from Kristina Rutherford of Sportsnet,

It never really occurred to the kid teammates call “Paddy” that he might do anything but play hockey. He claims to come from “a normal hockey family,” but there’s nothing normal about one that has produced — so far — a pair of first-round NHL picks, in his dad, Steve, who played 250 career games, and uncle James, now an assistant coach with the Dallas Stars after a more than 20-year career in the league. A second uncle, Rich Chernomaz, played 51 games in the NHL. Patrick’s older sister, Madison, 21, just won a national collegiate bronze medal with her UBC Thunderbirds, and younger sister, Amy, 14, plays Bantam AA for the Titans in Winnipeg. And then there’s the contingent outside of hockey: Patrick’s mom, Carrie, played volleyball for Team Canada, and Grandpa Stephen played in the CFL. So, you get what Patrick means when he says, “I didn’t know anything different.”...

Patrick’s hockey career began a very flat two-and-a-half-hour drive from Brandon, first on the backyard rink Steve made every winter for his three kids, and then on his first team, the Heritage Victoria Hawks, where he played alongside Madison and other eight-year-olds when he was only six. “Even then you could tell he could keep up with everyone,” says Madison, a defenceman for the Thunderbirds. “And he knew where to be.”

That’s saying something for a six-year-old. The year before that, at his first NHL game — to see the Buffalo Sabres, because Uncle James was on the coaching staff — Patrick remembers being curious about plays and players, a first hint of the cerebral quality and playmaking ability that define his game today. “I always watched more closely than the other kids,” Patrick says. And he had sounding boards for all his questions in his dad and uncle, who, when it comes to hockey, taught him “just about everything I know,” he says. That includes how to train. Patrick’s dad turned the family garage into a heated indoor shooting area (there was no space for cars; in the winter, those stayed outside in the snow). It’s now a gym for the whole family, and there’s a shooting pad in the backyard. Patrick also worked out with his uncle every off-season starting at age 13.

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