As Taryn Tkachuk left her house for the final game of the Midwest State Field Hockey Tournament on Oct. 31, older brothers Matthew and Brady pumped up the music and parents Keith and Chantal joined in during the loud sendoff.

“It was cute,” Chantal said. “Everybody was cheering and clapping as she walked out the door in the morning.”

Advertisement

Keith was a five-time NHL All-Star and a four-time Olympian, Matthew was the sixth overall pick of the Calgary Flames in the 2016 draft and Brady was the No. 4 pick of the Ottawa Senators in the 2018 draft. For years, Taryn has been known simply as Keith’s daughter and the boys’ sister.

But for one day — Taryn’s 18th birthday during her senior year of high school — the spotlight was on her. And because the start of the NHL season has been delayed, the Tkachuks were all on hand for what they’re calling the biggest goal in family history.

In the fourth minute of overtime, Taryn lifted Villa Duchesne to the state championship with the game-winning goal in a 1-0 victory over John Burroughs School. It was Villa Duchesne’s third title in four years, and the goal was an incredible way to end one chapter of her career as she prepares for another at the University of Virginia.

“I will say, a ton of people have come up to me and talked about you,” Matthew told his sister last week as the Tkachuks sat in the living room of their St. Louis home. “Not so much before this year, but after you won, tons of people. I think it was the perfect storm, your birthday, all that stuff.”

Sitting in a recliner, wrapped in a blanket, Taryn blushed.

“It was pretty cool,” she said. “Usually, if something is about me, it’s always like dad, brothers and the NHL. I felt like this was more on me. I like when it’s about our whole family, but it was cool that it was about me and not you guys! It definitely doesn’t happen often.”

The features are familiar in all of the Tkachuks, and their youngest is no different.

Taryn grew up playing roller hockey with Matthew and Brady, “and you definitely had to be tough,” she said. “You’re getting pushed around all day. That’s how it was for me when we were younger, just getting pushed by everyone in a good way …”

Advertisement

“Sometimes,” Chantal chimed in.

“Yeah, sometimes,” Taryn said. “But I learned how to be hardworking and try to be the best I can in whatever I do.”

Taryn’s main sport was soccer until the seventh grade, when a combination of burnout with the sport and a school Pillo polo (also known as floor hockey) game guided her in a different direction. The field hockey coach saw her play and asked her to try out for the team, and with friends already on the team, she decided to try out.

“That’s how it all started,” Keith said. “It’s nuts.”

Taryn started out as a defender but realized quickly she just wanted to score goals. Her dad was a left winger in the NHL, and both brothers are wingers, too.

“Yeah, we don’t play defense,” Taryn said.

“We can’t even skate backward, never mind play defense,” Keith quipped.

But like the other three, Taryn has soft hands and powerful legs, helpful attributes in the offensive end.

Keith scored 538 regular-season goals in his career, and Matthew and Brady have 94 and 43, respectively, early in their careers. And despite a late start to her field hockey career — some girls began playing as early as third grade — Taryn netted 135 goals and 361 points at Villa Duchesne, leading all Missouri players three of her four years and sharing the top spot in the other season.

“It’s tough to compare them,” said Blues center Robert Thomas, who lives with the Tkachuks during the NHL season and watched many of Taryn’s games. “But obviously she’s got the goal-scoring, her touch around the net. I actually think she’s more competitive than both of the boys. She’s got a little bit more of a feisty edge, even though it’s not as physical of a game.”

“Maybe too physical because field hockey is not really a physical sport,” Taryn said. “I definitely bring that to the game, which I’m not allowed to, but it happens. Just do it when the ref doesn’t see you.”

Advertisement

Matthew recalled one game earlier in Taryn’s career when she scored two goals for a 2-0 lead then took two penalties. The opponent tied the score, 2-2, while Taryn was out of the game, but she returned and scored two more goals for a 4-2 victory.

“It was the best game I’ve ever seen Taryn play,” Matthew said. “She scored four goals and took two penalties, which meant that she missed seven minutes. She went off and bang-bang, they tied it up. But then she came back and put the game away. She did a cocky celebration, which I didn’t love. But it was the best game I’ve seen her play.”

Keith missed that game because, as a scout for the Blues, he was in Traverse City, Mich., watching the club’s prospects. He wasn’t familiar with field hockey until his daughter started playing the sport, but he has grown to love it.

“It was hard to understand at first because there are a lot of whistles, and there’s a lot of stuff you can’t do, like you can’t touch your feet and you can’t shoot it high,” Keith said. “But I figured out a lot of it, like interference, blocking, etc.”

“He likes to talk a lot during the game,” Taryn said.

“Yeah, what’s your number? No. 23,” Keith said. “Like, ‘Let’s pick it 2-3!'”

“You can definitely hear him yelling that,” Taryn said.

That’s what made the Missouri championship game so special — everyone was in town because of the delayed start to the NHL season.

“We would have streamed the state title game, but nothing is better than being there and watching her play live,” Brady said.

The day got off to a great start.

“Yeah, I had a coffee, a little Baileys, at about 8 a.m.,” Keith blurted out. “Oh, you’re talking about Taryn!”

The family wished her both a happy birthday and good luck. She got to the game an hour early and was in the middle of warmups when she saw them pull into the parking lot. The truth is, she couldn’t help but notice.

Advertisement

“Matthew, Brady and my uncle (Kevin) were standing through the sunroof in the car screaming as they passed the field,” Taryn said. “Everyone, my whole team just looked over, and I was like, ‘Oh no!'”

They were loud, but nervous.

“I don’t know that it’s that much different than going to the boys’ games,” Chantal said. “I get just as nervous for her high school field hockey game as I do them playing.”

“I was so nervous, I couldn’t watch with everybody,” Matthew said. “I went over and stood in these bushes with a couple of other people I didn’t know. I just couldn’t watch it.”

If Brady was panicking, he wasn’t showing it.

“He was getting the crowd going,” Taryn said. “If you had to pick one person you could hear from the crowd, it was for sure Brady.”

“Brady was like the Towel Guy at the Blues games,” Matthew said.

There was no score through regulation, and “our coach (Kate Graft) said, ‘We need the ball in overtime!'” Taryn remembers. “We lost the draw and didn’t have the ball, but then we got it.”

Villa Duchesne’s Suzanne Keefer moved the ball ahead, then teammate Georgia Leary made the play to Taryn, who backhanded it past the goalie for the game-winning goal.

“I have no idea how it happened,” Taryn said. “It was just a blur.”

She had been battling a groin injury and had her left leg heavily taped.

“She pulled a ‘Kirk Gibson’ and had to limp,” Keith said, referencing the injured Los Angeles Dodgers player who hit a game-winning home run in the 1988 World Series. “And she did like a bat toss.”

Matthew and Brady rushed the field.

“I saw it go in and I just ran out of the trees,” Matthew said.

“I saw Matthew going over the fence,” Brady said.

“Matthew hopped the fence and he’s getting yelled at, then Brady hops the fence,” Taryn said.

“The same ref we were giving it to all game told me to get off the field,” Matthew said.

Advertisement

In Toronto, Thomas was watching on his phone.

“I was scrolling Instagram, and either Matthew or Brady put the link to the live stream of the game on there, and I just so happened to pull it up,” he said. “It was in OT and literally within two minutes, I saw the goal, so it was pretty crazy timing. So I actually got to see the celebration of Matthew and Brady when they jumped over the fence. The camera panned right to them and they were right in the middle of the team celebration, so it was pretty funny.”

Matthew joked that because Thomas lives in St. Louis most of the year, he has seen more of Taryn’s games the past few years than the brothers. But this year, they missed only two of the 14.

“From a family standpoint, it was extra special this year because she’s supported them her whole life, and as much as they support her from afar, they don’t get to be around to watch her live very often,” Chantal said. “And really, from here on out, the likelihood of them seeing her play much is going to be slim because the college field hockey season is in the fall and they’ll be gone.

“So out of a crappy year, there definitely were some silver linings and that for sure was probably the biggest one, having the boys home for all of this. I think they were even more excited than she was.”

“So proud, so proud,” Matthew said.

“Just beaming with pride,” Brady said.

The two young NHL stars, in fact, propped their little sister on their shoulders.

“They started lifting me up, and I was like, ‘Oh gosh,'” Taryn said. “It was great having them there and supporting me.”

The debate was on whether it was the best goal in family history. After all, Keith finished his career with 538 goals in the regular season, the 33rd-most in NHL history.

His best?

“The ‘face’ goal,” Matthew joked, referencing the time in 2010 when a puck shot by Keith’s former Blues teammate, T.J. Oshie, deflected in off Keith’s mouth, knocking out four teeth and leading to multiple surgeries.

Advertisement

Brady’s best?

“You scored against Carey Price in overtime last year,” Keith said.

“Yes, I did,” Brady said.

Meanwhile, Matthew might have the prettiest, a between-the-legs OT winner against Nashville on Oct. 31, 2019 (one year to the day before Taryn’s).

But hers was in the playoffs.

“We were talking about this: Dad and Brady aren’t on mine and Taryn’s level yet with the big OT winners,” Matthew said. “But Taryn is the only one in the playoffs, so she leads us all.”

Taryn was asked if she kept the ball. She shook her head and said, “No.”

“No, but we retired the (No. 23) jersey,” Brady said. “I told the coach, ‘It’s over.'”

Taryn may not have the ball and her number might not get retired, but she did become the current “best athlete” in the Tkachuk family, which has internal rankings based on everyone’s most recent accomplishments.

“After the Blues’ alumni game, I was No. 1, but now it’s her,” Keith said.

“You’ve probably got to go Taryn, then me and Brady tied,” Matthew said.

“I would say I’m fourth because I haven’t played since March,” Brady said.

“I’m always fifth,” Chantal said.

“Dad, you might be sixth after your Peloton ride yesterday,” Matthew said.

It turned out, too, that Taryn did more than score the game-winning goal.

“Rumor has it, Taryn gave a big speech the night before,” Keith said.

Before the state title game, the 20-something players on Villa Duchesne’s roster went to the home of Bill and Renee Schmidt, whose daughter, Julia, is on the team. They were treated to a pasta dinner then watched the 2004 movie “Miracle,” which depicts the 1980 USA hockey team’s run to a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.

During the movie, the Schmidts heard some loud screaming downstairs, and they thought it was in response to the scene with the famous speech from coach Herb Brooks, who was played by Kurt Russell. But after the girls left the house later that night, Julia told her parents that it wasn’t because of Brooks’ speech — it was Taryn. During that same moment in the film, she stood up on a stage in the room and gave her pep talk.

Advertisement

“I’ll give you the paraphrase of it, from what our daughter told us,” Bill Schmidt said. “Taryn stood up and said, ‘Look, of all the teams that I’ve played for, this has been my favorite team. Win or lose, it will still be my favorite team. We’re going to do what we’ve done all season, and that’s that we’ve got each other’s back. Everybody makes a bad play out on the field. I make bad plays out on the field. But when we make a bad play, our teammates are there to pick us up, and we turn around and we hustle our butt off. And that’s how we’re going to play.'”

That’s indeed what Taryn said, but Matthew believes that’s the “cleaned-up” version.

“I heard you were like, ‘Now let’s fucking go!'” Matthew told his sister.

“Well, I was definitely saying we don’t want to lose like we did last year,” Taryn said.

She made sure of that, and now the Tkachuks have a memory that has nothing to do with the men in the house.

“She deserves it!” Keith said. “She had a great four years. She basically came from scratch, figuring out how to play, and made herself better. A lot of it has to do with playing with the boys when they were younger, getting that competitive edge, and that’s what I like about her. She doesn’t take shit from anybody, and she learned how to play well. It was four great years, and it could have easily been four championships.”

(Top photo of Brady and Matthew Tkachuk hoisting sister Taryn after the Missouri field hockey championship game courtesy of Chantal Tkachuk)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57kWtob25lZ3xzfJFpZmppX2eCcMDHnqmeq12Wu7DAx56pZquklr9utc1mq6GdXam4oq%2FHrqJmoJ%2BqwKZ5wKebZquYmsBuucCkoKefXZ2ys3nNoaNmnpGitq3FjKmpqK2UZA%3D%3D