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During my playing days in the NHL, my view on training camp was pretty much the same as every else's around the league: I couldn't wait for it to start and I couldn't wait for it to end! Before too long, I just wanted to get the regular season going.
This feeling is something that has withstood the test of time. Players from before my time felt that way. All of my contemporaries felt that way. So do today's players. I'm confident in predicting that the NHL players of the future won't feel any differently, either.
Training camp serves its purpose but when it comes right down to it, you want to play for keeps. Nothing counts in the preseason. Yes, there are several story lines that develop but for the most part it is just a dress rehearsal. I hated scoring a goal in the preseason. It might be the only one I got all year but it'd never showed up in my stats for the season. Hey, I scored so rarely that every one I got was special to me. I needed all the help I could get to memorialize a goal!
Of course, training camp is a different feeling if you are a rookie trying to make the team. The same goes for the “bubble” player; the career minor leaguer who is still chasing the dream or the veteran trying to get a contract after being let go by his former NHL team. If you are trying to make the team out of camp, you don’t want it to end too soon. You always crave that one more chance to solidify your spot.
I have been in all of those different positions. I remember what it was like to be a rookie trying to make the jump to pro hockey. It didn't matter that I was a first-round pick by the Atlanta Flames. I still had to prove that I belonged in the NHL.
I remember the many years when I entered camp with Calgary and the Philadelphia Flyers knowing I would be on the team. Those were the years where I was mainly focused on being ready for opening night and being in good physical condition for the season.
Late in my career, I got to know what it's like to be the veteran bubble player trying to earn a starting job. At least I had a contract. Other guys weren't so lucky. My main battle in the late years was to get in the starting lineup and not sit out as a healthy scratch. Nevertheless, I learned a lot about myself and the nature of the game during those years: it gave me an added dose of perspective and appreciation for each and every opportunity to play.
As a rookie and as a bubble player, each new day brings fresh hope. With each passing day that you are still there in camp, you have a chance to fulfill your dream of playing in the NHL. Every practice and every preseason appearance means there's another chance to impress the brass, another chance to make something happen, another chance to be noticed.
If you are trying to make the team, this is what it all boils down to: Do something to make them notice you! This is my best advice for any player of any age that is trying to make any team, whether its minor hockey, junior or the NHL. Don't wait for something to happen. Make it happen.
Far too many bubble players play it too safe because they don’t want to make a mistake on the ice. The problem with that approach is that you become invisible. These types of players make the decision process easy on management.
If you are a bubble player, put your body on the line. Block shots. Take the body. Drop the gloves to defend a teammate, even if the guy you are fighting is a much better fighter than you are. If you've got puck skills, show off those skills. In short, make yourself get noticed.
The last few days of camp are always filled with a lot of tension because you can see the team taking shape. Lines are being formed, defence pairings are finalized, the coaches are working more and more with the special teams as they try and find the right chemistry for them. When you are on the outside looking in while this is happening, it doesn’t look good.
For the most part, the general rule of thumb is that the NHL teams like to ice pretty much their final roster for the last exhibition game. As a player you will know pretty much were you stand a few days prior to “cut down day”. The tension of the last few days soon turns to emotion with the realization of whether or not you made the team.
For rookies who get “cut”, the feeling isn’t that bad. Nowadays especially, a lot of them are only 18 or 19 years old and they are not necessarily being sent down to the minors. They are going back to their Junior clubs where they will be the star player and get lots of ice time. Even if you are 20 years old, you take the demotion in stride because you are still going to be playing pro hockey and getting a paycheque for the first time.
Cut down day is always much tougher on the player that has played pro for a few years and has yet to crack the NHL. With each passing year, the dream of playing in the NHL is slipping further and further away.
During my career, I considered myself among the fortunate ones during the training camps. I always had a contract and I was always comfortable that I'd at least have a place on the team (some years more so than others). I really never had to worry about whether I was going to make the team at all.
Sure, there were times when the blueline was crowded and I was competing for ice time. For me that was okay. I loved to compete. I really never had to worry about getting that dreaded notification that I was being cut from the team. It was always about playing time. The main difference was, as the years rolled on, I was battling for a smaller slice of the pie.
Of the15 training camps that I participated in, a few of them, for different reasons stand out. My first NHL training camp with the Flames was awesome. Remember, under the NHL Draft rules of the time, I was 20 years old was I became eligible for the Draft. I was fully filled out, with 215 pounds on my 6-foot-3 frame. Physically, I was a man by that point, not a skinny adolescent.
As a first-round draft pick, I was excepted to make the Flames' team. Additionally, the Flames were thin on defence and I knew this. Even so, I still had something to prove. I went to camp to make something happen.
As camp went on, it was obvious that I didn’t have to be “worried” about cut down day, I was thinking of one thing only – how much ice time was I going to take from the veterans on the team. When the big day finally came, I wasn’t told that I made the team, I was told to go find a place to live. Training camp number one was a huge success from my point of view!
Now I’ll fast forward to training camp #6 . This was was in 1983 with the Philadelphia Flyers. The blueline was crowded; actually very crowded. I was not scheduled to play in the last exhibition game, this was not good and for the first time in my hockey career, I was unsure what was in store for me.
Did it mean I was I going to be relegated to the bench? Was I being traded? Bob McCammon, who was both the coach and GM of the Flyers at the time, told me not to worry. I still worried.
I have to be honest here, and this may reflect more on where my own head was at back then than it does on "Cagey": I never really trusted McCammon. I got the sense that Bob didn't really like or have faith in me as a player. I knew I was no Mark Howe -- an All-Star and a future Hall of Famer -- but I also knew I could help the team more than players I thought McCammon had put more trust in than I thought he had in me.
At least I still had two years left on my contract. I knew I wasn’t going to be released. Even so, I had no idea what McCammon's intentions were for me. It wasn't a good feeling.
The final preseason game was actually played in Atlantic City. A little pensively, I walked on the boardwalk to get to the game. Seagulls flew overhead. I think you can guess where this is going.
That's right: one of the seagulls crapped on me. It ran down my neck, right inside of my shirt collar. What a stink it left. They say it's good luck. Well, I believe it 100 percent.
When I got to the rink, there was an injury to a defenseman in warmup and I got to play after all. I had my best game of the preseason. To this day, I’m not sure of what the Flyers plans were for me or what road my hockey career would have taken had I not dressed for that game. I may have been on the bubble or I may not have been.
In the end, I actually ended up having a very good year in 1983-84, thanks in large part to assistant coach Ted Sator. As I have said in previous blogs, I owe huge debt of gratitude to Ted. He was the first coach that really took me under his wing and made me a better player. The longevity of my Flyers career was in large part due to a breakthrough year that season, which I carried over and built on in the years that Mike Keenan was the Flyers coach.
Now let's move ahead to training camp number 14. It's 1991 and I've just gotten through camp with the Detroit Red Wings. This was one of my proudest moments as a professional hockey player. Training camp was over, we were in Chicago for the first game of the year.
The morning skate had just finished and no one had been told yet who was playing in the team’s first game that night. Instead we were told to just show up at the game that night. If your sweater was hanging up, you were playing. I'm not sure why coach Bryan Murray decided to do this, but it sure created some tension at the pre-game meal.
We still had eight defenseman on the roster. I showed up to camp in great shape and ready to compete for my job, but I was unsure of where I fit in. I was now truly one of the “bubble players” who had to compete for his job every night, every practice.
I went to the rink that night with the trainers, about five hours before puck drop. The trainers would not tell me whether or not my sweater was up, so like a kid at Christmas I eagerly ran into the dressing to see if my jersey was hanging up – it was! All my hard work had paid off.
Training camp number 15 was my final NHL training camp and the first for the Ottawa Senators. This camp ended up having a comical twist and a very disheartening first for me.
The Sens' camp was held in Hull, which is located right across the river from Ottawa in the province of Quebec. As I was about to take to the ice for my first scrimmage, I was informed by the owner of the team, Bruce Firestone, that I could not participate unless I put on a helmet. I politely begged to differ.
Under the NHL's grandfather clause, players who entered the league any time after 1980 had to wear a helmet. Anyone who entered the league in 1979-80 or earlier had the option. Although I had briefly worn a helmet at the very start of my NHL career with Atlanta and immediately after suffering a head injury in my final season with the Flyers, I played the vast majority of my career without one. I intended to finish my career without the bucket.
I actually missed the first day of camp. Mr. Firestone finally relented when he was read the helmet regulations for himself and was satisfied that I was, in fact, grandfathered in to play without a helmet if I chose not to. What made this whole thing a bit comical was the fact that, by this point of my career, Craig MacTavish and I were instantly known around the league for being "those guys who play without helmets."
Call me stubborn. Call me foolish. That's fine. However, I did take pride in being known as a throwback player who was around long enough to actually have the option to choose for myself whether or not to wear a helmet. I started my career with a (very) full head of hair. I ended it, well, with not very much hair left at all. For that reason alone, it's pretty easy to tell when a photo of me on the ice was taken even if you don't look at the uniform.
Anyway, training camp with the Senators was, for the most part, a lot of fun. It was neat being back in a Canadian city where hockey is the talk of the town. Being an expansion team, you can only imagine all of the hype leading up to not only the first game of the season but the first game in the franchise’s modern history. At that early stage, no one expected us to win a lot of games (and we sure didn't!). Simply having an NHL franchise was exciting.
Everywhere I went, people told me how much they were looking forward to that first Senators game. Rehearsals for the opening night ceremony were going on after practice in the days leading up to the game. It was going to be really cool to participate in this historic game.
There was just one problem: I didn’t get the chance.
Coach Rick Bowness told me after the morning skate that I wouldn’t be dressing. He added that I probably would not be in lineup very much at all in the upcoming season. I’ll keep to myself the conversation that followed that little bit of news, except to say that I'd been led to believe a bit differently during camp and I did not buy into his plan for me now that the season started. After I said my piece, I shut my mouth.
I have always been a believer in this philosophy: Choose your attitude. I chose to have a positive attitude. I was determined to come to the rink every day, have fun and work as hard as I possibly could. I'd make myself noticed in a good way.
Through hard work and determination, I ended playing 59 games for the Senators that final year. In other words, I played in more games than I got scratched. I was also honored with a special selection to play in the NHL All-Star Game that year. I'll tell that story another time.
For now, enough with my rambling. Let's drop the puck on the NHL season and let the games begin!
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