GREG ANDERSON
8-year-old Michael Mersch scored three goals in a
youth league game.
His dad would have had it no other way.
It was reported that more than 2,500 people
paid their respects to Mersch Sr., at a visitation.
The State of Illinois 91st General Assembly even
drafted a resolution mourning his death.
That's a lot to put on the plate of a second-grader.
"You can say that,'' Michael Mersch said before
Monday's practice. "But I have a really close family. My grandpa, my mom's dad, Paul Davies, was a
huge support for me growing up.
"He actually lost his father at about the same age
as I did. He's had a huge impact on my life, not
to say my other grandparents didn't. But he was
someone I looked up to as a father figure.''
Nancy Mersch was obviously a source of strength
for young Michael and her two other children, Natalie and Dominick. She was a stabilizing influence
and much more than a hockey mom.
But her oldest still had to grow up in a hurry.
"I had to learn a few things about myself a little
quicker,'' Michael Mersch said. "I had to take care
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MAR CH 14, 2013
of my brother a little bit more and kind of teach
him some of the things I learned along the way.
"It's cool to see that he loves hockey the way I do.''
Dominick is playing for a bantam major team
in Chicago. Natalie is attending Park Ridge High
School. Nancy has remarried and the family has
doubled with the addition of three more kids of
comparable ages.
"We're kind of like the Brady Bunch, we get along
really well,'' said Michael, noting that his step-dad,
Chris, has an oldest son who is in the same year of
school that he is; same age, too.
Michael Mersch is 20. For the record, he stated
that he's planning on returning for his senior year
at Wisconsin. In 2011, Mersch was a fourth-round
draft pick of the Los Angeles Kings.
"I still have a lot of room to develop as a player,''
he said.
The numbers frame that storyline. Each season
he has gotten better.
Mersch has scored 8, 14 and 22 goals for the
Badgers. "You grow a little older,'' he said, "you understand the game better and it slows down a little
