When Jeff Cates decided his company, Cates Fine Homes, should sponsor the Stillwater High School boys’ hockey team’s power play, he had no idea what sort of financial commitment he was signing up for.

Over and over, “Cates from Cates for the Cates Fine Homes power play goal!” rang out at St Croix Valley Recreation Center in Stillwater, Minn., and each time, Jeff would be forced to pull out his checkbook.

» READ MORE: Five keys to the Flyers being competitive under John Tortorella in 2022-23

“We kind of broke the bank on what we planned to do,” Jeff said. “They literally scored more power-play goals than they [ever] had.”

Jeff’s sons, Jackson and Noah, were responsible for a large chunk of that monetary hit.

Born 16 months apart, Jackson, 24, and Noah, 23, have played on a team with each other every other year for most of their lives, and their chemistry has always been remarkable. They pushed, fed off, and complemented each other at every level, earning accolades and winning championships along the way.

On April 23, 2021, Jackson debuted for the Flyers. A grade ahead of Noah, Jackson typically stepped first with Noah watching and learning before joining him the following year. However, once it was Noah’s turn to go pro the following year, also with the Flyers, Jackson wasn’t there to greet his brother in the locker room.

Sidelined by a serious leg injury, Jackson watched with pride as Noah made his NHL debut on March 30. Noah would go on to make a major impact with the Flyers, scoring five goals and adding four assists over the final 16 games.

» If you value this kind of journalism, please subscribe today.

Once the season ended, both returned to Stillwater to prepare for possibly the biggest training camp of their lives. With John Tortorella taking over as the Flyers coach, they are desperate to make a good impression. Jackson needs to prove he’s recovered from his injury, while Noah needs to build on last year’s momentum. Both also want to show that as good as having one Cates brother is, having two is even better.

Jeff didn’t plan to start both his boys in hockey at the same time. But it proved to be more of a challenge to manage Noah off the ice than on it.

“Noah was running around the rink and driving me nuts that I couldn’t keep track of him,” Jeff said. “So I decided I’m going to put you on the ice so I can find you. So they started hockey together.”

Jeff also didn’t intend to coach his sons. But each year when the local team was looking for volunteers, Jeff found his college hockey experience (he played at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls) was in high demand. He compromised by sticking to the role of defensive assistant — his sons being forwards.

Jeff, and Jenny, his wife, tried to get the boys involved in other sports, too. But they both found it was a whole lot harder to get them moving for baseball or lacrosse practice than it was for hockey.

“There was plywood on every single part of this basement because there were puck holes. Everywhere.”

For Jackson and Noah, it was all hockey, all the time.

“We were a little obsessive,” Noah said. “We loved it.”

Although there was an ice rink right down the road, the Cates brothers had a closer option — their unfinished basement. Jackson and Noah would disappear down there for hours. Sometimes, their parents joined them. Jenny acted as the goalie until the boys’ shots got too hard and she switched to the role of announcer. Jeff played a form of monkey-in-the-middle with them, but as their stick skills got better, he found himself permanently stuck in the middle.

The basement also bore the brunt as the brothers improved.

“There was plywood on every single part of this basement because there were puck holes,” Jenny said. “Everywhere.”

Miraculously, they never broke anything.

With the one-year age difference, Jackson and Noah were on the same team every other year, and Jeff said they ended up being raised like twins. Those years were always easier for Jenny and Jeff, as they didn’t have to divide and conquer.

The teams also benefited when Noah and Jackson played together. The hours in the basement honed their chemistry and helped their games develop around each other. Jackson, typically bigger and stronger, played center and was the shooter. Noah, small and quick, aggressively tracked the puck down and set up his brother.

“I was very fortunate... Not a lot of people have a brother who they can play with and grow up with and compete against.”

Although Jenny doesn’t know everything that happened in the basement, she says she never really saw her sons fight. They were mellow on the ice as well, except for one fight in peewees when the other team was picking on Noah and Jackson jumped to his defense. For the most part, they worked in tandem, racking up points.

“They read each other’s minds, it seemed, at times, and I think a lot of people agreed with me,” Jenny said. “I think all the years of them just doing their little drills down here [in the basement] together came out on the ice.”

Jackson has always been one to observe and process while Noah prefers to jump right into things. However, as the older brother, Jackson was always the first to move up a level.

During those years apart, Noah peppered Jackson with questions. And then when Noah would join him, Jackson would do his best to help his brother fit in. Noah also tried to emulate Jackson, working to add a defensive side to his game and starting to shoot more. Watching Noah work to keep up with the older and bigger kids also benefited Jackson, who said it taught him to add tenacity to his game.

“Looking back now, I was very fortunate to be able to have that,” Jackson said. “Not a lot of people have a brother who they can play with and grow up with and compete against each other and help each other get better.”

Playing together was typically smooth sailing. However, when something did go wrong, it was typically Noah’s fault since he was younger.

Even with the occasional hiccup, both brothers counted themselves lucky to be able to play together. But it wasn’t until they started playing junior hockey that they realized how lucky they were not to have to play against each other.

“I think our freshman year, we weren’t more than 100 feet away from each other for a lot of the time.”

To this day, Jackson and Noah have only played against each other in an organized game three times. Despite winning two out of the three games and earning bragging rights, Jackson isn’t eager to repeat the experience.

“It was definitely weird,” Jackson said. “It’s not fun to play against him. I’d rather have him on my team.”

» READ MORE: Noah Cates makes dream debut for Flyers in Minnesota

Their paths were set to continue in separate directions, with Jackson committed to Michigan Tech and Noah to Minnesota Duluth. But by the time Noah walked onto Duluth’s campus his freshman year, his brother was once again by his side. Both hockey players and business majors, the two brothers were never far apart.

“I think our freshman year, we weren’t more than 100 feet away from each other for a lot of the time,” Noah said. “We slept right by each other and had every class together.”

They did their best to help each other out in the classroom despite having similar strengths and weaknesses — they like math but reading and writing “not so much.” On the ice, they helped the Bulldogs win the national championship.

When they asked their dad, who had won a Division III national championship at Wisconsin-River Falls, if that was what it felt like for him, he responded, “No, this is way better.”

Before starting his college career, Noah had been selected by the Flyers in the fifth round of the 2017 NHL draft. Meanwhile, Jackson was undrafted.

But as the Flyers checked in on Noah, they started to notice Jackson as well. After his sophomore season in 2020, they offered to sign him. Although it meant leaving college early, both he and his parents knew it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

But Noah stayed behind. As much as he loved playing with his brother, he wanted to see what he could do on his own. He also knew that he would always regret leaving before having a college year not spent in COVID-19 lockdown.

When Jackson made his NHL debut on April 23, Noah was in the stands at Madison Square Garden, enjoying one of the best days of both of their lives.

Here’s the thing about the Cates brothers — they’re sneaky, said Ben Hankinson, their agent and one of the founders of Da Beauty League, an elite exhibition league held every summer in Minnesota.

Hankinson has known the brothers since they were young, and they were just high schoolers when they first started playing in the league alongside pros.

Each year, he’d watch the brothers show up, flying under the radar except for a few inquiring glances.

» READ MORE: For four Flyers, Minnesota’s ‘Da Beauty League’ is home for the summer

“By the end of the day, they have three or four goals each and like 100 assists and don’t say a word,” Hankinson said.

Jackson’s NHL debut was similarly low-key. In the midst of the pandemic, Jenny managed to get nine people there to watch.

Noah’s was a completely different story. His senior year, which included him captaining the Bulldogs and playing for Team USA at the Beijing Olympics, came to a disappointing end on March 26 when UMD was eliminated from the NCAA tournament. The timing, though, presented a scenario the Cates family could never have imagined — an NHL debut for Noah against his hometown team, the Minnesota Wild.

“I definitely couldn’t even dream of that.”

“I definitely couldn’t even dream of that,” Noah said. “The chance they play in Minnesota once a year, once out of 82 games, and that it aligned with the end of my season.”

On March 29, Noah, still famous in Minnesota for his spin-o-rama goal to send Stillwater High to the state tournament, skated out to a roar at the Xcel Energy Center. Former teammates dressed in his old jerseys lined the glass and little kids wore their Stillwater Ponies gear and held up signs. To this day, Noah still hasn’t figured out how many people showed up for him. But there were at least 200 Cates fans, and no one in the arena could mistake that it was Noah’s debut.

Even Jackson was there, despite the leg injury he had suffered with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. He wanted to be there to watch, with tears in his eyes, as his best friend officially joined him as a Flyer.

“I was just so happy that he was so proud of his brother,” Jenny said.

While Noah didn’t score “three or four goals and 100 assists” that game nor over the next 15, he excelled with his aggressive forechecking and knack for being in the right place at the right time.

On a struggling team where bad habits had crept in, Noah’s winning mentality, attention to the small details, and consistency stood out. By the conclusion of the season, Noah looked the most NHL-ready of the team’s rookies and had emerged as a real bright spot for the future.

One thing was missing from Noah’s dream debut — his brother next to him on the bench.

After crashing into the boards and being stretchered off the ice on March 6, Jackson’s hopes of playing with Noah last season were dashed. And with Jackson set to become a restricted free agent, once the season ended, nothing was guaranteed.

With that in mind, the brothers returned home to Minnesota and got to work.

“It’s definitely good to get a little taste but preparing for my first training camp, [I’m] definitely working hard to put my best foot forward,” Noah said. “It kind of almost feels like a new team.”

Each morning, they go to the University of Minnesota to work out and occasionally skate alongside the Golden Gophers, some of whom Noah played with at the Olympics. On the occasional day Noah wants to sleep in, he runs the stairs in downtown Stillwater instead, going up and down the stairs that ascend 100 feet 10 times.

They relax after that, going to their cabin and out on the water. The brothers place value on relaxation after going through a crazy hockey schedule — one that will only get crazier for Noah as he makes the full jump from college to the NHL.

“I just thought anything after high school is a bonus. And I keep getting bonuses.”

Noah says he learned a lot from his experience with the Flyers — like how many minutes he can optimally play and the importance of sticking to his own game — but as usual, he learned more from watching his older brother.

“I want to be mentally strong,” Noah said. “The biggest thing I learned from Jackson and him signing pro was not to expect anything and [that] nothing’s set in stone.”

The lessons went both ways, though.

“I just learned from how he played the same way he has since he was a squirt,” Jackson said. “That’s the biggest thing. Just play your game and your time will come.”

Now that they’re back in the same uniform — Jackson signed a one-year deal with the Flyers on Aug. 15 — they’re no longer just hoping to each play their own games but to play their games together. They know camp will be tough, but Tortorella’s reputation doesn’t scare them. They embrace the challenge and hope that, even though they’ll be competing against each other for a roster spot, they’ll both show Tortorella they can be part of the team’s future success. If Jackson and Noah both crack the lineup this season, they will become just the fifth pair of brothers to suit up for the Flyers at the same time.

When Jeff and Jenny first put their sons’ little feet in skates, they never dreamed they would become NHL players. They’re thankful enough for the opportunities they’ve been given so far, ones that have already far surpassed expectations. Jeff still has to pinch himself sometimes.

“The Philly stuff is great and is the lottery,” Jenny said. “But UMD was amazing, to be here, so close, to have them play together again. I just thought anything after high school is a bonus. And I keep getting bonuses.”