Nareg Dekermenjian had a brunch of Mother's Day with the Stanley Cup, which caused more than anxiety because no one was sure of the trophy of the hockey championship liked to eat.
“I think the diet for the Stanley Cup,” said Dekermenjian before slipping into a large corner stand at the Stanley restaurant (no relationship with the Cup) to Sherman Oaks. “Nothing less than that, I'm going to be very, very disappointed.”
It turned out that the cup was fasting, so the plate in front of it remained empty. But then, the trophy was not the one who was celebrated on Sunday, Dekermenjian was. Last week, he was appointed winner of the most precious teacher program of the NHL's objectives, chosen from a field of hundreds of candidates of 31 of the 32 cities in the League.
For the fifth year professor, who left a well -paid job as a financial advisor for a classroom four years ago, being honored by a visit to the Stanley Cup was a moment in full circle in several ways. To start, it was a recognition of the role that hockey played to help him adapt to his new country after his father, Edward, a jeweler in Lebanon who spoke only the broken English, bet everything when he left Beirut for the West Valley so that his three children can have a chance of better life.
Nareg Dekermenjian and his family lunch while the Stanley Cup is in the middle of the table. From left to right are Edward, Ian, Zovig, Oliver and Nareg.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Dekermenjian, the youngest, was only 5 years old and he immediately had trouble integrating.
“Make friends or have a kind of link with children my age, coming from a different country, it was really different,” he said. So one day, his mother, Zovig, pushed him through the door to reach some children in the neighborhood in a street hockey match.
“I'm happy to have done it,” said Zovig on Sunday. It turned out that the game would change everything.
“They gave me a roller-hockey stick and I just fell in love with sport,” said Dekermenjian. “I had never been really good in anything before, especially athletics. But I took roller skating hockey.
“What he helped me to do was create a lot of self -confidence and self -esteem, which helped me in social situations.”
Dekermenjian continued to play on several levels, has become a holder of the Kings season and now leads his two sons on the concrete ice rink that he built in their backyard. He also uses hockey to break social and cultural barriers at the Dixie Canyon Community Charter School in Sherman Oaks, where many of the 700 students come from families of new immigrants in the United States
Nareg Dekermenjian, a teacher from Sherman Oaks who won an NHL prize, looks at the Stanley Howie Borrow Cup.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“We have a big crucible here,” said Maria Silva, assistant director.
But if all these children speak different languages, wear different clothes and pack different foods for lunch, they include all sports. Even hockey.
“One hundred percent,” said Dekermenjian, 41. “It's a bit why I do it.”
There are parallels between the challenges faced by athletes and those with which the students are confronted. The grain and perseverance necessary to go through an NHL season are just as necessary to spend an academic year. There are goals and victories and defeats and teamwork, both on ice and in class.
“It connects a lot of points for these children who are not used to hearing it in this way,” said Dekermenjian. “I actually show extracts and videos of hockey matches when the teams are down by several goals and they do not give up, then they come back, they shoot the goal and they take it.
“It is, I think, a better way to start a session. Since these children have been looking at something so incredible and looking at each other and thinking:” What do you know? I can do that. “”
Nareg Dekermenjian takes a selfie with his son, Oliver, and the Stanley Cup during lunch at the Stanley restaurant.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Silva said few teachers from Dixie Canyon are requested by parents more frequently than Dekermenjian, whom she calls Mr. Deker. She often stops at her class herself just to listen.
“I'm just captivated by the stories he shares. And I don't want to leave,” she said. “I want to be a child and listen to him too. When they announced that he won (the NHL price), I really felt that they had understood. ”
However, stories don't always work. And when they don't Dekermenjian, like a good coach, change his match plan – as he did in his first year as a teacher after welcoming a shy Ukrainian girl named Maria, who understood the little Englishman.
“We review American history and I say to myself:” What does this child need to know about the Constitution? ” There are many more lessons that we have to teach, “he said.
Maria loved art, then Dekermenjian asked him to draw every day, then, after the lessons, he and a translator would discuss the meaning of what she had drawn. She soon thrives in her new environment.
When children are struggling, said Dekermenjian, the problem is often not the student, but rather a problem of engagement with the teacher.
“Educators, we have to somehow accelerate and engage them in a non-traditional way,” he said.
“I saw him work in class. So I do it more and more and the comments were overwhelming. I create a bunch of hockey fans and Kings fans in the process, so everyone wins, I suppose.”
Speaking of kings, this is the second reason why the Sunday meal was a meeting with the Stanley Cup. The first time he met the trophy was in 2014, when he posed in front of this with his wife, Lori, then his son Ian, who owes his existence to the Cup.
During the Stanley 2012 Cup qualifiers, Lori came to Dekermenjian and suggested that if the Kings won the cup, they should have a baby. Dekermenjian, uncertain if he was ready to be a dad, but some that the Kings had no chance of winning the NHL title, agreed – and just over a year later, Ian was born. They have since added a second son, Oliver.
“It's a full circle thing,” he said.
“I really feel like I have found where I have to be in life. And I am 100% sure that I was supposed to teach. ”
On Sunday, the NHL accepted, giving it an afternoon with the Stanley Cup to prove it.
