The McHale family of Whitehorse is driven to succeed in sports, as well as in life.

Greg and Denise McHale are former adventure racers.

Their son Kolter, 10, is a promising hockey player.

Their daughter Yari, seven, competes in cross country skiing and running.

Kolter keeps busy with his young hockey career.

He plays at the Atom level, or U11, with the Whitehorse Mustangs and the Caribou Crossing house league team.

Kolter also does speed-skating on Wednesdays.

The Star spoke with the family on Friday.

“We shoot for two, two and a half hours a day of hockey (including time on their rink and with his teams),” said Greg.

Kolter’s been playing hockey for five years.

He watched most of the games in the recent World Junior Championship, in which Canada won the gold medal and Conner Bedard broke a number of Canadian records. The young centre was asked if he’s a fan of Bedard.

“No,” he replied.

Conner McDavid is a different story.

“Yeah, I like him. All my friends like the Oilers,” said Kolter.

“I like (Trevor) Zegras, (Mitch) Marner and (Auston) Matthews.”

Kolter explained how he got into hockey “Well, it was mostly my poppa actually. He just kept on telling me I should start playing.”

Kolter’s poppa, or grandfather, Brent, is a big time hockey fan.

His parents helped explain how Kolter got into hockey.

“I played hockey growing up,” recalled Greg. “Lots. And when we moved to the Yukon, our initial thought was because we’re both multi-sport, more endurance athletes, that we would get the kids into cross country skiing and more kind of endurance sports that could last the whole lifetime. We never did cross country skiing but we really valued the holistic approach and life-long sport that it could provide.”

Denise added “We have a great cross country program here. We see such a crossover because we ultra run and mountain bike. We just didn’t grow up in a place to cross country ski. So we thought we’d kind of steer that ship that way but poppa steered the ship to (hockey), which is fine.”

As for what he likes about playing hockey, Kolter said “I don’t know. It’s just fun.”

According to Kolter, his strengths are skating and stick-handling. His style of play is simple. “Pass it when they have a better shot than you.”

Not surprisingly, Kolter has lofty goals for his career.

“First I want to play in the World Juniors and then from there, I want to get drafted to the NHL.”

Greg said he values the quality time he spends with his son on their outdoor rink.

“If you have somebody that has the situation that Kolter has, he’s got good physical ability, but what he has more than anything is the heart and the drive and the want and the not-quit attitude. And is super teachable. And he loves hockey.

“I know a little bit about hockey. I can build a rink. I can be out there shooting pucks with him in the morning.”

Kolter said his parents have “quite a bit” to do with him being an athlete.

“Dad comes out on the rink with me every morning.”

Greg added “This is a kid that wakes up at 5:30 in the morning by himself. He sets his own alarm. I wake up earlier, I’m doing my workout and he comes down, we stretch and then it’s off to the rink. So this is who he is.

“The day that he says he doesn’t want to do it anymore is the day that he doesn’t have to do it anymore.”

Denise said last year Kolter didn’t make the rep team in his first year.

“The great thing was it seemed to fire him up, which was nice to see. And then at the end of the year they invited him to come up and play a couple times. He got rewarded because he worked so hard and then he said ‘It was good I didn’t make it last year because it made me work a lot harder.’”

The McHales have a tourism business and some commercial real estate.

They also have a hunting show: Greg McHale’s Wild Yukon.

“We’re kind of a little bit diversified,” said Greg.

The McHales have owned the Caribou Crossing resort near Carcross since 2012. They had a tough last season, post-COVID-19.

“We were hopeful for a bit of a season but it was pretty bad, with the (White Pass) train not running,” recalled Denise.

In fact, business at Caribou Crossing was only at about 20 per cent of 2019.

“But all things are looking positive for this year,” said Denise.

Owning a number of different businesses, as well as their positive attitude, keeps the McHales going in tough times.

“Even if a business like that gets crushed, our attitude has always been that it really doesn’t matter,” related Greg.

“We’re going to survive. It’s having a professional career in adventure racing and Denise and I racing together for years, it’s taught us resilience under any circumstance.

“You just move forward and you build up again. But as long as everybody’s healthy. That’s ultimately what matters. It’s all about health, relationships, and then you can look at finances after that. But those are the things that matter.”

Denise added “I think that adventure racing was the catalyst to really having that kind of attitude about everything. We did some physically, mentally challenging – like, with adventure racing you race for five, six days in remote locations, run, bike, paddle, all navigation with a map and compass and with a team of four. So there was a lot of dynamics there and a lot that can go wrong. But you choose to put yourself in those situations, obviously, but I think we’ve learned a lot from them, for sure.”

Greg said “I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’re retired from adventure racing. I think if we started out doing it just for fun, we would probably still be doing it. But whenever a professional athlete does something, and then it’s time you’re no longer at the top of the game, or where you expect to be or life – we chose to have children, so that the amount of time that you needed to exercise per week, and then run businesses and all these things. Something’s gotta give. And when we decided to have kids was the decision that okay, we will and then we’ll kind of retire or at least take some time to focus on the family, focus on business, get it to a place where we could come back in 2016. And, then, as you get older, things just literally don’t rehab as quickly.

“We were actually in a great position. We were back physically super strong. But the mental side is so important in that game and we had a plan, for getting a year in and then the mental game would be back because the physical would be there, the mental game’s back and then let’s push for a season to be the best that we could ever be. I got injured. And then that was – we always decided that we weren’t going to race without each other.”

Denise added “When he got injured and trying to juggle the kids and leaving the kids I found it got really hard and it just wasn’t as important. I was like, ‘It’s not as important anymore to put this amount of effort that takes away from the kids.’”

Starting in 2016, the McHales raced for Team Tecnu for a few years.

“I think we did four races that year,” related Denise. “And then 2017 we were set to go to Paraguay and one more World Championships and then you (Greg) hurt yourself.”

Greg severed three of the four ligaments in his ankle in New Zealand. Fortunately, he received exceptional medical treatment.

“I was literally in an advanced sports medicine facility within five days.”

Denise still runs in races like the Reckless Raven and the Klondike Road Race.

“I did Leadville 100 miler just before COVID and then COVID of course put a little damper on the plans but after that, we’re doing a 50k in Vancouver in April. And then we’re gonna do more of an adventure run in Europe this summer for my birthday. So just trying to enjoy being outside. This isn’t a race in the summer, but it’s still a 170k loop in the Alps in four days so we’ve got to be in shape. You want to enjoy it, want to be able to have a glass of wine in the evening.”

“And be able to walk the next day,” chimed in Greg.

He then reiterated the family’s philosophy.

“We come from this background; we know what it takes to be successful, whether it’s in business or in sport. And I know that this is the path – ‘if this is what you want, then this is what we have to do.’ When the kid says ‘I want to go play in the NHL’, he’s very realistic about, OK, the amount of kids that actually make the NHL – we’ve had these conversations. And if you truly want that, then there’s a path to there, whether it happens or it doesn’t. Life is about failures as well. And picking yourself up when you do fail.

“When you make the commitment and you put in all the effort that you can and it doesn’t work out, at least you can be proud of yourself for the fact that you put in all that effort. It’s really about life skills.

“If you want something, you’re going to have to work for it and you have to make a plan and follow a path to get there. And the path to playing hockey is not to just play hockey when the rest of the kids are playing hockey. It’s putting in an extraordinary amount of effort because in order to be a professional at anything, you must put in an extraordinary amount of effort to get there.

“And this is what our parenting style is with the recognition that when the kid says ‘I don’t want it’ and then if you don’t want it, why don’t you want it and what are we shooting for, because you have to have a goal. Cause if your goal is to be thirty years old and sitting in my basement playing video games, you got another think coming.

“That’s our philosophy. Some people will agree. Some will not agree, but we’ll see where it all shakes out. We know what has worked for us in life and business and our relationship and I don’t think I could be much happier. When I can spend as much time as I do with my kids, in life, what more is there? And we’re not just putting food on the table. When you have those three things: health, relationships and your finances in check, then the world is a really good place, even when it’s not a good place.”

To be continued Wednesday.