Jim Marquardt was 16 and seeking some privacy. He had an important letter to write and his short attention span couldn’t compete with the TV in the living room, so he retreated upstairs to his sister’s bedroom.

He shut the door and started scribbling. It was a Saturday night, and while his brain was telling his right hand what to write on the white legal pad, his ears were listening to the St. Louis Blues hockey game. He loved the team and specifically its goaltender, Mike Liut. He tuned into KMOX radio to hear Hall of Fame broadcaster Dan Kelly belt out, “What a spectacular save by Liut!”

On this particular night, the volume was low because Marquardt had to be dialed in. In a page or two, the high school sophomore wanted to capture what to say to his sports hero.

He poured his heart into his words, and as a poor student hoping for the letter to be perfect, he later took it to his English teacher for help. The teacher wondered why a student with flunking grades was suddenly motivated but made the corrections nonetheless. It was handwritten, so every mistake meant a rewrite. The final product was five pages and took a month to finish.

“I remember everything I wrote in that letter,” says Marquardt, now 59.

Mike, my name is Jim Marquardt. I play hockey, and I’m trying to learn the best I can. I watch you play, but there’s so much that I don’t know. I need some help.

Marquardt quizzed Liut on how he defended a two-on-one rush, how he dealt with pressure, how he forgot a bad goal. But this communication was more than an aspiring goalie asking technical questions of a professional. The teen didn’t have a hockey team. He was academically ineligible to play in his first three years of high school. And he had a troubled home life.

Marquardt’s family — father Gene, mother Evelyn, brothers Bill and Mark, and sister Jackie — were his world, but there was alcoholism, fighting and depression. His siblings sheltered him from a lot of the heartbreak. When something was happening he shouldn’t see, they’d say, “Jim, why don’t you go outside?” But they couldn’t protect him from everything. Dad was a cab driver who spent a lot of late nights in a pool hall, and there were mornings when Marquardt knew he wasn’t getting a ride to school and made the two-mile walk.

“My parents wanted the best for all of us, but their lifestyles were rough,” he says. “I loved them dearly, but there were things — looking back, it was a brutal environment. Hockey was my ‘In case of emergency, break glass!’”

And Liut was the mentor that Marquardt desperately needed.

The fascination started with the mask — all white, contoured to account for facial features, with cut-out holes for the eyes and ventilation.

To Marquardt, Liut was the Iron Man superhero in the Marvel Comic collection. When Marquardt played hockey every Saturday morning in the basement of his childhood friend Bob’s apartment, both wanted to be the goalie because that’s who wore Liut’s jersey. “I’m Mike! I’m Mike!”

When Marquardt wasn’t playing, he was filling up a scrapbook with newspaper clippings about Liut. He recorded games on TV, and when Liut made a glove save, he’d hit rewind and rewatch it in slow-motion. “How’d he do that?”

Marquardt watched all of Liut’s postgame interviews, even changing the channel to hear the same comments over and over again. Once, the goalie was a guest DJ on a local radio station and Marquardt called in to ask a question. Mike, this is Jim from St. Louis. How do you keep so cool?

“My life was a mess and Mike was the calm,” he says. “He was everything as a human being that I wanted to be. I thought, ‘How do I get there?’”

He hoped Liut would respond to the letter, but Marquardt first had to get it to him.

He bought a single ticket to a Blues game, and his dad dropped him off in his cab. His seat was in the rafters, but he walked down to the bench. He had put the letter in an envelope with “Mike Liut” written on both sides, so if it flipped over in the air, his name would still be facing up. He reached over the glass and released it from his fingertips.

Marquardt took off running because he was worried about getting reprimanded by an usher. Several rows up, he turned and watched then-Blues coach Jacques Demers scoop up the letter and slip it into the pocket of his brown suit.

“Half of me was optimistic, thinking, ‘Jacques might give it to Mike,’” he says. “The other half of me was thinking, ‘He’s never going to get it.’”

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and Marquardt figured any more pointers from Liut would have to come from TV. Then one day, as he arrived home from school, Jackie came sprinting out of the house. She had a big white envelope with “St. Louis Blues” written on it. “Jim, look!” she shrieked.

Marquardt sat stunned. It took him a moment to open the letter. When he did, what he pulled out was an autographed picture: “Best wishes, Mike Liut.” Then a two-page handwritten letter on white paper: “Hey Jim, here’s answers to your questions. I hope this helps you!”

Liut offered tips about playing the position and personal words of advice: “The only person you have to satisfy is yourself.”

The letter Mike Liut wrote to Jim Marquardt. (David Foley / Special to The Athletic)

At that point in his life Marquardt says he was a lost soul. He wasn’t going to jail, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

“What Mike did for me, writing back, it was like putting jumper cables on a dead battery,” he says. “I was the dead battery. Mike was the charge.”

His sister, who is one year older and was headed off to college soon, saw potential.

“Jim has always had a tender heart,” Jackie says. “He just didn’t have confidence in himself. Mike came along when it was the right time for Jim to have a mentor.”

Marquardt returned to school and told teachers that he had a purpose: He just wanted to play hockey before he left that building.

With only one more opportunity to make that happen as a senior, Marquardt’s grades suddenly soared, and when Mr. Gilbert, his history teacher, flipped an “F” to a “D,” he was finally eligible.

There were still two issues: He didn’t have equipment, and he couldn’t skate.

Marquardt’s dad had an idea for the goalie gear, calling the Blues to see if they had some for sale. The team invited them to The Arena and into the locker room, where Marquardt was mesmerized when he spotted Liut’s jersey hanging in his stall.

There were two options for the goalie pads: an old, beat-up set belonging to Liut, or a brand-new set that Michel “Bunny” Larocque had left in St. Louis.

Surprisingly, Marquardt didn’t choose Liut’s set. “Larocque’s pads were just gorgeous,” he says.

Jim Marquardt’s goalie pads. (David Foley / Special to The Athletic)

Marquardt was now a high school backup goalie wearing NHL pads, but while he looked the part, he was hanging onto the boards in practice and teammates were mocking him.

Marquardt was also, however, hanging onto Liut’s words.

“I must’ve looked at that letter 100 times before playing in the games,” he says.

Marquardt logged all of his games in a journal. “You need to work on your concentration!” one entry said. He also kept notes about how Liut performed: “Man, Mike did great!”

Marquardt progressed to the point where he took over the starting goalie job, and on the verge of a shutout one night, the crowd started chanting: “Li-ut! Li-ut!”

But just like that, Marquardt’s competitive hockey career was over, almost as soon as it started. In his only year of eligibility, he was the rookie of the year. In the grainy team picture, he’s holding a goalie stick with “Liut” written in black marker.

In the four decades since, Marquardt married his wife, Chris, and the couple had two children, daughter Kenna and son Brett. He worked in the food industry for about 25 years and then in HVAC and plumbing for 10.

Going back to his late 20s, he also kept part-time jobs at a number of local churches, often working with youths. It was a way of paying it forward. “Maybe I can help these guys get through it,” he says.

For nine years, that part-time job was at The Crossing church. He found it more fulfilling than his day job. He was also jealous that his wife, a teacher for 29 years, got “to change lives every day.” So last year, he took a full-time position at the church.

At The Crossing, campus pastor Angela Beise now sees Marquardt changing lives.

“He wants young people to discover what he discovered and avoid the heartache he’s experienced,” Beise says. “He found hope and a way to keep going.”

They learned about Marquardt’s compassion at the church, and they also learned about his tattoo. Biese jokes that when she first saw it, she thought it was from the movie “Silence of the Lambs.”

Marquardt had been thinking about getting a hockey tattoo for a while, and his wife told him, “When I think about you, I picture Liut’s mask.” He finally got it done at age 54.

Jim Marquardt displays his Mike Liut tattoo. (David Foley / Special to The Athletic)

It was the tattoo that led to Marquardt meeting Liut. He and Kenna attend one game per season, and last year’s happened to be the weekend Liut was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame (Jan. 20, 2024).

After a 3-0 win over the Washington Capitals, dad and daughter were leaving when Kenna ran into some friends. While she was talking to them, Marquardt spotted hockey reporter Andy Strickland and showed him his tattoo. Within seconds, Strickland was ushering them to a suite.

“My dad was like, ‘We’re going to meet Liut!’” Kenna says.

The conversation lasted less than 10 minutes, which wasn’t nearly enough time.

So one year later, on Jan. 25, The Athletic brought them back together.

At the beginning of their two-hour visit, Liut embraced Marquardt and recalled their brief meeting a year earlier.

“I thought it was going to be a little meet-and-greet, like, ‘Hey, you were my favorite player,’” Liut said. “But you started telling me the story, and it was like a freaking avalanche.”

“Yeah, I was like, ‘How do I say thank you’ in a few minutes?” Marquardt said. “Had I known I was going to have this opportunity …”

Mike Liut listens to Jim Marquardt’s story. (David Foley / Special to The Athletic)

Marquardt told Liut he was a hero to a young, impressionable kid who felt a strong desire to communicate that in his letter so long ago. Getting a reply from his favorite player was “life-changing.”

“I thought, ‘Now I have a direction in life,’” Marquardt said.

Liut called that the profound part of being a professional athlete.

“But what we can’t fully understand is that some of the people we meet are struggling,” Liut said. “We don’t have the capacity as 20-something-year-olds to understand what exactly we’re wading into. So I’m responding to you, but I’m not responding with the idea that I’m helping address that. I wouldn’t know how to start that letter because I’m not qualified. What hit me was, ‘How many kids did I not have this effect on because I didn’t follow through?’”

“The flip side of the coin,” Marquardt said.

“Yeah, the flip side,” Liut replied, starting to tear up.

Marquardt grabbed Liut’s hand to soothe him.

“You’re not going to reach everybody, but it’s knowing how far the impact can go,” Liut said. “I’ve always struggled with, ‘Have I put enough back?’”

“You’ve put more than enough back,” Marquardt said. “You’ve touched lives like mine.”

And then Marquardt pulled out the letter that Liut sent him more than four decades ago.

Mike Liut reads the letter he wrote to Jim Marquardt. (David Foley / Special to The Athletic)

The author, now 69, recognized the handwriting and began reading the words he wrote when he was just 27.

Jim, thank you for the encouragement. We all have ups and downs in life, it’s just how you handle yourself and know things always get better. The only person that you have to satisfy is yourself. Success will surface sooner or later.

“See, this was easy stuff for me,” Liut said. “But again, I’m not really picking up on how much you’re hurting.”

“How desperate I was,” Marquardt said. “I had no confidence back then. The only person in my sphere of life was me. It was population one, and it was like, ‘He took time for me?’ So yeah, that was one of the best saves you ever made.”

Marquardt told Liut about his dad getting the goalie equipment from the Blues.

“You made the wrong choice, right?” Liut said.

“I did,” Marquardt confirmed. “I wanted yours because it was you, but the others, I’m talking brand-spanking-new leather. My father, wow, he wrote a check for $250. He saw something with this sport and realized it was more than a want. He said, ‘My son needs this.’”

Liut nearly came out of his chair at that.

“Think about that!” he said. “Your dad, this was not easy for him to do, and he finds a way to get it done.”

As the conversation continued, Marquardt updated Liut on his life, including his new job.

“I’m going to work with as many people as humanly possible, so I can pass that baton on like you passed it on to me,” Marquardt said.

Liut acknowledged his role, but insisted that Marquardt was responsible for the outcome.

“Clearly I lived up to what you had in your mind, but all of this is just a simple act of kindness,” Liut said. “I’m happy, pleased and thrilled that I had that impact on you. But I just did it because you asked me about playing goalie. I had people who did so much for my career that this was just perfunctory. You took it exactly for what it is — somebody out there cared enough about me to respond.

“It does provide some context in my life, and I feel really good about it. But you did this. You did the work and made yourself a better person. It’s in all of us to be good people. It’s just in the decisions that we make.”

Before the two went their separate ways, they walked into a nearby locker room where Marquardt had laid out his Liut collection, featuring several scrapbooks, pictures, a stick, a jersey and those gorgeous Michel “Bunny” Larocque pads.

Jim Marquardt and Mike Liut. (David Foley / Special to The Athletic)

“What I brought here is my time capsule,” Marquardt said.

And the items were Liut’s to keep.

“I want to give you these things,” Marquardt said. “This is my childhood. This is part of my heart and soul I want to give you because I just want to say, ‘Mike, it was you.’ I want to say thank you for the letter that you took time to write. I love you for what you’ve done for my life.”

(Top illustration: Demetrious Robinson / The Athletic, with photos from David Foley / Special to The Athletic, and courtesy of Jim Marquardt)