Nianeg Dekenmenjian had a Mother’s Day Brunch with the Stanley Cup, which caused more than a little anxiety, since no one was everything that the trophy of the hockey championship liked to eat.
“I am thinking of a meat diet for the Stanley Cup,” said Dekermenjian before sliding in a large corner cabin at the Stanley Restaurant (without relation to the Cup) in Sherman Oaks. “Anything less than that, I will be very, very disappointed.”
In the end it turned out that the Cup was fasting, so the dish in front of it remained empty. But then the trophy was Sunday on Sunday, Dekermenjian was. Last week he was appointed winner of the most valuable teacher program of the NHL objectives, chosen from a field of hundreds of candidates of 31 of the 32 cities of the League.
For the fifth grade teacher, who left a well -paid job as a financial advisor for a classroom four years ago, a visit from the Stanley Cup was honored was a full time of a circle in several ways. For Starters, It was an acknowledge Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatrs Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren Hatren. Life.
Noeg Dekenmenjian and his family have lunch while the Stanley Cup sits in the middle of the table. From left to right are Edward, Ian, so many, Oliver and Nianeg.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Dekermenjian, the young man, was only 5 years old and immediately had trouble fitting.
“Making friends or having a child or linking with children of my age, from a different country, that was really different,” he said. Then, one day, his mother, many, pushed him to join some children in the neighborhood in a street hockey game.
“I’m slippery, I did,” he said a lot on Sunday. It turned out that the game would change everything.
“They gave me a hockey stick about rollers and I just fell in love with sport immediately,” said Dekermenjian. “I had never been very good before, especially athletics. But I played hockey on rollers.
“What helped me to do is create a lot of self -confidence and self -esteem, what the turn helped me in social situations.”
Dekermenjian went to play on several levels, became a head of the Kings season and now trains his two children on the concrete track he built in his backyard. He is also using hockey to break social and cultural barriers at the Autonomous School of Dixie Canyon Community in Sherman Oaks, where many of the almost 700 students come from new immigrant families in the United States.
Noeg Dekermenjian, a Sherman Oaks teacher who won a NHL award, observes how the Stanley Howie Toma Cup archer establishes the trophy.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
“We have a great crucible here,” said Deputy Director Maria Silva.
But if all these children speak a different language, wear different clothes and pack different foods for lunch, everyone understands sports. Only hockey
“One hundred percent,” said Dekenmenjian, 41. “That is the son of why I do it.”
There are parallels between the challenges faced by athletes and those facing students. The necessary determination and perseverance to overcome a NHL season is equally necessary to overcome an academic year. There are goals and victories, defeats and teamwork, both in the ice and in the classroom.
“That connects many of the points for these children who are not accustomed to listening to it that way,” said Dekermenjian. “I show real clips and videos of hockey games when the teams are low by multiple goals and do not give up and then return, pull the goalkeeper and take it.
“That is, it is a better way to start a session. Make these children look at something so incredible and then look with songs and think:” Do you know what? I can do this. “
Noeg Dekermenjian takes a selfie with his son, Oliver, and the Stanley Cup Lunch at the Stanley’s restaurant.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Silva said that few teachers in Dixie Canyon are requested by parents more frequently than Dekenmenjian, whom she calls Mr. Deker. He often stops for his class just to listen.
“I am captivated by the stories he is sharing. And I don’t want to leave,” he said. “I want to be a child and listen too. When they announced that he won [the NHL award,] I definitely felt they did well. “
However, stories do not always work. And when not Dekermenjian, as a good coach, they change his game plan, as he did in his first year as a teacher after welcoming a shy Ukrainian girl named María, who understood little English.
“We are going for the history of the United States and say:” What does this child need to know about the Constitution? “There are more important lessons that we must teach,” he said.
Maria loved art, so Dekermenjian asked him to draw every day and then, after class, he and a translator would discuss the meaning behind what he had drawn. She was soon in her new environment.
When children fight, said Dekenmenjian, the problem is often not the student, but rather a problem of commitment to the teacher.
“Educators, we need children or advance and involve them in a non -traditional way,” he said.
“I have seen it work in the classroom. So I do it more and more and the feedback has an excess of rays. I am creating a group of hockey fans and kings fans in the process, so everyone wins, I suppose.”
Speaking of the Kings, that is the second reason why Sunday’s food was a meeting with the Stanley Cup. The first time he with the trophy was in 2014, when he posed in front of him with his wife, Lori, and his son Ian, who actually owes his existence to the cup.
Duration The Playoffs of the Stanley 2012 Cup, Lori approached Dekermenjian and suggested that if the Kings won the Cup, they should have a baby. Dekermenjian, uncertain if he was ready to be dad, but sure that the kings did not have the opportunity to win the NHL title, they agreed, and just over a year later, Ian was born. Since then, they have added a second child, Oliver.
“It’s a complete circle thing,” he said.
“I definitely feel that I discovered where I need to be in life. And I’m 100% sure I was Maeant to teach.”
On Sunday, the NHL agreed, giving it an afternoon with the Stanley Cup to demonstrate it.
