The story starts with a beaver dam. Or what was once a beaver dam. Every year when winter would descend on the vast plains of southwestern Saskatchewan, the father of the house, a powerfully built man descended from the Cree and Chippewa peoples, would head out to Frenchman Creek, behind his modest ranch in a speck of a town called Val Marie (population 164).

Machete in hand, the father would proceed to chop up the dam as if he were hacking up a woodpile, freeing water to flood onto a patch of flat land, creating a makeshift skating rink for his hockey-loving sons.

For more of Bryan Trottier's 100 Greatest Players bio, please click here.