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Buffalo Treating Kane Well From The Top Down |
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Prior to last week, Evander Kane hadn’t been on the ice in five months. Five. Months.
That’s the longest stretch of inactivity due to injury that Kane has ever had to endure in his extensive hockey career. After his orthopedic surgeon gave him the go ahead, Kane pulled on his Bauers, grabbed his twig, a bucket of biscuits and hit the ice.
Finally. Home sweet home.
While in Buffalo for his medical exam, Evander met with his new head coach Dan Bylsma. The two men spoke for two plus hours. The two men talked about hockey, life, and embarking together on their new experience in Buffalo.
Kane is living in Los Angeles right now and he is skating and working out every day in preparation for his much ballyhooed debut with the Buffalo Sabres. Come September 23, Sabres fans will get their first glimpse of Kane, Jack Eichel, Samson Reinhart and the Sabres playing together on the same team when Buffalo hoists Ottawa for their in exhibition hockey game. I’m going to call my shot right now. The barn will be sold out on that night and every other home date in the 2015-16 season.
On Friday afternoon, Kane was a guest on WGR in Buffalo. He praised Sabres owners Terry and Kim Pegula, as well as the Buffalo management and coaching staffs.
“Buffalo is treating me very well. Very well. From the top down”.
It took Kane a minute to get acclimated to Buffalo. Kane has been embraced by his new fans in his new community. He is feeling appreciated.
“In terms of the organization and the staff there, I didn’t know a whole lot and I was overwhelmed, and happy to see how things ran there. I just kind of got to know the Pegulas very well as well, and kind of get a feel for where they are at and how things are going.”
Kane looks forward to meeting Jack Eichel and all of his new teammates in due time. In the meantime, he feels right at home with the Pegula family.
“I think good ownership is very important. For me personally, going back to junior, I had a great relationship with the owner. The Vancouver Giants were a very tight family and it kind of corresponds well with how Buffalo runs its operation. Just being around the rink and some of the management already, you start to see it. You get a sense of it just being around the rink. It makes you want to work that much harder to be at your best for these guys”.
The Vancouver Giants ownership group consisted of high profile people such as the late Pat Quinn, Gordie Howe, Michael Buble, Bruce Allen, Sultan Thiara, and Ron Toigo. Kane felt welcomed and appreciated by them. He had high regard for his owners and the feeling was mutual.
Winnipeg fans rarely, if ever, heard Kane effuse such high praise on the ownership and management of the Jets. If similar words were uttered by Kane, they were done away from microphones and scribes with recording devices. The trade from Winnipeg to Buffalo came at a time when Kane needed it the most. He needed a fresh start. The Jets needed a change, too.
Kane said Friday that he’s looking through his windshield and not through his rearview mirror. He’s looking forward to hitting the reset button on his career. He wants to play a leadership role on the Sabres. It’s funny to think that he will be one of the older guys on the Sabres next season. He can speak from his firsthand experience about being a highly touted, teenaged, first round draft choice. He and buddy Zach Bogosian will be mentors to youngsters Eichel, Reinhart, Grigensons, Ristolainen, Zadorov, Grigorenko, Larsson, Deslauriers, and others.
Credit to the Pegulas and Tim Murray for doing their due diligence on Kane before they executed the blockbuster trade for him? Sure, money, ice time and adulation always appeal to the soon to be 24 year old superstar hockey player. But what else makes the kid tick? He is extremely close with his parents and two sisters. An overlooked element of his personality is that he is a devoted family man.
Evander’s father played junior hockey in Nova Scotia. He was also an amateur boxer. Kane’s mother was a professional volleyball player. His father, Perry, taught Evander how to ice skate at age four. Father and son would be regular attendees of the 6:15 a.m. skate-and-shoot ice times. Kane recently told Sportnet that his father would drill him in the fundamentals of hockey. Stopping, starting, backwards skating, cross-overs, power skating, stick handling and shooting.
“He didn’t want me to be one of those kids who couldn’t stand up and couldn’t skate and couldn’t move,” Kane recalled.
Father would put son through the paces without a whistle. Just Dad’s voice. Having played junior hockey, Perry knew what skills Evander would need to develop in order to succeed in the game. Father and son would run the drills over and over and over again until they became second nature.
Kane’s parents were strict with their three kids. His mother secretly registered him for hockey when he was eight years old. Evander, and his younger sisters, Brea and Kyla, who are two and four years younger than him, respectively, had to get A’s and B’s in school. The girls were competitive dancers. Evander made the honor roll every term but has said that his little sisters, who got good grades, “made me feel like I was getting F’s.”
Kane’s family didn’t live near a country club in a gated community. They weren’t rich. Kane says that his parents didn’t have any savings. Their family of five rented an upstairs apartment in Vancouver. Evander was forced to have to share a bedroom with his baby sisters. The girls shared a bed. Evander’s bed was on the other side of the room. His side of the room was painted blue and the girls had lavender on their side of the room.
Evander liked sharing a bedroom with his sisters.
“You always have somebody to talk to, and you’re always playing with somebody.”
“I think it made us a tight family,” Kane says. “It’s funny. I look back on it now, and everybody’s like, ‘Aaah, you didn’t have your own room when you were a kid?’ But it was fun to share a room with my sisters. I really enjoyed growing up.” He pauses. “I almost wish I could go back. Wish I could be a kid again.”
“The thing is, it’s not like I was a rich kid who grew up in the Hamptons, and Mommy and Daddy gave me a trust fund or something like that. I’ve worked hard. And I’ve been fortunate to have the family that I have.”
Kane can truly say that he is a rags to riches story. Nothing was handed to him. He had to earn his way up the ladder.
Terry and Kim Pegula might see all lot of themselves in Kane. From humble family beginnings to the top of their respective industries. They are never satisfied. They are committed to delivering winning results. And, winning championships.
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