Part I: Leaving home to follow dream

Nick Mattson had to spend one more night in Europe before he'd get back to the United States. His 10th-grade Spanish test, however, could not wait.

So he and teammate Adam Murray pushed aside the drink menus and ashtray from their table in the lobby bar at the Airport Hilton Amsterdam, tuned out the Dutch businessmen making deals over steins of beer and began to battle a legion of Spanish phrases.

The teenager from Chanhassen was on a layover in the Netherlands, heading home after a six-day hockey tournament in Russia that had pitted him against some of the world's best young players. A lobby bar in November was not the most convenient place to take a test. But if Nick had learned anything during his two months of sweat and struggle, competing with 20 other elite players on USA Hockey's under-17 team, it was how to cope.

"OK, you guys done?" asked Scott Monaghan, the team's director of operations.

"Yeah,'' said Nick, tucking the test into a manila envelope. "It was pretty hard, though."

No high school exam, though, could compare with the trials he'd faced since late August, when he left home for a life-changing experience with USA Hockey.

"At first, I thought, 'Man, this is tough,'" Nick said later. "It's a big step up."

But the program is the dream of so many kids, he said, "It's almost disrespectful to turn it down. You just have to grow up and do it."

It started as part joke, part pipe dream. When Nick was in junior high, he and his dad, Kevin, went to Mariucci Arena to watch the Gophers play the under-18 team of USA Hockey's National Team Development Program.

Nick was a defenseman, and he already had visions of playing in the NHL.

Since joining his first team at age 6, he had come to love everything about hockey: zipping past an opponent with a nimble move, hitting the strings of the net with a perfectly placed shot, trying to beat his friends for hours on the neighborhood pond until his lips chapped and his sweat froze.

As he grew older, Nick wanted more than fun. He wanted to be one of the best players out there. He had heard that USA Hockey picked the top guys in the country, moved them to Michigan and trained them intensively.

He checked out the website to find out more.

The hockey program has two teams, under-17 and under-18. Scouts watch top players from all over the country -- some as young as 14 -- at tournaments, camps and high school games. Each spring, about 50 get invited to try out at the program headquarters in Ann Arbor.

Out of those 50, about 22 are chosen to move to Ann Arbor, live with host families, train for hours every day and play a 60-game schedule.

The more Nick read, the more he thought about being one of those 22.

The team had far more resources than most high school programs -- a sports psychologist, a nutritionist, a power skating coach and a top-notch conditioning program. It played in a junior league against older, bigger players, and every season represented the United States in three international tournaments.

And it comes at almost no expense to parents; outside of travel costs to visit home, nearly everything is paid for by USA Hockey.

If Nick made it, he would enter the program at 15, making him one of the youngest players there. It would represent a huge step forward for a slight, shaggy-haired boy, who had just begun to build muscle on his 5-11 frame and had yet to sprout a whisker. He posed the question to his parents, half-kidding, half-hoping. If I got invited to join the team in Ann Arbor, would you let me go?

Kevin and Julie Mattson weren't sure. Joining the USA Hockey Team meant that their only son would leave home as a high school sophomore and move 500 miles away. His family had been there for every game Nick had played, every birthday, every first day of school, every scraped knee. Now, they would miss his next milestones.

For Nick, it would also mean devoting every spare minute to hockey. It would mean giving up or delaying a lot of things that other high school kids look forward to -- getting a driver's license, dating, going to homecoming, playing in the state tournament.

Could he handle being on his own? Could his parents?

They didn't think about it too much; it seemed like such a long shot. Then, to his parents' surprise, USA Hockey sent them an e-mail.

They wanted to send a scout to Nick's games.

A homemade Stanley Cup

The first time Kevin took Nick to a rink, Nick refused to set foot on the ice.

He was 4 years old. By the time he was 7, though, he had become enmeshed in the youth hockey culture. He and his pals played hockey on neighborhood ponds, rinks and driveways and built their own Stanley Cup out of tuna tins, coffee cans and duct tape.

Those days on the suburban ponds taught Nick how to scoop up the puck behind his net and carry it to the other end of the ice, keeping it away from opponents with quick moves and a deft stick. He could spot a teammate in position to score and hit him with a pinpoint pass -- or he could beat the goalie himself, particularly on the power play.

His dad, an ex-Chaska defenseman, became assistant coach for Nick's youth teams. And Nick's skill and understanding of the game made him a leader at Chaska High, where he starred as a freshman last year.

Last winter, with Ann Arbor becoming a very real possibility, he began thinking hard about his future. When he played keep-away on the backyard pond with his golden retriever, Clyde, Nick pondered whether his friends would think he was abandoning them if he left. He wondered if he would regret never playing in the state tournament.

His parents harbored worries of their own. The only real adversities Nick had faced, Julie knew, were failing to make the Upper Mite team in third grade and breaking his arm the next year. He'd never been away from home for more than three days.

She had read stories about parents in Canada who sent their 14-year-olds far away from their homes and families, just to play hockey.

That's insane, she thought. And now I'm thinking about doing the same thing.

The tryout

In March, Nick received an invitation to the three-day tryout.

He and his parents flew to Ann Arbor, where a team official met them at the airport. He whisked Nick off to the hotel where players would be housed; Julie and Kevin would have to stay elsewhere.

The tryout involved much more than just Nick's skill on the ice.

Trainers measured his body fat. Staff members analyzed his physical skills while he did pull-ups, a treadmill session and vertical jumps. Coaches interviewed him to learn about his personality. At the four scrimmages, he felt a knot in his stomach every time he noticed the scouts in the stands.

Anxiety began to creep up on his parents, too. While Nick and the other players went through their tests, Kevin and Julie attended a series of meetings designed to help them better understand the program.

They toured Pioneer High School, which the players attend, and spoke with the team's full-time academic adviser. They met the staff and coaches, chatted with the housing coordinator and questioned boys on the under-18 team about the pros and cons of the program.

Julie was growing more comfortable with the idea of letting Nick go. But when coach Ron Rolston and player personnel director Ryan Rezmierski asked to talk with the family privately, her heart pounded.

They said they were very impressed with Nick.

They wanted him to join the program.

Nick would be the only one of eight Minnesotans at the tryouts to make the team, and one of a handful of players to receive an immediate invitation. Kevin felt shocked; until that moment, he had considered Nick's leaving only a distant possibility.

Julie couldn't even define the new, strange emotions she experienced.

Nick took a couple of weeks to think about it, just to be sure. But he knew he was going to accept. This is the price you have to pay, he thought. It sucks to leave home, but it's going to be worth it.

In the span of two weeks in August, Kevin and Julie would say goodbye to their two oldest children. Their daughter Caity was headed for freshman year at the College of St. Benedict, and Nick was going to Ann Arbor.

Their lively home, always teeming with teenagers, would be down to their 5-year-old daughter, Ellie, and Clyde the dog.

By late summer, the family was making plans to cope. They would buy a new flat-screen TV and hook it to their computer so they could watch Nick's games on the Internet. At least one of them would travel to a game every month.

Nick made plans to stay connected with his friends via text messaging, e-mail and their sports fantasy leagues. He didn't want a going-away party; he didn't want to make a big deal of his departure.

The last week of August, Nick and his folks packed his clothes, pictures and electronic gear into four large suitcases.

And then they headed to the airport, where Nick flew off into a new chapter of his life -- one that would test him mightily.

Coming Monday: In Ann Arbor, Nick realizes the bar is very high. Rachel Blount • 612-673-4389