Knoxville Ice Bears

Sookies Snap Shots: Call-Ups

date: 12/10/2011

The Story behind Call-Ups

 

                Lately, we have been seeing a lot of our players get called up to the Cincinnati Cyclones. Kevin Swider, Jeremy Klaver, Tyler Fletcher and Berkley Scott have played for them last week and have been quite successful. But don’t you worry; they are all coming back to us. Only this time, they will have a little extra experience on their skates. I wonder though: Why are all these call-ups happening? Why is our coach sending our precious players off to Cincinnati? To answer these questions that had been torturing me all week, I had to run to coach Craigen’s office and pick at his brain and get him to tell me the behind story to these call-ups.

                “Well, there are several reasons to send a player up to Cincinnati. First and most obvious of all, there’s the geographical factor. Knoxville is under 4 hours from Cincinnati, and that’s pretty close for two teams” coach said as he sat down on his big coach chair. But geography isn’t the whole reason – it’s also a good opportunity for our players to move up to the East Coast Hockey League. The ECHL, a mid-level professional hockey league, has direct affiliation with teams of the NHL, and one of the affiliate teams of the Cyclones is none other than the Nashville Predators. Therefore, this gives the Ice Bears not only the chance to build their hockey résumé, but also a boost in their confidence by playing hockey at a higher level. This, as a result, has been a great recruiting tool for our coach: Telling them that if they play well enough, they may have the chance to be called up to play for an ECHL team is honestly a very enticing offer for a young player. Not all of our players look to move up to the ECHL, however. For example, Mark Van Vliet, who had been asked to play for the ECHL many, many times, declined their offer every time. “He’s just comfortable here in Knoxville. He has a lot of friends here. Also, when you play hockey at a higher level, there’s less stability. The competition is much more intense. There are guys constantly looking to take your job. For us, it’s not really like that.”

                Coach had some fascinating stories to share with all of us concerning the call-ups as well. “First of all, the crazy connection that I’ve had with the coach for the cyclones, Jarrod Skalde, made the call-up process a lot easier.” He said. He remembers that as an eight-year-old boy, he was watching coach Skalde playing for the Oshawa Generals against the Peterborough Petes – for whom, coincidentally, Doug Searle, his future teammate at the Knoxville Ice Bears, was playing. Craigen and Skalde met again thirty years later; this time as coaches instead of as a player and a young fan. “It’s crazy that I talk on the phone with this guy, who I watched play when I was young, discussing hockey and each other’s teams.” It’s a small world: The world of hockey.

                Speaking of small worlds, Craigen delighted me with another interesting story about our man, Kevin Swider. Swider scored a tying goal for the Cyclones last Tuesday, November 29^th, eight years since his last goal in the ECHL. That got our curious coach thinking: “Swides has all these records for the SPHL, I wonder if this goal set a record for the ECHL?” Soon, he and Mark Atnip, the voice of the Knoxville Ice Bears, got together to see if indeed Kevin Swider held the record for “the greatest number of days between goals.” Unfortunately however, they found out that this was not the case: A player by the name of Paul Willett was holding the record at an astonishing number of ten years. I guess Swider should have waited a couple more years before going up to Cincinnati to score. It’s okay though, I still got some great news: He was the oldest player on the team that day by nine years.

                I know we all would love to just keep our players here and never let them go; however, we do have to realize what a great opportunity the call-up is for our young players like Berkley Scott and Jeremy Klaver. Not only is it great for them personally as they get to build their hockey résumé, but it’s also great for us as a team – good experiences makes better players: Which, as a result, gives us more wins – and that’s what matters.

 

-Sookie-

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