EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- As you look around the Los Angeles Kings' practice facility, there is nothing but children with big smiles on their faces.
They are sprawled all over the ice. Many are skating forward, and backward and in circles.
Kings players Matt Greene, Alec Martinez, Tyler Toffoli, Kyle Clifford and Jarret Stoll offer encouragement as television cameras and reporters watch from the bench, on a day the Hawthorne Police Association donated $10,000 of its own money to help keep these kids in gear and on the ice.
And it is fair to ask, where would these children, ranging in age from 4 to 12, be without the help of the National Hockey League Players' Association's Goals and Dreams program? Where would any of the 70,000 children be had this program not given them a step into the game?
Devin Smith was there in the beginning.
At the time, he was the public relations guy for NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow. A five-year plan to assist grassroots hockey was dropped in his lap.
Now, $22 million worth of donations, 32 countries (the NHLPA just received a request for assistance from its 33rd country, Mongolia) and 15 years later, it's still going.
When he's asked about the program, Smith asks people to picture an NFL stadium filled with 70,000 kids, all decked out in brand new hockey gear jumping up and down waiting to get on the ice and chase that black disc.
Smith and literally dozens of players past and present have quietly traveled the world with gifts of brand new equipment for young people.
Sometimes it is the first brand new thing any of these children have received, children who would otherwise never know the feeling of pulling on a pair of skates, holding a stick, chasing down a puck or being part of a team.
They have been to Bosnia, to remote northern Canadian towns and to economically challenged communities in large metropolitan centers like Toronto and Los Angeles.
In Russia, a man applied for and received several dozen sets of goalie equipment for his community. The interpreter's English might have been less functional than the local hockey organizer who was receiving the equipment himself, so repeatedly during the trip Smith was asked: will there be a bill for the equipment?
No, Smith assured him, players from the NHL were giving a gift.
The man remained suspicious of the entire process telling Smith of a Russian proverb: The free cheese is always in the trap.
Not in this case, Smith explained.
Not at all.
In the beginning, the program was more broad-based, assisting communities who needed everything from new glass for their arenas to a new ice cleaning machine. Often the groups that received assistance were connected closely to players, perhaps from their hometowns.
Over time, the focus became narrower with Goals and Dreams almost exclusively funding new equipment for kids. The idea was that the players' association would work in concert with community groups in getting the gear in the hands of players whose parents could not afford to outfit their children. Things like ice time and arena equipment would fall to the communities or groups themselves.
"I have to say, not only am I extraordinarily impressed with how this program has been passed on from the players back then to the players now, I believe it will be passed on again and again," former NHLPA executive director Goodenow told ESPN.com recently.
As far as anyone connected with the NHLPA can figure, these are the first public comments that Goodenow has made since he left his post after the 2004-05 lockout that saw an entire NHL season go by the boards.
But Goals and Dreams came to life under Goodenow's watch, and while he rarely if ever traveled to see any of the programs -- he felt deeply that these moments were for the players -- he could not be more proud of what has been accomplished and what continues to be accomplished.
Sometimes we talk about legacies. What is a player's legacy? A team's legacy? What is the legacy of a sport itself?
Sure goals, championships and other achievements factor into it.
But you watch the kids gathered on this day by the Hawthorne Police Department, in this case many of them girls, asking organizers and NHL players questions about college, education and teamwork, and then gliding about the ice; and then you imagine this repeated around the world a thousand times over. That is something of a legacy.
Of the 70,000 given gear, how many have or will go to the NHL? Zero?
How many fundamental changes for young people will be produced through the Goals and Dreams projects?
"It's really a powerful thing that captures the essence of the game," Goodenow said.
"No, I never anticipated it would have the impact that it has."
Sgt. Jim Connor of the Hawthorne Police Department is unequivocal about the impact of the NHLPA's program in helping the dozens of kids who line up every Saturday to play some hockey in Los Angeles.
None of it would have happened. Period.
On this day, Connor, Sgt. Chris Cognac (another of the program's co-founders) and a small group of fellow officers are dervishes helping the NHLPA staff set up banners and tables, ferrying families who don't own cars to the rink, and making sure the kids get to their new jerseys and the right dressing rooms.
Alex Gomez, 12, has been playing with the Hawthorne group for a few months. It's something she never imagined she'd be able to do. As it turns out, she's a bit of a hockey nut. She watches college hockey, kids' hockey -- including Cognac's son's bantam-aged team -- and the Kings, when she gets a chance. She likes the fights, and she loves to be on the ice herself, even if she is just learning.
When she tells her friends at school what she does they are amazed.
"They're just like, 'wow, you know how to skate?'" she said with a laugh.
Would she like to keep playing as she gets older?
"Totally."
Maria Ozuna had her daughter Divinagloria Ozuna-Aragon, 7, in figure skating but couldn't afford to keep her in the program.
Ozuna is a single mom and that was part of life's sacrifices. But when she saw a flier for the Hawthorne program, she sold her daughter on getting back on the ice, even if it meant holding onto a stick, wearing a helmet and chasing a hard, round black thing around.
Divinagloria loves it.
"This is an opportunity," Ozuna said.
And when Ozuna sees her daughter on the ice, she feels what hockey parents feel regardless of whether they're in Moose Jaw or Faribault or El Segundo.
"I feel very proud," she said. "We're so grateful to God that this opportunity was given to us."
Longtime NHLer Steve Larmer, a man many believe should be in the Hockey Hall of Fame, was among those who made some of the first trips with gear, money and the promise of the game on behalf of the NHLPA.
He recalls going to Hay River in Canada's Northwest Territories to drop off equipment to wide-eyed youngsters in the remote community.
On a return trip, teachers and local law enforcement in the community told of better attendance in school, more focus from kids, and a better connection between adults and youngsters.
"I think one of the neat things is we are having this conversation 15 years later," Larmer said.
"It has such a profound effect on every community that they've ever been into to help with these kids."
So connected are players to this program that when veteran NHLer Kris King retired and took a job with the NHL, he asked for special permission to remain on the board of Goals and Dreams.
And every year new and often younger players become aware of the program and are drawn to it.
Hey, no one is suggesting that playing hockey is going to stop bad things from happening. It doesn't stop gun play in Hawthorne or neglect or drug abuse or any of the things that will always happen here and in any other city or town.
Life, sports, there are no guarantees.
But every Saturday, 60 or so kids -- Muslim, black, white, some in the United States illegally -- gather on the ice with nine or 10 officers and employees of the Hawthorne Police Department and other volunteers who have given their time to help out.
"We're a bag of Skittles when we show up at the rink," said Connor.
They play, they learn, they share space as equals regardless of whatever is going on in the places they left.
"It's far surpassed any of our imaginations," Connor said of the increasing participation.
A favorite memory? "Every second of it. I look forward to every weekend," Connor said.
"It's really created a terrific connection with the community. It's a terrific example of a community coming together through hockey."
At a time when the relationship between the citizens of economically challenged communities and law enforcement is raw and mistrustful, this is something different.
"These guys are amazing. And they don't ask for anything," said Jeffray Gardner, whose three children have been part of the program for more than a year.
Connor is a former undercover drug officer who also happens to be a to the core hockey guy. He recalls the first time he showed up at a hockey event in his uniform and the kids realized he was a police officer.
They were like: "huh? You're a cop?"
It might have been the first time some kids associated "police" with "human."
"Unfortunately, most of these kids and adults, when they meet police it's under unfortunate or bad circumstances," Connor said.
Now these officers are the men and women who help with skates and teach about a game they are learning to love.
"That experience is invaluable to all of us," Connor said.
There are two hard rules for kids who come to the Hawthorne skate/hockey sessions.
At the end of every Hawthorne session on the ice, Connor gathers them at center ice and tells them they've done a good job and worked hard. Then the kids must turn to each other and tell the person next to them they've done a good job.
When they get off the ice, their first task is to go to their parents or guardians or whoever has brought them and thank them for bringing them.
Will one of these kids ever make it to the NHL?
"Who knows," Connor said. "But we can help make good people here."
We often say, "oh, it's just a game." But on this ice and on ice surfaces around the globe, there is living, breathing, smiling proof that it's not always just a game.