Reversing Roles: When The Player Becomes Your Biggest Fan

Before every Manchester Monarchs home game, nine-year-old Tacoma Woodbury can be seen anxiously waiting in section 107, row D, right against the railing, for the team to take the ice for warm-ups. He and his mother, Crista, along with his grandmother Linda Perkins, have season tickets right behind the Monarchs’ bench, a prime location for pre- and post-game high-fives for Tacoma. They’ve been season ticket holders for five years, and each season, Tacoma has had different favorite players, but for the past season and a half he has taken a liking to Monarchs forward Michael Doherty.

And Doherty has taken a liking to him. The two have a special connection that has morphed from a fandom to a friendship and one that stemmed from the Monarch taking time to learn about the young fans of the team.

Tacoma and Doherty’s bond developed from a love of wrestling and WWE superstar John Cena. At last year’s Monarchs’ annual “At Your Service” dinner, where players raise money for the Monarchs Care Foundation by serving fans, Crista told Doherty how much her son loved Cena, to which Doherty made a video for her to share with Tacoma of him reciting one of his popular catch lines. From there, the relationship took off.

Over the past two seasons, their friendship has blossomed. Doherty can be seen jokingly play wrestling with Tacoma at events, encouraging him to skate faster during post-game skates, and giving him fist bumps before he takes the ice. Doherty even kept up with Tacoma’s baseball over the summer. Woodbury said he’d ask about his progress during the offseason and give her son words of encouragement.

“Seeing him play baseball in the summer and doing the stuff that I did, it’s pretty cool,” Doherty said. “He’s a good little friend and if I can help him in any way, whether breaking out of his shell or encouraging him with sports, it’s special.”

It’s a genuine relationship with all parties involved, and something Doherty is more than appreciative of during his second-year of professional hockey. He grew up idolizing certain professional hockey players and understands how influential that was for him.

“The younger fans give so much support to us that it’s only right and a lot of fun to give back to them,” Doherty said. “They make it fun for us to have a good atmosphere here at games. When you get to know them on a personal level, it just takes it beyond hockey.”

Doherty has enjoyed getting to know all fans in Manchester during his first two professional seasons, but his relationship with Tacoma is special. Maybe it’s the fact that opposites attract. Doherty has the outgoing personality to compliment the nine year old’s shy demeanor. Or maybe it’s that they enjoy teasing one another about their favorite rival baseball teams. Massachusetts Native Doherty is a Red Sox fan, while Tacoma loves the New York Yankees and Aaron Judge. Whatever the case, it works.

The little interactions add up and have influenced the young fan’s life. Although when asked about why he likes Doherty, he has to whisper his favorite things about him through his mother’s ear, the joy in Tacoma’s eyes when Doherty spots him and talks to him speaks volumes.

Young fans look up to these players and their leadership and actions on and off the ice. The players become role models, and Doherty has embraced trying to be one all fans can look up to. He’s taken the time to talk to fans and get to know them on a personal level. Fans take the time to learn about their favorite players, and Doherty knows that taking an interest in the lives of his young fans, like Tacoma, and retaining little details about them, makes all the difference.

Leading by example, like with the “A” on his jersey as one of the team’s alternate captains, Doherty hopes to encourage his fellow teammates to step out of their comfort zones to do the same with fans.

“I think a lot of guys get stuck in their routines, just staying in their own lane and not getting involved,” Doherty said. “When you develop these relationships, being nice and having fun, the younger fans see how you should act and conduct yourself. They come here to see us play. They think highly of us, like I did of the players that I watched growing up, and see how you act off the ice and try to be like that. It’s what you aim for.”

Those leadership qualities are what Tacoma’s mother hopes her son takes out of their friendship. And Tacoma seems to have picked up on them. This past school year, Tacoma came home with an assignment to write about someone he considered to be a hero. His choice was Doherty.  

“Everyone’s writing about their fathers and grandfathers and he’s writing about his favorite hockey player,” Crista Woodbury said. “Tacoma’s a little shyer and he talks way more about Doherty at home than he ever would say to his face. So when he came home with his paper written about him, and shared all these things about Doherty that I didn’t even realize he had picked up on, it brought tears to my eyes.”

Woodbury and Tacoma presented Doherty with the school assignment at a Monarchs Casino Night right before Christmas. It meant just as much for the two to present it to Doherty, as it was for him to read it.

“It’s why you play, to develop those relationships,” Doherty said. “The fact that he feels that way about me, enough to write about me, feels really good. You can tell he has a big heart. We’ve got that close bond and hopefully we’ll have it for a long time.”

Doherty often offers words of encouragement to Tacoma, telling him to pursue his dreams when playing sports. He tells him to try all sports, like he did growing up, and not limit his options. Doherty’s taken on an active role in Tacoma’s sports life relating his own personal experiences growing up playing multiple sports.

“He always tells Tacoma to never give up and if there is something you really want to do, follow your heart,” Crista Woodbury said.

Doherty’s special bond with Tacoma is always on display and it’s almost brotherly watching the two interact. Tacoma wrote in his paper on Doherty that “He feels like a part of my family.”

For Woodbury, the “fan-ship” between her son and the Monarchs forward means the world. She feels those types of relationships strength fans’ interest in the team and hopes to see more of it within the Manchester community. She sees Doherty as a humble, professional hockey player who has become a positive role model in Tacoma’s life and hopes more players will get the chance to become friends with the younger fans.

“I don’t think I can even put into words what it means as a parent,” Crista Woodbury said. “It’s always a good thing to have positive male role models in my son’s life other than just the immediate males in his family. Doherty goes above and beyond for him in every sense. It warms my heart that somebody outside of his own family cares so much about him. As a parent, the words are indescribable.”