When a youngster shows an early talent for almost any sport, the early thought is playing that sport at the highest level.
In the eyes of the parents, well most of them, the hopes go even further than that. Like to that youngster not only playing at that highest level but making a huge salary for doing so.
And sometimes the dream is realized.
But not before that youngster decides to dedicate his life to his chosen sport and is directed that way by the people he has to learn from – be it teachers, coaches or even those aforementioned parents.
Leadership is most important along the way and that youngster grows by listening and heeding what those leaders direct. Hopefully they are working with the best interests of the athlete in mind.
What brings this up is the treatment given by the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames of young goaltender Leland Irving earlier this month.
Tell me if he is getting the right direction?
The 24-year-old from Swan Hills was a first-round draft pick of the Flames back in 2006. That would indicate they had hopes for him in the future in the top league in the world. He had played his junior hockey with Everett’s Silvertips in the Western Hockey League but the Flames made him a professional and let him develop with the Quad City Flames and the Abbotsford Heat in the American Hockey League, and with a short stint in the East Coast Hockey League with the Victoria Salmon Kings. All the way along he’d come to Flame camps for future prospects and was always told he was part of the future. Well, that future came to fruition this season when, after winning a brief-training camp battle, he was slotted to be the backup to Miikka Kiprusoff – the guy who was destined to play every game of an abbreviated 48-game schedule.
Then, though, disaster struck as the ironman from Finland, Kiprusoff, went down with an injury. As the old saying goes, if a door closes on one it opens for another.
As the lone backup the Flame starting job in goal went to Leland, the man of the future. It was only to be a chance to prove he can play at this level but then it became clear that the injury to “Kipper” was much worse than first thought, and his day-to-day situation became week-to-week. The door was open for Leland Irving to make a mark in the “show.” And, while he didn’t play like the man he replaced, what goalie in the league could? Just the same, he started five-straight games and won two of them. And other than getting beat for a couple of goals early and getting yanked for doing so, he was by no means an embarrassment to the club.
Yet as a reward he gets word that the team had traded for a veteran, although not superstar quality, goalie in Joey MacDonald. Then he’s told he’s being sent back to the AHL in Abbotsford.
All those early morning practices as a Peewee, Bantam, Midget and even Junior went down the tube with that demotion, I think. All that minor-pro stuff that was developing a future big-leaguer became useless.
He was a big-time pro for such a short time he couldn’t have read a good novel between games and practice times, but it was all over with one call.
The club said it was sending him down to “work on sharpening his game.” What the club meant was, at least in my mind, Leland Irving was not a major-league goalie and we now must look at all of our other options, MacDonald being one, and Danny Taylor another as they await the arrival of draft-pick Karri Ramo who is from Finland but playing right now in the Kontinental Hockey League.
The Flames indicate that one day Leland will get another shot with the big club, but I’m thinking that indirectly they told it like it really is. They wasted their time and his in letting it get this far. Where do you think this young man’s head is right now having had the door open to strut his stuff only to have that same door slammed on his fingers, probably the fingers of his catching hand? He’s banished to the minors right now, but still in the Flame fold, and dreaming of another chance. Personally, I hope they trade him away and he comes back to haunt. He is an NHL goalie who has more than paid his dues to prove it.
But such is the way of professional sport. Its big time business and people get hurt every day, not always physically.
