00:02:00 - [Text]: Since founding the Baltimore Banners hockey team in 2002, Noel Acton has lost 48 players to gang violence.

00:30:02 - [Reporter] This was at the annual Bridging the Gap game against the Baltimore Sentinels. That was the game winning goal right there. The Banners, sadly last fall, two of their members, Davon Peanut Barnes and Abe Luden, were victims of gun violence.

00:42.87 - We did this for our long lost brothers. Rest in peace our brothers. You know how we do.

00:47.34 - [Reporter] The two were members of the Baltimore Banners hockey team.

00:50.67 - [Reporter] Daryl Fletcher says he lost a brother. But if this game has taught him anything it's to always get back up.

00:57.93 - I'm holding back so much emotion right now.

01:11.27 - Tender Bridge founder, Noel Acton, has been working with Baltimore City youth through sports since 2003. Ice time with teammates is time off the streets, a chance to skate toward a better life.

01:32.05 - [Text] For Peanut

01:39.58 - My whole life just been adversity after adversity after adversity. Ain't nothing. ♪ Rain, rain go away ♪ ♪ Come again another day ♪

01:52.55 - Sing it, come on. Come on, let's sing it with you. ♪ Rain, rain go away ♪ ♪ Come again another day ♪ ♪ Rain, rain, want to play ♪ ♪ Rain, rain go away ♪

02:11.82 - My first year of hockey, I was living here. This is my hood, I love it. I mean, I ain't gonna say I don't like it. This is who I am, this is me. My mother had lost our house the end of my eighth grade year and me going into high school. So that's when I came and moved with Noel. That man a saint. He took me in. But P[eanut] like, "Bra, I'll come up here with you if you really gonna move up here". So he moved up there with me.

02:45.60 - Well, they weren't best friends, they were brothers. They each refer to each other as their brother. They shared the middle room and, you know, it was like, shared clothes, share everything.

03:03.75 - My guy. He ain't gone, you feel me? Ain't gonna never be forgotten. I remember I got that call, I'll never forget. "Your brother got shot." I'm like, "Bro, you lying". Like, I didn't wanna believe it. I called his sister. She told me like, "Yeah, he good. Like we on our way to the hospital right now. Be ready soon." She called me back like 20 minutes later like, oh. She was crying. "He gone." Coming from here, it's just like... That's what it is, it's either you go to jail or you in a box. You better choose them two, like, or build another path for yourself and take your whole family out this motherfucker. Yeah, my guy.

04:12.47 - When you got that same struggle or timeline or whatever you want to... We got something in common that just be like, man, and that's my man. Gotta look out for one another. Gotta stay close to what we know. We know what's our...what we capable of. We just trying to reach them expectations.

05:10.44 - You never try to change the kid's behavior. You try to change the kid's outlook on life. You coming to hockey today? Every positive interaction you have with the kid is changing his life, moving it a little bit and it builds. It's not one thing that's gonna really click and make it a big difference. It's being consistent, being, over time. He's probably had as many traumatic difficulties. You know, he's been homeless in and out, God knows how many times. He's known, God knows how many friends have got shot and killed. Family members have died. You know, baby brother, his baby brother died. You know, things like that.

06:03.45 - I was asleep and I just heard, like, I just heard my mother yelling. I heard my mother yelling and I was in the basement of the house. Something was just like, just go upstairs and just go check. Next thing you know I just hear my mother say, she ready to kill herself. She can't take it no more, and she had a gun in her hand. I'm like, "Ma, what is you doing?" We get to fighting over the gun and it went off and hit me in my face. I woke up. It's just literally a miracle. It's a blessing I'm still here. I could have literally died. I know if he [Peanut] was still here, if he was still here, he'd want me to keep going. He wouldn't want me to stop doing what I'm doing. Everybody on the team, I don't just know them because of hockey. All of us from that same area. So everybody that play on that hockey team know each other. We grew up together, literally, like since we were kids. And so hockey was just a plus for us to stick together. Like, hockey is just like another piece of my life that probably I was missing or I needed to get me over certain humps. The people I hang around, they don't want me to stop. Do something good with you life. Get us outta here. So that's what I'm trying to do. Noel and hockey gave me an opportunity that some people didn't. It just be the little things, like, during that time I don't know what I could have been doing, getting myself into trouble, doing anything. It be the little things that matter so much, especially coming from Baltimore City. It's not just friends playing hockey. It is just a brotherhood. It's a bond that we built, you feel me, since we was younger. We a family.

09:23.56 - All set? Off we go to college. There was a comment Daryl made the other day. He said, "Am I your son?" I said, "Of course". "You know you've been here for all this time. Of course you're my son. Yeah, you and Peanut".

09:48.87 - Come on, it just don't get no better than this man. It just don't get no better. It just don't get no better than being a Banner.

10:10.00 - [Text] Daryl Fletcher is a student at Sussex County Community College. After college, Daryl plans to become a public defender.