NHL All-Star Game a Family Affair for the Mullen Brothers

When your linemates growing up in Hell’s Kitchen are Jose Garcia and Julio Quinones, you gain a special perspective that no Canadian skating prodigy could inherit.

Joe Mullen wasn’t about to pout Tuesday night when Wayne Gretzky won his 14th car as Most Valuable Player in the 40th National Hockey League All-Star Game at Northlands Coliseum. Mullen had traveled too long and too far from the streets of New York to stoop to pettiness.

While the hockey world focused on what Gretzky termed his “extra-special” triumphant return to Edmonton, Mullen was enjoying an extra-special night of his own.

Mullen had two goals on a line with Mark Messier and Joe Nieuwendyk, including the game-winner in the Campbell Conference’s 9-5 rout of the Wales Conference. Mullen, the Calgary Flames right winger, was buzzing. Smooth. Swift. Bullet shot.

While the cameras clicked at Gretzky’s wife, actress Janet Jones, and their 7-week-old daughter Paulina, Tom and Marion Mullen sat unobtrusively watching their sons.

Joey was in the white uniform. Brian, from the New York Rangers, was in the black uniform. The Mullen family, however, was colorblind this night.

“The first thing Brian and I thought when we got named to the All-Star Game was that we’ve got to bring them up to watch this game,” Joe said.

“I looked up at my parents when we came off the ice,” Brian said. “Their faces were glowing. During the national anthem, I looked across the ice at Joe. A lot of things run through your head.”

Many observers thought Mullen had outplayed Campbell teammate Gretzky, who finished with one goal and three points in his head-to-head duel against Mario Lemieux. But if you were on the media panel and more than 17,000 fans were standing, cheering and screaming every time No. 99 climbed over the boards, how would you have voted?

“You’ve got to admit that it was pretty nice Gretz got the MVP,” said Quebec’s Walt Poddubny, who also had two goals. “Both Gretz and Joe played great.”

“I wasn’t worried about any of that,” Mullen said. “Glen Sather was great. He sent me out there on a line with Wayne and Jari Kurri near the end to try and get me the hat trick. It was terrific just to be here for me.”

The guys back in New York, however, could do a lot of talking on Joe Mullen’s behalf. Although he already has five 40-goal seasons and has a shot at 50 this year, this was the first time Mullen was selected to the All-Star Game. When Boston Coach Terry O’Reilly added Brian to the Wales, the Mullens became the first American brothers to play in the same All-Star event.

To all those New York hockey fanatics who pour out their money so they can pour out their hearts and souls in the upper reaches of Madison Square Garden, the Mullens are heroes. Besides Staten Island’s Nick Fotiu, there has been no other New York-grown talent in the NHL.

“When I go back to New York, I see how excited they are for us,” Joe said. “A lot of people back there are living their dreams through us. You feel you’re not only doing it for yourself but for them, too. That’s a nice feeling.”

The Mullens grew up on West 49th Street in Manhattan. Tom Mullen worked in Madison Square Garden helping to resurface the ice and paint the lines. Roller hockey was the Mullens’ sport.

Eventually, they turned to ice hockey. There was only one junior team in New York, the Westsiders in the Met League that Hartford Whalers General Manager Emile Francis helped form when he was running the Rangers. Brian said older brothers Tom and Ken were as talented as he and Joe, but New York kids just didn’t get the chance several years ago.

When Joe was playing for the Westsiders in the 1970s, not many college coaches were interested. Eventually, Mullen got a scholarship to Boston College. Brian, five years younger, went to the University of Wisconsin. As if geographics and finances didn’t work against Joe, many people insisted that at 5-foot-9, 175 pounds, he would be too small to make it as pro. Francis didn’t buy it. He knew Joe Mullen’s roots and signed him to a free-agent contract with the St. Louis Blues in 1979.

“My mom told me it was worth every dime she ever spent on hockey for us,” Joe said. “It kept us out of trouble.”

Tuesday in Edmonton, Marion Mullen was repaid tenfold.