“Our dads talk more than we do on the phone,” Lewis said, “and our moms hang out all the time.”

So when it came time for the pair to don skates and pads for the first time, it was no surprise that they took the step together, playing intramural hockey for four years beginning at the age of seven.

“We started playing hockey—me, Grant and a couple other kids in the neighborhood—and we all kept playing,” Reese said. “There’s Grant and I, and another kid in the national program.”

But when it came time to move onto the next level, it looked like Lewis might be left behind. Though age had been no object during any point in their friendship, the teams for travel hockey were based on year of birth. Reese was born in 1984 and Lewis 1985, but the latter played up to remain alongside his friend.

It was an experience the pair would need to get used to.

Playing together for Upper St. Claire High School, the two skated for the freshman team in seventh grade, junior varsity in eighth and the varsity squad in ninth.

It was an act that opponents grew very tired of very quickly.

“Me and him together,” Lewis said, “combined for 90 percent of our teams points [in seventh grade]. We combined for 21 points in just one game.”

Stunted by the lack of challenging competition, Reese quit before his sophomore season. Lewis played just one more year.

For two years, their paths through the amateur hockey circuit diverged, but their friendship remained unshakable. They weren’t teammates any more on the ice, but running with the same crowd off the ice, little else had changed.

Older and wiser now but still the same good-natured pair who bonded over sandboxes and casual sports, the tandem adjusted its shenanigans to a high-school level.

“Every time the other’s parents would go away,” Lewis said, “the other would stay over and say we were ‘watching the house.’”

While they continued to grow closer off the ice throughout high school, gathering a group of “15 really good friends” around themselves, one final chance remained for the pair to recapture a closeness lost the last time they’d pulled off the same sweater.

Reese, by then a seasoned-veteran of the United States international program, starred for the Pittsburgh Forge of the North American Hockey League, which he had joined one season earlier. Not only would Lewis join him a few weeks into his second season, but they’d be matched up as a blue-line duo as well.

“They paired me with Dylan since he was the best defenseman,” Lewis said. “I slowly worked myself up and we became the best defensive pair.”