Chant fuels Foo’s fire as winger impresses Flames
First there was the move.
Then there was the “Fooooooooo.”
“I’d say since junior and college, it’s been pretty typical,” said Spencer Foo, chuckling about the familiar fanfare chant that erupted after he dangled around netminder Tyler Parsons during Friday’s annual prospects scrimmage. No doubt it was warranted. The entire audience, jam-packed into WinSport’s Joan Snyder Arena to escape the Calgary heat wave, was impressed by the fore handbackhand-forehand magic which was about the only time Parsons was cleanly beat the entire morning. Heck, the entire camp.
The move provided a nice glimpse of why the Calgary Flames went after the highly sought-after NCAA Union College Dutchmen winger so hard this summer.
It also provided the player a glimpse of what it might be like to play professionally in this city some day. And what it would be like to hear “Fooooooo” at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
“I haven’t thought about it too much, but it would be pretty crazy,” Foo said with a grin. “That’s really your goal is to be up here in the fall. I mean … everybody’s thinking about that, of course.
“You have to let that fuel your work every day.”
The Flames development camp wrapped up in its usual way: with one final game scenario to allow the team’s brass to evaluate and the players to show their stuff.
The choppy, turnover- filled scrimmage was broken down into five- on- five, four- on- four and three-on-three play, as well as power play/penalty kill and shootouts. Interesting, yes.
Good hockey? Probably not. “It’s probably everyone’s first game in a few months,” said Foo, a well-spoken 23-year-old. “It wasn’t that sharp; it was a little scrambly. But you want to show you can play, as well.
“(Development camp) gives you an idea of what you have to work on, and you see what the other guys are excelling in, and you want to be right there … I had a great time meeting everybody.”
The final score is never the focus at this event, but you wouldn’t know it if you saw the fans that lined the arena boards and filled the stands.
“It’s a little bit different compared to Finland,” said Juuso Valimaki, the Flames 16th overall pick at the 2017 NHL Draft. “When I was playing there and it was a normal regular-season game, there were less fans than there was (Friday).”
The game was a secondary storyline in the grand scheme of things. The entire camp served as a weeklong learning and evaluation process to create a better understanding of what the players need to accomplish over the summer.
“You take the on-ice stuff with a little bit of a grain of salt,” said Flames general manager Brad Treliving. “You have to be careful with July assessments. But you look out there and you say, there’s four or five defencemen who have a chance. You look at the forward position and you see that there’s four or five guys that have a chance.”
“But this camp is about fitness, education and goal-setting more than it is on the ice.”
For Emile Poirier, however, the on-ice component was significant. The 22-year-old winger took two months off professional hockey to tackle alcohol abuse problems. He spoke about it publicly for the first time this week.
Friday was his first game since the personal leave.
“He looked like he had the fire back,” said Treliving. “He hasn’t been on the ice a whole lot. But just to see the explosiveness is back in him, the smile on his face … we’re real happy for him, and he’s going to keep trucking one day at a time.”
The development camp ends what was an incredibly busy stretch of work for Treliving.
It started with the NHL expansion draft followed by the trades for goalies Mike Smith and Eddie Lack as well as defenceman Travis Hamonic. He drafted Valimaki and four others at the NHL Draft. Then he worked the phones to re-sign winger Kris Versteeg and blueliner Michael Stone.
Outside of striking a deal with Micheal Ferland (who has filed for salary arbitration) and fellow restricted free agents Sam Bennett and Curtis Lazar, among others, the Flames are likely still on the look out for, potentially, another depth forward and, potentially, another defenceman.
Or not. They could have a sixth or seventh defenceman right in front of their noses.