Hockey Towns

by Ron MacLean

  The place where you grow up nourishes you in countless ways. Regina, Saskatchewan, has become a hockey factory because everyone raised there believes the NHL is attainable. Of the twenty-five tour stops on Rogers Hometown Hockey in 2014–15, more NHL players hailed from Regina than any other city—eighty-eight players.

  After the season, I was golfing with my neighbour in Oakville, ex-NHLer Mark Kirton, who is also from Regina. Mark was adopted, so his athletic bloodlines are unknown, but his adoptive dad, Les, who worked for Sears, was an avid sports fan. Les’s favourite players were Billy Hicke and Fran Huck, a high-scoring Regina Pat who sacrificed four years of his professional career to play on the Canadian National Team for Father David Bauer. There were several pro athletes living near Parkwood Avenue, the street Mark grew up on. Ted Urness of the Saskatchewan Roughriders, a Canadian Football Hall of Famer, lived next door. Mark remembers visiting Ted when he broke his leg—Ted was at home in bed with a giant traction apparatus holding his big leg cast up in the air.

  In the late ’60s, when Mark was eight years old, Les would drop him off at Taylor Field, and he’d run in and join all the other kids in the Riders’ section to watch the game.

  From the time he was four years old on Campbell Street, he was playing road hockey with guys a few years older. Guys like Billy Bell and Glen Burdon, who would play on the Regina Pats’ Memorial Cup–winning team in 1973–74. In Regina it was all sports, all the time. The concept of a career in sports was everywhere in the city, and it fuelled Mark.

  Mark was always a smaller guy, so when he was in his early teens, he asked his dad to convert their garage into a gym, and he pumped iron daily after running six to eight miles around the nearest football field. He was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1978, and in his second year with Moncton’s New Brunswick Hawks, who were co-owned by the Leafs and the Chicago Blackhawks, his team made it to the Calder Cup final, where they lost to Hershey in six games. The Hawks were loaded with future NHL coaches—including Bruce Boudreau, Joel Quenneville, Ron Wilson and Darryl Sutter. Sutter was on Mark’s wing, as was longtime Hawks forward Rick Paterson. Mark also played his first NHL game with the Maple Leafs that season, and he went on to enjoy eleven seasons as a pro—six with Toronto, Detroit and Vancouver, playing against other Regina natives, including Doug Wickenheiser. Mark was five foot ten and 172 pounds, but he had watched Riders’ quarterback Ron “The Little General” Lancaster star in the CFL, so he knew a smaller player could succeed.

  Jordan Eberle is the same way. At a key point in his development, Jordan was mentored by Regina’s Dale Derkatch—a five-foot, five-inch, 145-pound player who shredded WHL scoring records.

  When Jordan was seventeen, in April 2008, he teamed with another well-known Canadian junior prospect, Taylor Hall of the Windsor Spitfires, to lead Canada to the under-18 world title, smoking Russia 8–0 in the final. Jordan led the way with a pair of goals. It was a precursor to his performance of a lifetime at the 2009 World Junior Championship. Thanks to his two-time performance at the World Juniors (in 2009 and 2010), he’s acquired the “clutch” tag.

  Eberle and Hall also won gold at the IIHF World Championship in Prague, Czech Republic, in May 2015. Seeing two Edmonton wingers flanking the Penguins’ star centre, Sidney Crosby, took me back to the 1987 Canada Cup, when Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux centred Oilers Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier. Once something has been done, it’s easy to believe it will happen again.

  Jordan Eberle’s just getting started. He reminds me of Dale Hawerchuk with his vision, strength and hands.

  When Cari and I visited Prague in the summer of 2015, I purchased a matryoshka doll at a cheesy gift shop. It was painted in honour of the world champs Team Canada. Crosby’s likeness was on the outer doll, and players such as Claude Giroux and Tyler Seguin appeared as you opened the dolls. It was fun to guess who would be the man in the middle. Turns out it was Eberle. I bought the doll to give to his folks, Lisa and Darren.

  Mark Kirton? Well, after he retired from pro hockey he became a very successful real estate agent—location, location, location.

  All Jordan Eberle ever wanted was to be a Regina Pat. When he was a kid, his dad, Darren, took him and his little brother, Dustin, to every home game. When they walked into the big cement Agridome, Jordan and Dustin would shiver with excitement as soon as they smelled the popcorn and cotton candy. The boys would run up to their seats in Section O and jump up onto the red cushions. They were so small they could barely stop the bottom of the chair from flipping back up. Ice cream melting over their knuckles, they’d wait for the lights to go down and squirm in their seats waiting for their hero, Matt Hubbauer, to appear. Hubbauer, a fan favourite, scored forty-eight goals as a nineteen-year-old in 2002. He was a small guy but a highly skilled, high-speed, high-power player.

  When he was in peewee, Jordan won a draw and was chosen to skate with the Pats in the warm-up as the seventh man. That meant that when Darren pulled up to the rink, he and Jordan got to walk in through the players’ entrance. Jordan got dressed in the coach’s room next to the dressing room, pulling his gear on in record time, and joined the players in the lineup as they revved up for the game. Jordan was asked to pick the player who would walk him through the tunnel and take him onto the ice. He chose Brad Stuart, who had sixty-five points that year and would go on to be drafted in the first round by the San Jose Sharks, third overall. Thirteen years later, on November 5, 2010, when Brad was with Detroit, he and Jordan would play against each other for the first time. It was just incredible for Jordan, looking up to someone like that all his life and then to actually be on the ice with him.

  But back in 1998, when the lights went down and Jordan heard his name rolling out of the loudspeaker, his feet moved almost as fast as his heart was beating. He skated around the end zone behind Brad and joined the Pats’ starting lineup on the blue line for the singing of “O Canada.” As he shuffled his feet and tapped his stick on the ice, he looked up at the flag and knew in his heart that he was standing where he belonged.

  Hockey was a huge part of Jordan’s childhood. His dad was obsessed with it. He didn’t get past Midget AA himself, but he was a huge fan. Darren loved the dynasty-era Oilers—Messier, Gretzky and Kurri. Who didn’t? Jordan and Dustin would put on their slippery socks and grab their mini sticks and play hockey on the hardwood in the family room, which was on the main level of their bungalow at Janzen Crescent. It was always Jordan’s all-time favourite, Joe Sakic, against Dustin’s Matt Hubbauer, playing for a cardboard Stanley Cup.

  The boys played hockey all over the house—upstairs on the living room carpet, in the hallways, around the kitchen table. It seemed they didn’t go anywhere without a stick and a puck. Darren had a liquor bar up against the wall behind one of the nets in the basement family room, and flying pucks broke countless glasses. As they got older, their shots got harder, especially when the boys would move the furniture out of the way. Darren’s man cave started to look like a bomb site with all the holes in the drywall.

  Darren was fairly tolerant, but one night when he was down in the basement learning how to use his brand new wall-to-wall, fifty-five-inch Pioneer rear-projection TV that had just been delivered a day earlier, he noticed a hole through the screen. He hung his head and took a deep breath. “Aw geez, what have the boys done now?”

  The warehouse had forgotten to apply the plastic screen protector to it, so the salesman had told Darren, “Just keep the kids away from it, and we’ll get that out to you in the next couple of days.” Darren had warned the kids to be careful around the new TV, so instead of playing hockey that day, they threw butter knives at some half-deflated, leftover-from-a-birthday-party balloons that were hanging from the ceiling. Jordan miscalculated and his knife sliced through the screen. Darren laid down the law—hockey was okay, but knife throwing was definitely out.

  The boys would get into huge fights playing hockey. Jordan hated losing, and if Dustin beat him, he’d get furious. One time, Darren had
had enough. He brought home boxing gloves and helmets so they wouldn’t inflict too much damage, and he said, “Okay, you two knuckleheads, go at it.”

  The brothers were fiercely competitive and fearless when it came to sports, but Dustin was afraid of the dark, so he’d wait until he thought Jordan was asleep and then sneak out of his own room and crawl in with his big brother for protection. Jordan would give him the gears for it, but he never kicked him out.

  Their house had a large pie-shaped lot with a long space between the fence and the side of the house. On it, Darren constructed a pad of pavement about a hundred feet long and fifteen feet wide for ball hockey in the summer. There was still room for a big rink in the backyard in the winter, complete with outdoor halogen flood lamps, so that Jordan, Dustin and their sister Whitney could play late after supper. Whitney, the oldest, was a great hockey player and would go on to play for the University of Calgary Dinos. Another sister, Ashley, was an award-winning gymnast.

  Darren coached the boys from novice until Jordan was in his early teens. In Regina, Novice Tier I was really competitive. Jordan would often score five to ten points a game. This angered certain coaches. One time, Darren suspected that a competing coach had ordered his boys to go out and hurt Jordan. The boys hacked and whacked him so much, Jordan was injured. Darren lost it, and after a few back-and-forths across the glass, he had to be held back from delivering his message face to face. Darren was fair but tough, especially on Jordan and Dustin. If they screwed up, they heard about it, and today they really appreciate it.

  Jordan’s parents, Darren and Lisa, had been together since they met in high school—she was fifteen and he was seventeen. Lisa understood and supported Darren’s passion for hockey. Jordan was three years old when Darren signed him up for skating at Murray Balfour Arena.

  The moment Jordan’s skates hit the ice, it was as if he’d been skating forever. Thanks to sliding around in his socks in the living room, he was flying around faster than kids twice his age. The next year, the Eberles signed him up for Hockey Regina’s Initiation League.

  Jordan was a natural—shooting, scoring, passing, it all came easy. At ten years of age, he was moved up an age group and he played for the 1999–2000 Tier I Kings. That year, he was only four foot seven and seventy-nine pounds, and yet he scored 216 goals. The Regina Leader-Post wrote a feature on him where he was quoted as saying, “I play baseball, fun football with my friends, fun soccer with my friends, and basketball with my friends, but I’m a hockey guy. I love playing hockey.” It was at that point that Darren and Lisa realized Jordan might actually have some professional potential. He was always the best in his age group, but they hadn’t seriously entertained the thought that he might play in the NHL.

  When Jordan was nine or ten years old and Dustin was seven or eight, they joined a fall conditioning camp with forty or fifty other kids. It was run by Jerry Zrymiak, a retired WHA player who was super-tough. He managed to control all the kids at once and mould them into real hockey players. It helped that he had a loud bark, and so they were petrified of him. But they listened. “Okay, your mom and dad aren’t here now, so you carry your own bags and lace up your own skates!” He ran great drills and taught them to work hard and to be disciplined on the ice.

  The boys also had lessons with Liane Davis, a Regina power-skating coach who now works with NHLers. Liane’s dad, Lorne Davis, was a former Pat and a highly regarded scout for the Edmonton Oilers. He’s the guy who spotted Grant Fuhr, Kelly Buchberger and Ryan Smyth.

  Jordan loved putting the puck in the net, but instinctually he wanted to be a good teammate. He looked for opportunities to pass. His Hockey Regina team, the Kings, won championships in peewee, Novice Tier II and Novice Tier I. Jordan’s only source of disappointment was his size. He was smaller than most, so when bigger players started to hit, he used his speed to avoid them. He wanted to prove that he could play with kids who were inches taller and several pounds heavier.

  In 2004, as Jordan was entering his second year of bantam, Darren was transferred to Calgary. A week before the new owners were to take possession of the house, the boys got into a fight and Jordan threw a big, blue exercise ball at Dustin, sending him through the wall. Darren was in the basement, so Jordan ran down, fessed up and then ran back upstairs and out the door.

  Jordan was fourteen years old when he made the tough decision to stay in Saskatchewan and play for the Notre Dame Hounds. Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, known for its hockey program, is about a half-hour drive from Regina in the town of Wilcox. Countless hockey pros have gone through the program. Today, there are 19 Hounds playing in the NHL, including Brad Richards.

  Jordan’s Hounds coach, Dale Derkatch, is a small guy. He was a former Regina Pat (1981–85) who held team records for career goals, assists and points and went on to a thirteen-year pro career in Europe. Jordan thought he could learn a lot from Derkatch, and it turned out he was the right coach for Jordan at that time. NHL.com says that Jordan is five foot eleven, but he’s actually about five foot ten. He seems bigger because he plays big. Derkatch taught him how to create space and play with a chip on his shoulder.

  After talking to his coaches, Jordan got the impression he wasn’t going to make the Hounds’ Midget AAA team. That made him mad, so he decided to move to Calgary and make the Midget AAA Calgary Buffaloes. At fifteen, he was one of the youngest kids on the team—most were sixteen or seventeen. A few of the players, including Jordan, attended Bishop O’Byrne High School in south Calgary. Their classmates followed them to games all the way to Lethbridge, and they got so enthusiastic they broke the glass around the rink more than once that year.

  The Buffs went all the way to the Telus Cup in Charlottetown, P.E.I., in 2006. Jordan was looking forward to a national championship. He’d never made it that far. The Buffaloes played their way to the final against the Prince Albert Mintos.

  The Mintos were leading 4–1 in the second period when Calgary scored one shorthanded. In the third period, Jordan put one top shelf over Mintos goaltender Dustin Tokarski, who now plays for the Habs, and the Buffaloes tied it up with just under four minutes to go.

  No score in the first overtime period, so a second overtime was needed. But nothing would go in. They went to a third extra frame. Finally, after 102 minutes and 24 seconds of play, Mintos captain Ron Meyers scored the winning goal. It was a tough, tough loss.

  Jordan’s bantam draft year was 2005, and the Pats had picked him in the seventh round, 126th overall. Pats head scout Todd Ripplinger felt Jordan had enough skill to overcome his size, which was an issue that had kept other teams away. Jordan thought about playing college hockey—he had received some offers—and so there were a lot of discussions with Darren and Lisa about the right thing to do, but he was leaning toward Junior A. He thought he’d get more playing time. He went to camp with the Okotoks Oilers in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, worked hard and was offered a place on the team. He also attended the Regina Pats’ training camp. He had dreamed of playing for them since the day he stood on the blue line, singing “O Canada” beside Brad Stuart when he was nine years old. The Pats were his favourite team next to the Edmonton Oilers.

  Pats general manager Brent Parker, coach Curtis Hunt and scout Todd Ripplinger all wanted him. But Darren was concerned that a sixteen-year-old wasn’t going to get much playing time. He looked at Hunt and asked, “If Jordan proves that he could be a top-six, would he be able to earn his ice time and play like any other forward?”

  Hunt replied, “Absolutely, we’re here to win.”

  Parker, Hunt and Ripplinger left the dressing room, leaving Darren and Jordan to make a decision. Jordan didn’t want to go to school—he wanted to play for Hunt. He liked his approach and how smart he was with systems. But Darren thought Jordan was too small to play in the Dub. Jordan was five foot eight or nine and 150 pounds on a good day. He’d be up against guys who were five inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier. Darren thought his kid definitely needed another year of J
unior A. They had a big blowout right then and there. Jordan said he was playing for the Pats and that was it. He could stay with Darren’s parents. Darren knew that his mother was one of the nicest human beings on the face of the earth, so she would take care of him, and Darren’s dad was feisty like Jordan. If Jordan made a mistake or had a bad game, his grandpa would straight-up tell him he “sucked.” That would be good for Jordan too.

  Darren relented, but as he made the eight-hour drive back to Calgary, he pounded the steering wheel. “Damn it, did I do the right thing by letting him stay?”

  Again, Jordan had the right coach at the right time. Hunt believed in him and gave him ice time earned. It boosted Jordan’s confidence, and he became one of the team’s top goal scorers in his rookie season. In three seasons, he scored 155 goals and had 155 assists.

  Regina Pats fans love a hometown player, and they were closely tied to “Ebs,” but the rest of Canada really got to know Jordan Eberle when he played for Team Canada. He was lucky to make the team in 2009. He had a horrendous summer camp. Up until that point, Jordan had never faced any real adversity. But at camp, the more trouble he had, the more he got down on himself and the worse he played. On the last day, he met with Benoît Groulx, the head coach, who told him he was one of the worst players on the ice.

  Groulx left to coach in the AHL in August, and when Pat Quinn stepped in, one of the scouts, Al Murray—who had coached Jordan at one point—convinced Quinn to invite Jordan to the follow-up camp in September. Quinn tried him on a line with Cody Hodgson and Zach Boychuk, and the trio found a lot of chemistry. Hodgson was pretty much a lock, but Jordan was unsure he was going to make the team. He barely slept that night.