Photos courtesy of the Pearson Family
Design by Jack Silberman

Mel Pearson holds court every day 

after practice in his office at Yost Ice 

Arena.

Usually he talks about hockey.

But on Nov. 6, he was asked about his 

high school years, and another thought 

resurfaced: Susie, his wife, and how 

they met.

As he finished up his story about her, 

he got up from his couch and headed to 

the exit. While he put his hand on the 

door, another person walked through 

the entrance. All eyes turned to her.

“Here’s Mrs. Pearson!” Mel said.

It was a coincidence Mel’s wife was 

there, but he made the most of it.

“Here, they want to interview you,” 

Mel said. “This is my wife Susie. They 

want to know how we met in high 

school.

“ … I just told him you wouldn’t leave 

me alone.”

He didn’t wait for a rebuttal, instead 

opting to leave the room chuckling. She 

plopped in his empty seat and looked 

each person in the room in the eye. She 

smiled before asking a simple question 

that perked every ear.

“Do you really want to know the true 

story?”

 ***

Mel was from Flin Flon, Manitoba; 

Susie was from Atlanta. 

But the two of them moved around 

the country. Mel spent a large portion 

of his childhood shifting through Los 

Angeles, Baltimore and Portland. Susie 

stayed South in Atlanta with a brief stop 

in California before eventually ending 

up in a hockey town in Minnesota — 

Edina, where she and Mel crossed 

paths.

“It’s kind of a miracle that we even 

met,” Susie said.

The two of them were transplants 

due to their fathers’ work. 

Mel’s dad, also Mel, was a 

professional hockey player. The 

Pearsons had jumped from city to city 

due to his job — his last team was the 

World Hockey Association’s Minnesota 

Fighting Saints based in Edina. Upon 

getting cut, the elder Pearson decided 

the family should go back to Flin Flon 

for good. But Mel’s mother, Ruby, 

pushed to keep him in Edina for his 

education and hockey career, leaving 

him with a billet family and eventually 

the Andersons.

Instead of going back to Canada, he 

stayed in Minnesota, attending Edina 

East High School.

Susie’s dad accepted a job in St. Paul, 

Minn. at 3M the 

summer before Susie’s 

sophomore year in high 

school. Before they moved in, 

Susie’s parents researched good 

schools in the area. One, in particular, 

caught their eyes — Edina East, a half-

hour drive from St. Paul. Rather than 

buying a house closer to his job, Susie’s 

dad bit the bullet and took the long rides 

every morning so that his daughter 

could get a better education.

Instead of living in St. Paul, Susie’s 

family bought a house in Edina so she 

could attend Edina East.

And in study hall, the two of them 

met.

***

At Edina East, study hall was held 

either on the third floor of the library, 

or the study tables in the cafeteria. 

Normally, the sessions were split by 

class. Since Mel was a junior at the time 

and Susie a sophomore, they were split 

into different sessions. Mel spent a lot of 

time in the cafeteria, while Susie would 

be in the library. But he passed through 

the library every now and then, and she 

caught his eye.

“Here’s the true story,” Susie said. 

“He switched his study hall so that he 

could be in my study hall.”

Now sharing a period, he pulled out a 

chair one day and sat next to her, asking 

for help on an assignment. 

To her, he was a hockey player 

with an unmistakable look. He had an 

afro, a halo of red curls that extended 

several inches from his head, and wore 

bell bottom corduroys with clogs. He 

talked funny, but so did she. He had a 

Canadian accent, and she had a bit of a 

southern twang.

To him, she was a tennis player who 

was similar to him, new to the school. 

Most kids had their own cliques. They 

were the transplants.

“We sort of came together whether 

it’s fate as we were new kids on the 

block,” Mel said. “So she was a good 

looking young lady, and I was attracted 

to her.”

They gravitated toward one another. 

He found she had an infectious 

personality, and she thought he had 

the same. Moving around constantly, 

Mel learned how to be sociable. He was 

sarcastic but, at the same time, kind.

“That’s what kind of drew me to 

him,” Susie said. “If you look at him or 

just kind of the way he dressed and his 

hairstyle, he has a warm heart, and he 

always had a warm heart.”

Even though they clicked from the 

start, they didn’t start dating right away. 

In fact, Mel was with another girl at the 

time. But that relationship was already 

reaching its end. When Susie came into 

the picture, it was the start of a new 

story.

“How do you know that the love of 

your life is the person when you’re 15?” 

Susie asked. “But that’s kind of how it 

became obvious to both of us.”

***

When Susie’s dad first laid eyes on 

Mel, he didn’t like what he saw.

There were no cell phones back then, 

so to contact one another, Susie and Mel 

would just knock on the door.

Mel did that, and upon seeing him, 

Susie’s dad immediately disapproved. 

Her mom was more accepting. She was 

always the more kind and loving of the 

two. But her dad was a hardass, and 

frankly, Mel was scared. He had been 

nervous to meet him, and now that they 

finally met, Mel was off to a bad start.

“He basically said ‘I love my 

daughter, and I don’t know if you’re 

the right guy.’ or, ’You can’t fool me,’ or 

something like that.” Mel said

There was no warm welcome or 

“come back anytime.” Susie’s dad was 

protective. He drew the line and set 

ground rules. Mel appreciates that now 

that he has two daughters of his own 

and understands what her dad was 

trying to do, but at the time, he was 

anxious. 

Luckily, he didn’t have to see much 

of her dad. Susie’s dad traveled a lot for 

work, so instead, when he came over, 

he’d be greeted by just her mom. And 

she knew what was up — his frequent 

visits gave it away too easily.

But eventually, her dad warmed 

up to Mel, too. Susie noted he became 

Mel’s biggest fan. He just had to get to 

know the teenager first.

“Once (he) got to know me,” Mel 

said, “obviously I wasn’t that bad a guy.”

And while Mel would spend every 

holiday with the Andersons, his billet 

family, he would make an exception for 

one holiday. He spent Thanksgivings 

with Susie’s family.

“He did have the Anderson family,” 

Susie said, “but then he kind of quickly 

became a part of our family too.”

***

With a year difference, Mel 

graduated high school first and had 

already committed to playing hockey 

at Michigan Tech in Houghton. Susie 

stayed behind to finish high school.

The two of them knew what they 

wanted, though. 

They wanted to stay 

together, so they decided 

to not date anyone else.

When he could, Mel would 

try to see her. During school breaks, 

he would come back to Edina and 

stay with the Andersons. But John 

Anderson, his billet brother, knew the 

real reason Mel would return so often.

“We’d like to think that we really had 

a nice family,” John said. “But I think it 

was really Susie that kept him around.”

And whenever the Huskies played 

the University of Minnesota, Mel would 

break off from the team to try and get 

lunch with Susie, even if it was only for 

an hour or two — anything to catch up 

and spend time together. 

After Susie graduated high school, 

she attended Minnesota. Her parents 

paid for her first year, and so Susie 

and Mel’s permanent reunion was 

prolonged a year. But she didn’t 

know what she wanted to do. She 

did know, however, that she wanted 

to be with Mel. Both of them were 

tired of long distance. And upon Mel’s 

encouragement, after her freshman 

year, Susie dropped out from Minnesota 

and worked before moving up to 

Houghton to spend Mel’s last year there 

with him.

“We knew that we were the ones for 

each other, and it was getting kind of 

tiring to be apart,” Susie said.

It was a leap of faith. While Mel 

attended classes and played hockey, she 

worked at the bookstore. She moved in 

with a girl she had known from high 

school, the girlfriend of a teammate of 

Mel’s. Mel lived separately with two 

other teammates. But the two of them 

were fully committed.

And Mel made that clear the winter 

of his senior year.

He had thought about it for a while. 

The summer before school started, 

when he was still in Minnesota, he 

scouted for a ring and bought it. The 

decision was easy. He knew proposing 

was the right thing, but he was still a 

little scared.

“You’re nervous if she’s going to say 

yes or too young or whatever,” Mel said.

But she was ready for the 

commitment. And he was too. So when 

winter rolled around, he hid the ring 

in a medicine cabinet in his house, 

and she stumbled across it. It wasn’t 

picturesque or sappy; he didn’t get 

down on one knee. Mel jokes that’s how 

they teach it in Flin Flon, where they’re 

simple people. But it got the point 

across.

“It was not anything big and 

romantic,” Susie said. “But it didn’t 

downplay that it wasn’t a big deal.

“It would just seem like the natural 

progression. And I know it’s hard 

because we were still young, but we just 

knew we were the ones for each other.”

***

The summer before Mel’s senior 

year in college, before he and Susie got 

engaged, he went back to Flin Flon to 

spend time with his real family.

Flin Flon is a small town 500 miles 

north of Winnipeg, the nearest big city. 

Because it is so far north, the days seem 

to never end. The sunlight carries over 

until midnight, and comes back at 4 or 

5 a.m. It’s a scenic place that attracted 

some tourism. But above all else, it’s a 

mining town, and when Mel got back, 

naturally, he mined. 

Susie had pleaded with her parents 

to let her visit, and to her surprise, they 

agreed.

“I can’t really believe my parents let 

me do that,” Susie said. “Because, now 

that I’m a parent, I look back and think, 

‘Wow, they were kind of trusting but 

sent me on a plane.’ ”

Though she arrived and stayed for 

a couple weeks, Mel still had work 

at Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting 

Company. While he stripped away the 

zinc, sharpened drill bits in the steel 

shop, worked underground, she spent 

time with his mom and sister. Susie 

did get to see him during the day once, 

when she took a tour around the plant.

But it wasn’t really until after he 

got off work late that they were able to 

spend time together. 

And luckily for them, the days never 

got dark.

***

The fact that Susie could spend time 

with his mother, Ruby, that summer 

meant a lot to Mel. Ruby was a driving 

force in Mel’s life, determined for him 

to have the best. And like Susie, Ruby 

was outgoing and sweet, so when they 

met, they hit it off right away.

“It’s very important for me to meet 

all my family,” Mel said. “So it’s nice 

that she came up and met Ruby.”

Susie had moved to Edina after the 

Pearsons had moved back to Canada. 

They had met a couple times briefly in 

Minnesota, but that summer in Flin 

Flon, they really got to know her. And 

they adored her.

“I think they really enjoyed her, 

enjoyed her company,” Mel said. “And 

how could you not?”

Sports
Sports
8A — Friday, February 14, 2020
michigandaily.com

TIEN LE
Daily Sports Writer

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