger instincts who is known as pound-for-pound the best fighter on skates.

But this isn't about the bruising hockey player who has etched himself into the fabric of Las Vegas' first major professional franchise, and has become a recognizable face throughout Southern Nevada.

This is more about a person who has been captivated by less than 100 pounds of little people, two adoring children who call Vegas' enforcer Daddy.

So when he was asked what has surprised him most as a parent to 4 1/2-year-old son Kanen and soon-to-be 2-year-old daughter Kamilla, the gentle giant stopped himself with a chuckle.

"How soft they've..." Reaves started to say during a recent exclusive interview with WGRamirez.com. "Well, not that they've made me soft, but how soft they've made me as a home person."

It's OK, Ryan. We've all been there. Decimated of our outside toughness and male bravado we once ran the streets with pre-parenthood. When you have children, it's the soft that makes parenting great, and nobody can deny the mush they turn you into.

"I've never raced home to hang out with (anyone), I've always wanted to stay out," Reaves said. "But now I want to race home and just see the family and hang out with the family and do things that the kids want to do, those things are fun for me now."

READY OR NOT

In 2015, long before there were Golden Knights, Reaves was 28 years old and coming off a season that saw him play a career-high 81 regular-season games -- a mark that still stands to this day -- while becoming a fixture in the Blues organization. His six goals, six assists and 12 points the previous season were also career highs.

And St. Louis was somewhat poppin' as a hotbed for professional sports.

The Cardinals went to the World Series twice since he arrived -- winning in 2011 and losing in 2013 -- and won three straight division titles (2013-15). The Rams hadn't bolted for Los Angeles yet, and though they hadn't been to the playoffs in about 11 years, it was still the NFL in The Gateway to the West and fans remained rabid.

Meanwhile, Reaves was cultivating his professional career with a storied franchise that had been to the playoffs each year he was there beginning with his second season.

The last thing on his mind was having children.

"When I was younger I didn't know if I really wanted to have kids," he said. "I definitely didn't think I wanted to have them this quickly."

But when he met the love of his life, his mindset eventually swayed. His wife Alanna is a bit older than him, and knowing she was ready to have kids, Reaves accepted the fact there were sacrifices to be made and it was something he was willing to do quite a few years earlier than he had planned.

"I'm so glad I did," he said with elation in his voice. "People say kids change your life. Well, man, they really do. I've never been like a homebody. I've always been one (who) likes going out and not really spending a lot of time at home. (That) changed from the time Kanen (arrived). I was worried about Kamilla. I didn't know how we were gonna interact. Now she's just the second love of my life.

"It's crazy how they change you so quickly."

POWER BOMB

Growing up Reaves meant growing up tough in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The competition ran high in the Reaves household, and not just among brothers playing in the same sport. We're talking about walking down a narrow hallway in his childhood home where nobody was getting by one another, but rather someone being backed up in the opposite direction in order to get through.

"It was a war in that little hallway," Reaves recalled. "Running around my house my dad would always try and kick my feet out."

Willard Reaves' toughness spilt onto the football field as a coach, showing plenty of signs of being a former professional football player in the Canadian Football League.

Playing for his father in one game, Reaves was returning a kickoff and approached three defenders while racing toward the left side. Pressuring him toward the sideline, Reaves ran out of bounds and was promptly greeted by his father's eloquent instructions.

"He came over to me and grabbed my face mask and said 'if you ever fuckin' run out of bounds again, you will never play on this team - you run through the guy,'" Reaves said, in the exact tone he listened to his father.

On the next return opportunity, Reaves leveled one of the exact same defenders from the previous kickoff, slamming his helmet through his shoulder in what might have felt to the defender like he was being sent to Ontario, breaking his collarbone in the process.

"The guy's laying there crying, and my dad ran out on the field; I think that's the first time I had ever seen him so happy," Reaves continued. "That's the way he played; he played a really tough, run-through-guys style. And I really took that with me. From that day on, I ran through people, I never went around anybody. The toughness I bring into sports was definitely from him."

The irony all these years later, according to Vegas' bruiser who has been in 75 NHL fights per hockeyfights.com, is his father detests his in-game fighting.

Nonetheless, the toughness Reaves learned as a youngster has carried over to his role as a father, albeit as much as you can instill in a little boy who has yet to reach kindergarten age.

Kanen is not one to shy away from roughhousing, as the 4-year-old randomly walks up his 6-foot-2, 220-pound Pops and says, "Power Bomb?!" to which Reaves responds with a body slam into the couch. Kanen loves to play fight with his father, or when Dad takes a swipe at his heels. And if he catches a painful trip here or there, he quickly wipes his tears and entices more roughhousing by sticking his leg out in an attempt to trip Dad moments later.

Because Reaves said he didn't grow up around sisters, he's not sure what little girls like to do or what to expect.

"I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of dress up and tea parties and all that," he said. "I don't really know the activities girls do when they get a little bit older, so I'll be learning that as we go."

NO FLINCHING

Ryan Reaves has become a fan favorite ever since arriving in Las Vegas, during the Vegas Golden Knights’ run to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season. (Photo courtesy: Vegas Golden Knights)

The first week Reaves arrived in Las Vegas, still a father of one, he soon learned that teammate Jonathan Marchessault occasionally took laps with his little guy after practice at City National Arena. The windows would darken so nothing could impede on daddy-son ice time, and Reaves took a shot with Kanen.

But the oh-so mini-Reavo didn't quite have his bearings yet, struggling to balance on blades. Reaves remained patient and took his time guiding his son one or two feet at a time. As quick as he remembers the face-mask-grabbing heat his own father brought, Kanen's a long ways from learning that sort of lesson.

Reaves praises both of his parents for their support toward him and his brother, never forcing one sport on to them. Rather than telling them what they would play, it was more about supporting their choice and simply making sure they worked hard toward their sport.

To this day, he remembers telling his parents he was quitting football to focus on hockey and was actually worried about his father's reaction.

"He didn't even flinch," Reaves said. "Neither one of my parents even flinched."

As far as they were concerned, as long as he was happy with his decision and wanted to focus on one sport, they were going to support him. It was much different from other parents he'd seen pushing their kids into something they wanted. Eventually, the kids fell out of love with the activity because they were pushed too hard into something they never wanted to do.

It's an attribute he's long appreciated of his parents and vowed to carry into his parenting.

"I couldn't care less what they do," Reaves said of his children. "I don't want to push either one of my kids to do anything. Kanen was on the ice and he kept falling. He tried it for a couple months. We'd go skating and he just couldn't get his stride down and he kept falling and falling, and he would hurt himself. He said, 'I don't want to play hockey anymore.' And all right, that was it."

Roughly five or six months later, Kanen decided he wanted to start skating again. The pandemic put a damper on the younger Reavo's return, but he has mentioned it a couple of times with hopes of getting back on the ice once rinks open again.

"If hockey isn't his thing, I'm here to push him into doing what he loves and make him the best at what he wants to do, not what I want," Reaves added. "It's not my life that he needs to be living, it's his life. So he needs to be doing the things that he loves. The same with Kamilla, I don't care what she does ... whatever makes her happy. I'm gonna be there to support her and love her just the same.

"I'm just constantly wanting to hang out with them and play with them and do whatever with them."

It's all the little subtleties he's enjoying, and looking forward to, that keep Reaves in a rush to get home and be a father.

And there's nothing soft about that.