Thirteen-year-old Nate Miller crouches into the net at 6′3″, 180 lbs, to defend the net for the Junior Pens (who include Mario Lemieux’s son, Austin). His size-16 skates act as another set of blocking pads as he towers over his teammates and opponents and nearly looks the 6′4″ Mario in the eye. And yet he gave up baseball because it was cutting into hockey time.

Nate Miller simply loves hockey.

We can’t say we’re normally proponents of boys becoming singularly focused on a sport at a young age, only to develop a robotic reaction to the sport’s nuances and expose themselves to the repetition injuries that come from specialization at a ridiculously early age. For young Nate, though, we’re happy to make an exception for a specific reason.

Nate’s already 6′3″ at 13. In all likelihood, he will receive the Tim Duncan treatment in a few years and have his favorite sport stripped from him and get a basketball shoved into his massive hands. He’ll accept the ball, of course, because sports have helped define him. However, can’t you imagine Tim Duncan would have preferred to be a $100m swimmer if given the choice?

So keep cramming into the undersized equipment, Nate, as long as you can. There will always be time later to learn a low-post game or how to leverage your height on the mound, Randy Johnson-style. Block out adulthood as long as possible with those gigantic pads.