Patrick Marleau’s hometown is a speck on the map of Saskatchewan, one of Canada’s prairie provinces. According to Statistics Canada the farming community of Aneroid had a population of 50 in 2016, up from the 40 that were counted five years earlier.
It was a great place to learn the value of hard work and fulfilling responsibilities, but it wasn’t an ideal place to launch the hockey career he dreamed about. “As I got older we had to join small towns to make a team,” he said, “so Vanguard and Aneroid joined together and we had a team.