The New England Patriots had just punched their ticket to Super Bowl LII, which meant Chris Hogan was going back with a chance for his second ring in as many seasons.
Select family members and team personnel — and yes, probably some fans along the way — began spilling onto the field inside Gillette Stadium for the impromptu postgame party in tribute of the AFC Champions.
MaryEllen Hogan watched nervously from the stands, and what she saw was her son searching the crowd, similar to the way goaltender Jim Craig famously tried to find his father in the frenzied aftermath in Lake Placid following the Miracle on Ice 38 years ago.
This was no miracle, of course, just another trip to the NFL’s Big Game for Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and a franchise that has made playing for Vince Lombardi trophies a habit.
The desperation for Hogan to seek out and eventually hug his wife, Ashley Boccio, was there, though, impossible to hide in the celebration.
“I just kept telling her, ‘Ash, just go. Go down there. They’ll let you on to be with him,’ ” MaryEllen Hogan, Chris’ mother said this week. “Finally she went down there, and I could see a woman leading her to Chris and they just hugged. And hugged. And hugged. That was everything.”
The embrace represented the culmination of quite the remarkable year for the Hogans.
“Got to celebrate with the person who drives me every day to be better,” Hogan wrote on Instagram, posting with that sentiment a photo of the couple lost in another conference championship moment.
Hogan was seemingly living the charmed gridiron life a year ago.
So much was made of Hogan’s underdog and unconventional journey to the Super Bowl in Houston last year, and rightfully so. His breakout game in the championship game with 180 yards receiving and two touchdowns helped his story go national: from Bergen County and Ramapo High School to Penn State on a lacrosse scholarship, then an unexpected detour and a second chance at a football career at Monmouth University, followed by a long shot opportunity to make it in the NFL.
Hogan, 29, made it to the league all right, catching passes from Brady and capturing his first Super Bowl title with the Patriots.
This was a dream ending, for sure, but the book wasn’t closed.
You see, the next chapter was even more of a whirlwind.
Six weeks after the Super Bowl, Ashley gave birth to their twins, Parker and Chase.
Ashley and Chris were married July 1.
Soon after, Chris was off to training camp in Foxborough, Mass.
It was time for a new season, one he hoped would cement his play.
What the Hogan family never realized is just how challenging their new world would be.
Chris started off well, even making good on a promise in Week 3 when he playfully told Parker and Chase he would catch a touchdown for each of them.
And he did.
But Hogan wound up missing the later half of the regular season with a shoulder injury. All the while he was forced to spend significant time away from Ashley and the twins while living outside Boston.
Complicating the situation, Ashley is in the final year of her residency in podiatry at Long Island’s Northwell Hospital.
The Hogans do what they can to make it all work. Erinn Hogan, Chris’ younger sister, works as nanny for the twins when Ashley is at work, while both sets of grandparents offer their help as well.
“The injury was a reality check for everybody, and especially Chris,” Jim Hogan, Chris’ father, said. “When he got hurt, the first thing you think about is, ‘Oh my god, how serious is this,’ and I said to Chris, if this was the worst thing to happen to you in your whole NFL career, consider yourself lucky.
“But being the guy that he is, the kind of player that he is, and he doesn’t want to take a day off from practice, let alone a game, it was pretty hard for him for four or five weeks, he was pretty down in the dumps. The challenging part was not just the football, but being away from Ashley and the twins.”
Hogan missed seven of the final eight regular season games. He returned against the Dolphins in Week 14, but had just one catch, leading the Patriots to shut him down again until he was completely healthy.
His return came in the divisional round against the Titans, and featured a touchdown catch after which Hogan threw the football into the stands in jubilation.
“It’s frustrating. For me, I’ve never been hurt before like that. I never missed this many games,” Hogan said. “At first, it was frustrating not to be out there on the field. You put a lot into this. To miss those games and not be out there with the guys is definitely frustrating. Once you kind of get over that frustration, you do whatever you can to a) get yourself better and get back on the field and b) just making sure you’re kind of in tune with everything that’s going on. Whether that’s being in the meetings, being attentive, watching the film. Kind of putting yourself visually in those situations so when you’re back out there, on the field, you try to feel like you haven’t missed that much time.”
For Patriots home games, Ashley drives nearly 500 miles round trip to make sure Chris gets to see them before and after games. Just about every week during the season, on the Patriots’ off days, Chris gets in his car and heads to their Long Island home, usually spending 12 hours with his family before turning around and traveling back to New England.
Of course, they use technology to improvise when apart: Chris gets to watch the twins play in their home via FaceTime — sometimes the Hogans will prop up a tablet on the dining room table just so he can get a feel for what life at home is like.
Unlike last season, the entire Hogan family is planning on being here for Super Bowl LII.
Last year, at seven months pregnant, Ashley was advised not to travel, so she was not in attendance in Houston. They’re all coming to town Thursday, and the hope is for everyone to be together on the field at U.S. Bank Stadium late Sunday night with confetti all around them.
“Winning the Super Bowl last year was an incredible moment for Chris, for Ashley and for our entire families,” MaryEllen said. “If the Patriots win, with his wife and kids in attendance, this will just put it over the top. This is what he does all of this for. He does it for her, and for them, and they weren’t there last year.
“That’s why this one, if they win, has a chance to be so much more special than any of us could ever imagine.”
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