“I’d essentially take those two rambunctious boys and it would effectively be their daycare,” Rick recalls. “They’d just wrestle or play soccer or play basketball or play hockey in the gym while Steve and I would do two- or three-hour sessions.”

The boys, Aiden and Macklin, were so young at the time that they don’t have vivid memories of the sessions, but they did learn what it looks like when a superstar athlete is in training.

“You know how there’s people you see on TV your whole life, and then you meet them and there’s a certain glow, as if they’re not actually real in your eyes?” Aiden says. “Well, with Uncle Steve it was almost like he was our role model, our benchmark. In our eyes, the perfect athlete.”

Uncle Steve, it turns out, was two-time NBA MVP and Basketball Hall of Famer Steve Nash.

“Uncle Steve was the athlete that our dad told us we should try to live up to, in terms of work ethic,” Aiden says. “That we’d need to work like that to get even close to the athlete he was.”

And so Aiden and Macklin, whose passion was hockey, went to work. They had no NHL bloodlines in any classical sense, but they used the lessons gleaned from watching Nash and other elite athletes — players such as Steph Curry and Kevin Durant — train with their dad, turning themselves from rambunctious children into NHL prospects. Soon they were sharing the ice with NHL players like goaltender Mike Smith and Canucks center Ryan Kesler.

“Working with Smith and Kesler at the North Shore Winter Club, those are vivid memories,” Macklin recalls. “Being on the ice with two NHL players, they were dealing with their injuries and rehabbing, but it was so special for a young kid to be able to see that. You watch them every night on TV and with Ryan, he played for the hometown team so I idolized him.”

Eventually, others started to notice the Celebrini brothers. Aiden was drafted by the Vancouver Canucks in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL Draft. He’s currently a 19-year-old freshman defenseman at Boston University. Macklin, who won’t turn 18 until June 2024, is also a Boston University freshman this fall and is being projected as the potential No. 1 pick in next year’s NHL Draft.

With nine points in his six games at BU, Macklin is off to a similar start to what other top prospects who played NCAA hockey in their draft year managed — Vegas Golden Knights superstar Jack Eichel had 10 points in his first six games, Columbus Blue Jackets rookie Adam Fantilli managed 15 in his first six games.

“It almost became an expectation in our household,” Aiden says. “Like, Mack barely remembers going to those workouts with Nash and our younger siblings never got the chance to. And yet there’s still an expectation that gets set from that experience. That was just the world our family was in. We’ve grown up in an elite athlete’s world and seeing them work, seeing the dedication it takes.”

But as the Celebrinis know all-too-well, there is oftentimes pain to overcome along that path.

The Celebrini siblings, from left, Aiden, sister Charlie, Macklin and RJ, spent plenty of time around high-profile athletes, most recently at Golden State Warriors home games. Courtesy Rick Celebrini

It wasn’t a notable collision. It wasn’t even really a hockey hit.

Two games into the 2022-23 United States Hockey League season, Macklin, playing for the Chicago Steel, turned into an opponent. It was nothing. An awkward play. Immediately though, he felt it.

“My shoulder got shifted,” Macklin says. “I was in pain, obviously, and I remember telling my trainer about it and they had me sit out the rest of the period so we could look at it at intermission.”

During the break, trainers for the junior team couldn’t stabilize the shoulder sufficiently for Macklin to return to action. He couldn’t believe it. The contact seemed so innocuous and he’d played through things like shoulder soreness before. So he stayed in the locker room and iced it. Surely this would pass.

The next day, Macklin underwent an MRI that revealed a significant injury, a partial posterior labrum tear. An orthopedic surgeon recommended immediate surgery.

“I’m thinking it’s my second game of the year and my season is pretty much done,” he says. “I’m facing a six-month recovery and my year is over. All of this work for two games, and now I have to rehab my whole shoulder.”

That’s when Dad entered the picture. “He called me in tears,” Rick says. “I consulted with a couple of colleagues and people I knew.” Their consensus: Skip the surgery for now. Opt for rehab.

“So I was out for two weeks, rehabbed it, got it strong enough and stable enough to play,” Macklin says.

After he rejoined his team, he went on to put up 46 goals and 86 points across 50 USHL games. His season culminated with a star turn for Team Canada at the Under-18 World Hockey Championships that cemented his status atop the upcoming draft.

But during that tournament, his shoulder injury worsened. “In the quarterfinal against Switzerland, I got hit and I knew that it wasn’t good,” he remembers. “My whole arm, I mean, I knew something wasn’t right.”

Macklin played through it, but then wrenched his shoulder again in the bronze medal game.

“At the end of the tournament, I went back to Chicago to finish my USHL season and the first two playoff games, I got through the first one fine, just a bit of soreness,” he says. “Then the second game it was an innocent draw, but I punched my shoulder forward and my arm just went numb.”

A subsequent MRI revealed that the once partial posterior labrum tear was now complete. The injury was now classified as severe and surgery was unavoidable.

Macklin’s surgery was conducted in Vail, Colo., by Dr. Peter Millett, a shoulder specialist who has operated on several NHL-level players, including Montreal Canadiens defender Arber Xhekaj last summer.

The surgery went well, but as Rick and Macklin settled in for a lengthy summer of rehab, doubts emerged.

Rick would say later it was the “most pressure I’ve ever felt working through an injury with a player.”

Helping top athletes recover and rehabilitate from injury is his profession, honed over years with teams in Vancouver and from 2018 with the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. But with his own son, he wondered: “Should I get someone else to do this with Macklin?”

“When it’s your son, with the emotional piece, and going into his big draft year, there was an element of stress and anxiety,” he says. “Once the dust settles and you focus on the task at hand, that’s when each day has its objectives, and you just execute on them.”

Rick and Macklin spent a large part of the summer of 2023 together.

On the Celebrini family ranch in Northern California, where they moved after Rick joined the Warriors, Macklin worked diligently to rehab his shoulder under his father’s watchful eyes.

Rick, the team’s director of sports medicine and performance, has been a leader in his field for years. He worked with the Canadian men’s Alpine ski team at the 1994 and 2002 Winter Olympics, served as medical manager and chief therapist during the 2010 Winter Olympics and was the director of rehabilitation for the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL (from 2014-18) and the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS (from 2011-18).

Rick knew Macklin was a hard worker, and that fact was supported by trainers and coaches at the Shattuck-St. Mary’s boarding school in Minnesota and from his Chicago junior team. “I’d heard reports … about his work ethic, commitment and discipline,” Rick says. “Honestly — and not because he’s my kid — but I was blown away by how locked in he was (during the rehab).

“I’d go out and watch Mack quite often go up and shoot pucks or stickhandle with his other hand. He’d just listen to music and lose himself in it, just playing hockey and training and stickhandling with his left hand.”

Macklin Celebrini working on his shot during his summer rehab. Courtesy Rick Celebrini

But it wasn’t always easy.

“This was my first experience with having a severe injury or requiring surgery,” Macklin says. “I honestly just kept telling myself: ‘Just be prepared, it’s going to be really hard.’

“So just going through the different steps, that’s all I was focused on. If I’d thought about it as taking four months, like, I can’t wait for four months. That’s way too long.

“But if I thought about it like, at six weeks I get my sling off. At 10 weeks I can move my arm over my head. Focusing on those little goals, those little accomplishments, it helped me get through that process.”

He said his dad helped him anticipate and endure the hard days. “He was clear to me, ‘This is a challenge you’ve never faced before, and it’s going to be difficult,’” Macklin says. “And … he kept telling me, ‘It’s going to heal.’ That was something I had in the back of my mind the whole time, like, ‘Yeah it’s sore, but it’s going to get better. Eventually it’ll be back to full strength and back to normal.'”

Rick spoke from experience. He had worked with Kevin Durant while he recovered from his torn Achilles tendon injury. He had helped Klay Thompson return from his torn ACL. He was able to tap into those experiences, helping his son trust that those difficult days would pass.

“Early on when the objective was to reassure him, you draw on those anecdotes,” Rick says. “With the surgeon and the injury that he had, there was never a doubt that if he was comprehensive and worked at all elements of the rehab of his shoulder and the rest of his body … that he would come back stronger.

“I was able to give him real life examples and that helps when it isn’t just encouraging words from his dad.”

Warriors’ director of sports medicine and performance Rick Celebrini helps Kevin Durant off the court after Durant’s injury in the 2019 playoffs. Claus Andersen / Getty Images

In an ordinary summer, Macklin and Aiden would’ve been on the ice together nearly every day.

At least six days a week, they’d usually head to the rink. Skating, working on skills or playing a local pickup game with friends and other high-level players in Northern California. At home they’d be training, pushing one another.

This summer was different. Aiden was away, becoming familiar with his and Macklin’s new teammates in Boston, as Macklin worked to recover.

“Coming into school and being (in Boston), I mean, we’re brothers, but at the end of the day we’re best friends on top of everything,” Aiden says. “We do everything together. We train together every day, every summer.

“It ended up feeling odd for me. Selfishly, it wasn’t that I felt guilty, I just missed my brother. I was going through this process, seeing this new team and this new program that we’re joining together and I felt half of it. Because I wasn’t experiencing the other half with him.”

It wasn’t easy for Macklin either. Although his rehabilitation was progressing well by mid-summer, and there was growing confidence he’d be ready for BU’s first game on Oct. 7, the fear of missing out was real. When Aiden was in Vancouver this summer taking part in live-streamed pro skates, Macklin tried to tune in to be a supportive brother, but found he couldn’t quite handle it.

“The moment I was able to use my stick again in late July, we were back on the ice together again,” Macklin says, laughing.

There were still some hurdles. Macklin wouldn’t be cleared for contact – and then game action — for another two months. By August though, the brothers got back into their routine and prepared for the upcoming season at BU.

“I was probably more confident in him and my dad managing his rehab than they were,” Aiden says. “I knew they weren’t going to have any problems. I expected him to end up being ahead of schedule, so I was just excited for him and I’m excited for him to get going and get here with me.”

Through a couple weeks of action at BU, which opened the year ranked No. 1 in the nation, Macklin has scored more than a goal per game, while Aiden has produced at over a point per game from the back end.