My favorite personal Mike Green story was during the 06-07 Hershey Calder Cup run where they lost to a Carey Price led Hamilton team. Green was sent down for the playoffs. Our family noticed that Mike kept looking over at an older couple that showed up for a ton of later round playoff games in Hershey and they wore the same clothing every game. We finally got to talking to them and they said they were Mike's "friends" (we thought they were either his parents or his aunt and uncle) and the reason they wore the same red/orange colored clothing was so Mike could find them in the crowd each game. Mike would always smile or wave at them. We became pretty friendly with them over the course of the few weeks they watched the playoffs in Hershey and they got to know our family a little bit, including my little brother who was around 4 or 5 at the time. Mike ended up having a big game and was one of the 3 stars of the game. In Hershey, when the 3 stars come out, the players autograph a wooden stick and find a little kid in the crowd to give it to. Of course Mike comes out of the tunnel and skates a direct line across the ice towards us. His "friends" kept pointing towards my brother who was on my dad's back and Mike picked him out of the crowd to give him his stick. You could tell they clearly had this planned and we were so grateful. My brother couldn't stop talking about it for weeks and Mike quickly became his favorite player.
Always will have a soft spot for Mike. He was a huge part of the early Hershey success in winning a Calder Cup with Bruce and going to another Calder Cup final with him. His rise to stardom under Bruce during those Young Gun years was some of the best offensive hockey we'll probably ever see. I'm glad the Caps won the Stanley Cup, but it would have been great to see Green be part of that team or win one after all the playoff failures those early teams had.
