A Golden Knights adventure in potty training? Welcome to Alex Pietrangelos life

Just as Alex Pietrangelo winds up for a shot, he pauses and whips his head around, peeking over his shoulder as his eyes scan back and forth.

He’s not on the ice at T-Mobile Arena. He’s in the middle of the fairway. But before he can take a swing with his wedge, he has to keep an eye on the kids.

Pietrangelo usually makes it through only a few holes before Evelyn, Oliver and Theodore start climbing into the sand traps.

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“We definitely don’t make it 18 holes,” he said with a laugh. “They start going into the bunkers, and I have to rake them and say enough is enough.”

Corralling 2-year-old triplets on a golf course isn’t easy, but Pietrangelo loves every second of it. He says the key is keeping them in the golf cart as much as possible.

“They’ll end up down the street if you don’t,” he said.

The 30-year-old All-Star defenseman is thoroughly enjoying fatherhood, and because of the NHL’s lengthy offseason and outside circumstances, he has spent a lot more time at home with the family lately, at least leading up to the 2021 season.

Pietrangelo signed a seven-year, $61.6 million contract with the Golden Knights in October, leaving the place he and his family had called home for 12 years. Not only had Pietragnelo played for the St. Louis Blues his entire NHL career, but his wife Jayne was born and raised in the area. It was a major career decision but an even bigger one for his life and family.

“I see myself as a father first,” Pietrangelo told The Athletic. “That’s the most important thing, and I always tell guys that. Your kids and your family are going to be around a lot longer than you will be playing the game.”

Alex and Jayne Pietrangelo welcomed Evelyn, Oliver and Theodore into the world in July of 2018. And while Alex admits caring for triplets as first-time parents can be demanding, the Pietrangelos couldn’t be happier. Or busier. The Pietrangelos added a fourth child, Julia Grace, to the family in September.

“Becoming a husband and a father has really changed my outlook on what I do,” Pietrangelo said. “I think as a younger player it was always work, work, work and take the job home. Well now I don’t really have a choice but to leave work at work and not bring it home. I’m too busy, and it’s kind of been a blessing.”

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Alex’s father, Joe, says his son was born to be a father.

“He’s just a natural at it,” Joe said. “Why? I don’t really have an answer for that. I think he was always kind of suited for it and looking for it. I would say that he’s always been kind of that type of guy. A fatherly type. To me it was a natural role for him. Some people look forward to it, and for him it was just a natural transition.”

Alex credits his parents in large part.

“My parents are great,” he said. “They made me the person that I am today.”

Alex Pietrangelo grew up in Ontario, just north of Toronto in the small township of King City. He grew up with his parents and older brother, David, on an old, 7-acre horse farm with enough space for an outdoor ice rink and a toboggan hill.

“I have a lot of good memories, let me tell you,” he said. “I was pretty lucky to have that stuff. Those are the memories that as a kid you don’t forget. The ramp that we used to make and go flying down the driveway. Everyone came to our house because we had the snow hill and the ice rink. It was a winter paradise, you could pretty much do whatever you want when it started to snow. And my parents loved having people over, so it was good.”

Pietrangelo fondly remembers winters as a child, skating on the backyard rink and checking his friends into the giant snowbanks surrounding it. But of all his memories on that ice, one stands out.

“My uncle was probably like my age (30) when we first made the rink, and I was 12 or 13 or whatever,” he said. “It was the first year we did it, and I still remember it. We didn’t have the metal nets yet. My dad was going to get some. So we just had the plastic road hockey ones. So my uncle took a slap shot and blew up our net.”

Pietrangelo and his friends stood by and watched his uncle turn their brand-new hockey rink into a sheet of ice with a mangled mess of plastic and netting.

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“We didn’t have a net for like three weeks, so it kind of crushed us as kids,” He said with a laugh. “It went bye-bye real quick.”

Alex, who in 2019 captained the Blues to their first Stanley Cup, has been a leader his entire life, according to his father. Even in his short time in Vegas, Golden Knights players have commented on Pietrangelo’s strong leadership ability and guiding presence.

“He’s always been that type of guy, even back in high school,” Joe Pietrangelo said. “When he played sports he was always the captain on the team and always a leader, even from when he was a child. So that’s just him. Whether he played soccer, hockey, volleyball, or whatever he did, he has always just been that way.”

And while captaining a hockey team and raising children are completely different things, some of the traits translate. For example, you have to expect the unexpected and try to be as prepared as possible for all situations.

“It wasn’t easy for us to get to that point to have kids, and then all of a sudden we had three at once, so it was like ‘Oh Lord,’” Pietrangelo said. “It was a surprise, let me tell you.”

Pietrangelo has been open publicly about his and Jayne’s struggles having their first child. After two miscarriages they eventually had the triplets.

“It was difficult at first,” he said. “We’ve been around kids a lot. We have a lot of nieces and nephews, but when you have three at once, it’s a whole new ballgame.”

Joe Pietrangelo said Alex and Jayne weathered the early storm, and now that the kids are a little older, and finally walking, things have gotten a lot easier.

“It’s getting pretty fun now,” Alex Pietrangelo said. “They’re obviously getting a little bit older, starting to talk and starting to want to do stuff. They can go golfing with me, they can go fishing with me, they can do all that stuff. … And they’re starting to interact with each other if they’re not getting into fistfights. We have the one baby now, and it’s a whole new world. It’s like it’s our first child because we never had a single, so it’s interesting.”

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The kids have kept him extremely busy this offseason. What does a day in Nanny Pietrangelo’s life look like?

“Entertaining them,” he said, laughing. “Trying to keep them occupied. They’re at the age where they want to stay busy, so you try to find stuff to fill the day. They’re starting to get curious, so when they’re not a school you want them to learn and gain as much knowledge as they can, if you can keep their attention span for longer than 30 seconds.

“It’s been a lot of cleaning, and a lot of potty training right now. It’s a stinky house, let’s say that.”

Potty training triplets sounds more intimidating than Pietrangelo staring down an odd-man rush entering his zone.

“There have been a few (funny stories), but I don’t know if Alex wants me to announce them,” Joe Pietrangelo said. “It’s a struggle trying to potty-train them, that’s for sure. If one latches on to the concept, the other two follow. But if one goofs around with the idea, they all do it. So you can imagine the challenge. It’s all three or none.”

As much of a handful as his kids can be, Alex Pietrangelo says he loves spending time at home, and that his busy home life also makes him enjoy his time at the rink more as well.

“I always laugh because it’s nice to not talk (like a) baby for the whole day,” he said. “I get to talk to a bunch of adults. It’s a new change for me, and I think I’ve enjoyed coming to the rink and playing more and more.”

The stresses and rigors of an NHL season can be overwhelming, but coming home to a house full of excited toddlers waiting to climb all over him has been a nice change of pace.

“My kids are now old enough to know that I play, and when they see hockey on TV they say ‘da-da,’” Pietrangelo said. “They know what it is now, and I think that’s really cool for me, that the kids know what I do and are able to watch it with me. That’s pretty special.”

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Pietrangelo stresses that fatherhood hasn’t lessened his passion for hockey. After finally hoisting the Stanley Cup, complacency could creep in, but Pietrangelo says the opposite.

“Taking as long as it did to win in St. Louis, it’s a weird feeling,” he said. “I was talking to (Alec Martinez, who won the Cup in 2012 and 2014 with the Kings) about it the other day, and he said the same thing. Once you win, you want to win again, and you don’t really know how to explain it. You want to keep on winning, and I’m still driven to do that. I want to win as many Stanley Cups as I can. That might sound cliche, but I’m sure everyone who has won will say the same thing. I don’t know why. Maybe it was the party after? But I want to do it again. It was pretty special.”

Only two games into his career as a Golden Knight, Pietrangelo is already showing the high level of skill that made him such a sought-after commodity as a free agent. He has found a healthy balance of commitment to winning a championship in Vegas, and being the best father he can be.

“Now the ultimate goal (in my personal life) is really to get the kids grown up, and be involved in their interests,” he said. “I’ve always said that once they start playing hockey, or whatever they want to do or whatever sport they want to play, I’m going to be awfully busy.”

Wait until you see the look on their faces when Dad launches the first slap shot at their backyard hockey net.

(Photo: Courtesy of Alex Pietrangelo)

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