Trying to teach young children about Sept. 11 is a touchy subject, especially when they start asking why the attacks occurred.

Ryan was less interested in understanding “why” and more concerned about “who.” So we talked to both kids about Osama bin Laden. When he was captured last spring, and his name was all over the news again, Ryan again began asking about him.

We did our best to explain what had happened and why, but I’m not sure how much of it registered with him. He wanted to know if it would happen again, and as always, was not happy with the answer “we don’t know,” which does not fit with his black-and-white view of the world. Eventually, as the news story died down, he stopped perseverating on the idea.

His conversations returned to being 100% about hockey (as opposed to 95% during his brief interest in global affairs). But occasionally, the two subjects would cross, leading to this exchange one random morning:

“Dad, who was that guy that attacked America again? Was it Oliver Ekman-Larsson?”

Umm, no. This is Oliver Ekman-Larsson. He plays for the Phoenix Coyotes.

I’m sure we can all agree he is not Osama bin Laden.

He is, however, a fine young NHL player. I hope he is not offended by the comparison. And yes, we really do talk about hockey a lot in our house.