Snowman On Fire

Mike Mottau gives me hope at the blue line. He’s emblematic of the path taken by a number of Devils players: a Massachusetts native, played for Boston College (at the same time Gionta was there), and I (for one) had never heard of him. On the surface, he appears to be a dark horse for a true rookie season: 30 years old, drafted in the seventh round by the Rangers back in 1997, and survivor of very short stints with the Rangers and Flames, interspersed with long runs in the AHL in Hartford, Worcester, Peoria, Saint John and Cincinatti. He was tradeed (Rangers to Flames), picked up as a free agent (Ducks) and then signed again as a free agent (Devils, in 2006).

But the guy has a great pedigree, including winning the Hobey Baker Award in 2000, a year in which his competitors were Steve Reinprecht, Shawn Horcoff, Brian Gionta, Mike Comrie and Andy McDonald. Perhaps he’s last to make it to the NHL full-time, or maybe he needed some of Kleinendorst’s “get simple” methodology at Lowell, but he’s turned into another Paul Martin style defenseman in the bud.

Now if only Sutter would stop putting Oduya out on the power play (am I the only one who thinks Johnny O looks very lost at the PP point?)

I had the pleasure of seeing great displays of sportsmanship today from youth athletes, and it made me proud to be a hockey dad, a team manager for the NJ Devils Youth Club and of course my own son’s father.

We started in our own rink, watching the tail end of a Mite game that was tied 4-4. WIth 90 seconds left, there was a lot of action in our might-mite Devils end, but they cleared the puck and fired off a few shots of their own. With ten ticks left, the puck squirted out of the attack zone, was picked up by a speedy winger, and we all watched as he raced toward our end of the rink. He had to beat both the defense and the clock. Which he did, and although he pulled up just about even with the goal line, he popped a shot in off of our goalie’s skate, the puck nestling into the back of the coincidentally with the final horn. The defenseman walked over to his goalie as the teams lined up for handshakes, and tapped him on the helmet.

He also happens to be the younger brother of one of my son’s former teammates, so I recognized him at Dunkin’ Donuts twenty minutes later. I told him how proud I was of him, and his whole team, for keeping their heads up, shaking hands, and supporting their goalie. I hope he remembers his good acts of sportsmanship long after he’s forgotten the score of the game.

Sportsmanship Act II took place 60 miles further south, on Princeton’s Baker Rink, named after the man who defined sportsmanship in the early 20th century, and whose name graces the award given to the top collegiate men’s hockey player. Baker Rink holds a very special place in my own hockey heart, for it’s where I first played hockey and scored my first goal. Today’s sportsmanship was a reflection of something that didn’t happen but was realized as another first: Our goalie recorded his first shutout of the season. On the way home, my son related that as the third period was under way, the blueliners told each other “We’re not going to let our goalie down,” everyone taking the extra stride mentally and phyiscally to help him earn a USA Hockey Patch. It was his first career shutout.

Above the reserved seats, beneath the student seating gallery, there’s a banner strung across Baker Rink that reads “Make Hobey Proud.” That’s exactly what our youth Devils did today.