The road to ‘who cares?’
Rassell on verge of his 50th goal
Mark Rassell’s quest for 50 goals started well over a year ago, with a sardonic retort from his trainer.
While all of Rassell’s friends and family members were sending him messages of congratulations after reaching the 30-goal plateau with the Medicine Hat Tigers last year, his off-season trainer Doug Crashley had a different take on the achievement.
“He sends me a text and says ‘Get to 40,’” said Rassell, who is sitting on 49 goals with five games left in the Western Hockey League’s regular season. “He was the only one who said ‘Who cares? Get to 40.’ I ended up with 36 and he looked at me in the summer and said, ‘That’s 14 from 50.’ It was an ongoing joke during the summer.”
Using that mantra as motivation, Rassell whittled last year’s 14 all the way down to one entering tonight’s 7:30 p.m. matchup against the Edmonton Oil Kings at the Canalta Centre. One more goal will make Rassell the 23rd Tiger to reach 50 in a single season, the last since Cole Sanford in 2014-15 and just the fourth in the past 25 years. Bearing all that in mind, Crashley still wants more.
“I’ve been texting him and giving him the countdown. When I was at 40 he’s saying ‘Get to 50’ and now that I’m at 49 he sends me a text and says ‘Who cares about 50? Get to 55,’” said Rassell. “I’ve got to give a lot of credit to my trainers back (at Crash Conditioning) in Calgary. They’re a fun group of guys and they really pushed me this summer.”
Tigers head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston says Rassell’s meteoric rise from an undersized and undrafted 17-year-old to the 49-goal-scoring captain of the Medicine Hat Tigers is nothing short of remarkable, and a story that will be used to motivate the team’s prospects for years to come.
“I think he’s a great example to a lot of players in our league, for one thing, but especially for us... There’s a great role model of hard work and perseverance and things working out for the best when you make the best of what’s going on,” said Clouston. “He was a very small, undersized player when he started here and really small in his bantam draft year. He was kind of a late bloomer but as he started to develop physically I think he really embraced the off-season training and now he’s one of our stronger guys.” Clouston has been behind Medicine Hat’s bench for 14 seasons — eight as head coach — but he’s only seen two of his players reach 50 goals in that span. Emerson Etem achieved the feat and went on to finish with 61 in the 2011-12 season, then Sanford did it three years later. If there’s one thing they all share, Clouston says it’s simply confidence. “I think all goalscorers want the puck. It’s a strange thing to say but it takes a lot of confidence to want the puck when the game is on the line, to have the responsibility of scoring goals. It takes a lot of confidence and all three of those guys had a lot of confidence at this level,” said Clouston. “All three of the guys have a knack around the net. I think to score that many goals you have to have some skill, you’ve got to be able to shoot the puck. Rassell has a quick release and he’s good in tight, Sanford had a great shot and Emerson could really pick corners.”
Rassell cracked Medicine Hat’s roster as a small 17-yearold in the 2014-15 season, recording four goals and nine assists in 62 games as a rookie. During that final year in The Arena, Rassell watched Sanford etch his name into Tigers history with his own 50-goal season. It was a bumpy road, as it took Sanford 12 games to net the final four goals needed to reach 50, and he did it with just two games left ahead of him.
Rassell went on to double his numbers the following season while starting up an ironman streak that continues to this day at 205 games and counting. He’s also in a similar battle to Sanford’s after notching his 45th goal on Feb. 11 and fighting for the final five ever since. Now just one shy of the mark, Rassell says he’ll be using his memory of Sanford’s milestone as motivation entering tonight’s tilt.
“(Sanford) was obviously pretty stressed about it as well. I think he got his in his thirdlast game of the year. I remember being in P.A. when he got it, it was just a sigh of relief from him because he finally got it and accomplished his goals,” said Rassell. “Hopefully I can take what I’ve learned from him and, in the past couple years, what I’ve learned from (Tigers mental skills coach Bob) Wilkie and just focus on playing the right game and the results will come.”
The 6-foot-1, 190-pound left winger added he’s lucky to have been paired up with linemate James Hamblin for the majority of the past two seasons. While they’ve seen their share of right wingers cycled through their line — from Max Gerlach to Josh Williams, Hayden Ostir and now Bryan Lockner — Rassell says they’ve always managed to generate success as a group.
“You can’t do it all by yourself. You need good linemates and I’ve been with Hamblin for two years and rotating through a plethora of right wingers,” said Rassell. “Whoever it was on our right side we’ve been able to find chemistry and it’s been a fun year.”
Rassell added he felt the need to razz Hamblin following last weekend’s 6-1 win over the Red Deer Rebels, in which Hamblin deflected one of Rassell’s shots that may or may not have been bound for the net on its own — a goal that could have been Rassell’s 49th.
“I was giving Jimmy a hard time about whether or not he touched it but obviously he did,” said Rassell.
“I did touch it,” added Hamblin. “He’s just so close so every chance he gets he wants that next goal. I kind of gave it to him a little bit because I tipped it but he’ll get there.”