ST. LOUIS — In March 2018, Jake Neighbours turned 16 and got his driver’s license. From then on, playing for the Midget AAA Calgary Buffaloes, he’d pick up teammate Ozzy Wiesblatt in his gold 2010 Chevy Malibu and the two would head to practice and games together.

They hadn’t known each other long, but, Wiesblatt says, “I knew instantly I liked the guy because he had a John Cena T-shirt and I loved wrestling. Just two young guys hanging out all the time. We became inseparable.”

Early on, when Neighbours pulled up to Wiesblatt’s house, he’d park and go inside. That’s where he met the family — mother Kim, her sons Ozzy, Ocean, Orca, Oasiz and daughter Oceania. He could sense the special bond the six of them had and couldn’t help but notice that they were all using American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate with Mom.

“That was the first time I ever saw sign language,” Neighbours says. “So I asked, ‘Can she hear at all?’ Ozzy was like, ‘No, she was born deaf.’ That’s how it all started. Ozzy is my best friend, and our families just became like one big family.”

Now in the NHL, Neighbours was thinking of that relationship with the Wiesblatts when he took on a special project with the St. Louis Blues. After months of work behind the scenes, the club began selling a new collection of hats this week that he helped design with a company called CAPX.

One has “Blues” written in sign language on the front, and another has his No. 63 in sign on the side. His goal was to raise awareness and money for the deaf community, which will happen with a share of the proceeds going to DEAF Inc., a community-based nonprofit organization in St. Louis.

“I think it’s a good look,” Neighbours, 22, says. “I know the Wiesblatts will love them, so hopefully we’ll get a couple for them, and it’ll be sweet.”

The story of the friendship between Neighbours and Wiesblatt became fairly public when the Blues took Neighbours with the 26th pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, and the San Jose Sharks announced Wiesblatt’s name with the 31st pick in the same draft.

Well, actually, San Jose didn’t announce Wiesblatt’s name. Former Sharks executive Doug Wilson Jr. used sign language.

Wiesblatt, 22, never played a game for San Jose before being traded to the Nashville Predators in June for forward Egor Afanasyev. He’s now playing with Nashville’s AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals.

But before the two became NHLers, they were carpoolers, and their friendship took off after a funny prank.

“One of the first times I talked to Kim, I asked Ozzy how to say something, and he told me to say something that was not what I wanted to say,” Neighbours says, laughing. “She looked at me and her mouth dropped. After that, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m not getting pranked anymore.’ I need to learn the A, B, Cs so that I can say what I need to say when I need to say it.”

What did Wiesblatt dupe Neighbours into signing to his mom?

“Nah, I can’t say,” Neighbours says.

“Yeah, we definitely won’t tell you what I said exactly,” Wiesblatt says in agreement. “I liked to mess with him a little bit, but my mom had four boys growing up, so she was no stranger to stupid stuff.”

Neighbours followed through on his commitment to learning how to sign more fluently, practicing with Wiesblatt on their bus trips with the Calgary Buffaloes to Edmonton and Grande Prairie, Alberta.

“I knew the alphabet, so I knew how to sign letters, but Ozzy would tell me how to say the word,” Neighbours says. “So if I was spelling C-A-T, he would say, ‘No, this is (the sign) for cat.'”

Or as Wiesblatt remembers, “I’d tell him a sentence to say to me and he would say it back. It just got to (the) point where he got really good and didn’t need my help anymore. It’s definitely a process, but he keeps getting better.”

The more Neighbours grasped, the more impressed Kim was.

“She’s such a sweetheart,” he says. “When I would say something, her appreciation is what drove me. Then I just got addicted.”

Wiesblatt believes that Neighbours’ genuine interest in signing is partly what endeared him to the family.

“My brothers have had friends who have learned a couple of words like ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ but Jake kept wanting to learn more and more,” Wiesblatt says. “He can hold a full conversation, not just with my mom, but anybody that’s deaf and uses sign language. I think it’s a pretty cool thing for him to have in his back pocket.”

Neighbours gets a little rusty with it during the season but brushes up by watching the people who do the signing on TV for events such as press conferences or singing of the national anthem.

“It’s emotion, it’s a physical thing, so if you’re not doing it all the time, you lose the muscle memory,” he says. “But I’ll FaceTime Ozzy and his brothers and we’ll do sign. I’m not fluent, but it’s a fun thing to do, honestly.”

Earlier this month, there was an important exchange between Neighbours and Wiesblatt when the Predators called up the winger for his NHL debut.

Five years ago, the friends spent draft night together, and after being selected six spots apart they talked about the day both would make it to the league. It happened in 2021 for Neighbours with the Blues and now it was happening for Wiesblatt.

“It was New Year’s Eve when I found out, and I called him right away,” Neighbours says. “He was so emotional — just so happy.”

“He knows how hard I’ve been working toward it,” Wiesblatt says. “I’ve been through everything with that guy, so to finally be able to call him and be like, ‘I’m going to the NHL,’ it was a really cool moment.”

Wiesblatt played two games with Nashville, and the NHL’s schedule-makers did their magic. His first game was in Vancouver, where he was born, and his second game was in Calgary, where his family moved when he was 13. Mom made it to the games, along with two of his brothers and his sister.

“You couldn’t really write it a better way,” Wiesblatt says. “That was special for her, as you can probably imagine. We all grew up playing hockey with the goal of making it to the NHL, and to have them live it through me is super cool. It’s something that none of us will ever forget.”

The Predators had a couple of players return from injured reserve, so Wiesblatt was re-assigned to Milwaukee, but he’s vowing to get back to the NHL. When he does, he’d like to design a hat for Preds fans, like Neighbours did with the Blues.

“I called Ozzy when I made the hats, told him everything that was coming out, and he was really excited,” Neighbours says. “It’s nice that the Blues would support this, so I’m very thankful for the platform and the opportunity.”

Wiesblatt says Neighbours wanted to keep the hat a surprise and didn’t think his mom knew about it before the release. He thought Neighbours would likely send her a picture and then a hat.

“They look pretty sweet, so hopefully I’ll get to do that with Nashville,” Wiesblatt says. “I think if we can include the deaf community more in our game, that’s something I want to do. My mom, she loves hockey, and to have her community be thought of in that way, that would be awesome.”

The hats were flying off the shelves at the Blues’ team store, STL Authentics, during Thursday’s game against the Calgary Flames.

A few feet from where fans were trying them on was David Cowan, who is the agent for both Neighbours and Wiesblatt with O2K Worldwide Management Group LLC.

“Jake is an extremely supportive person, and the Wiesblatt family is close to his heart,” Cowan says. “Those two are inseparable. They’re brothers. We kind of laugh in the agency that they should have their own TV show because they just have fun.

“It’s cool to see the fan base embrace Jake and be a part of it. He’s trying to create something special with sign language, and I’m not surprised that his mind went to do something bigger than hockey. It’s just who he is.”

By Friday, the hats were sold out on STL Authentics, according to the website.

One Blues fan who got one before they were gone Thursday was Steven Weinmann, whose grandmother taught sign language in the St. Louis area years ago, which created some sentimentality for him.

“It’s always been interesting to me, and my kids learned a little bit of sign language with their school,” Weinmann said. “It’s great what Jake is doing, reaching out to the deaf community, and what a great concept with the hat. I like the fact that it says Blues underneath the sign language, so it gives you the meaning. I’m going to don one well and wear it with pride.”

And to think, the idea, the emotions, the love all began with two young hockey players riding around in a 2010 Chevy Malibu.

Where’s that car now?

“I actually drive it,” Wiesblatt says. “I took it over from Jake this year. I love it! I’ve put some miles on it, and it’s not the prettiest car, but it does the job, that’s for sure.”