A Rock who’s an old softie for mom

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CLEVELAND -- Rockne Brubaker not only remembered Saturday was his mother’s birthday but told a national TV audience and the crowd in Quicken Loans Arena about it.

When he and partner Keauna McLaughlin waited for scores that made them U.S. pairs champions for a second consecutive year, Brubaker put on a T-shirt he had hand-lettered Friday night to say, ‘Happy B-Day Mom.’’

Then the camera located Monica Brubaker and flashed her smiling reaction on the high-def big screens above the ice.

Brubaker, 22, also known as ‘Rock,’’ said the grand gesture did not get him out of buying a present, but explained his mother has expected her sons to do the unusual.

(Younger brother Collin, 19, had finished sixth in the junior dance event earlier in the week.)

‘We were always creative young kids,’’ Brubaker said. ‘We always made my mom laugh. She didn’t expect this, but I know she always expects us to do things that are kind of outrageous, and I just said, ‘What could be a better way to wish her happy birthday than on national television?’ ‘’

And what birthday was it?

‘She’s been 29 for a couple years now,’’ he said.

So I text-messaged Monica Brubaker to tell her how nice Rockne had been about the delicate subject of a woman’s age.

But, being a reporter, I tried to get to the bottom of the story.

‘I’ll never tell,’ she messaged back, ‘and neither will he if he knows what is good for him.’’

-- Philip Hersh