National Post (National Edition)
HAVING FANS ON THE ROCK
NEWFOUNDLAND FOLLOWS ITS PRESENCE IN NHL WITH HOME-PROVINCE PASSION
IT IS JUST NOT THE SAME IMPACT AS A KID FROM NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR MAKING IT, BECAUSE EVERYBODY FROM NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR , NO MATTER IF THEY LIKE HOCKEY OR NOT, WILL FOLLOW THAT KID. — JACK LEE, HOCKEY NEWFOUNDLAND
On Dec. 11, the Nashville Predators issued a press release announcing defenceman Adam Pardy had been “assigned” to the Milwaukee Admirals of the American Hockey League. Pardy had appeared in one game for the Predators this season and was, at best, a peripheral player — reliable, but not irreplaceable — and, at 32 years old, a journeyman whose NHL journey looked nearing its end.
Pardy’s demotion was neither a surprise nor an event of any great significance to hockey people. It did not trend on Twitter, fill up Facebook or warrant mention on sports networks. Players on the margins come and go. Adam Pardy was gone.
But in Bonavista, N.L., where he was born, and in Mount Pearl, where Jack Lee, the head of Hockey Newfoundland, would feel a lump in his throat upon hearing of the demotion, Pardy wasn’t just another hockey player. In St. John’s, Brendan McCarthy, a sportswriter with The Telegram, noted Pardy’s demise in “Newfoundlanders Away.” It is a list the local paper has been publishing weekly since the early 1990s to track Newfoundlanders playing in major junior and minor pro leagues, U.S. universities, Europe and, most importantly, the NHL. Pardy’s banishment, in this arena, wasn’t merely a footnote. It was an ending, since, upon his departure from Nashville, there was not a single Newfoundlander left in the NHL — a sorry state the province hadn’t witnessed since 1995.
“It was a sad day for us,” Jack Lee said. “Look, if you make the NHL from Ontario or Quebec or B.C., it is just not the same impact as a kid from Newfoundland and Labrador making it, because everybody from Newfoundland and Labrador, no matter if they like hockey or not, will follow that kid.
“We are a different people here. We live on an island. We are all connected to this rock, and we are used to leaving it — to go away to work — no matter what that work is. But, at the end of the day, we are still connected.”
Hockey came late to Newfoundland, arriving around 1900. That is 25 years after the first organized hockey game was played at the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal and about 100 years after shinny took hold in Windsor, N.S. Only 29 Newfoundlanders have made it to the NHL; three have won the Stanley Cup and just one, Harry (Moose) Watson of St. John’s, is in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Watson got there, in part, by leading the Toronto Granites to Olympic gold at the 1924 Games. The Moose had been a First War flying ace and scored 36 goals in five games at the Olympics. He later spurned offers from the nascent NHL, preserving his amateur status.
But amateurism is no longer an end goal. The NHL is the place to be. Five years ago, seven Newfoundlanders were in the league. Times were good, and now they are not. McCarthy, the sportswriter, said in an email that the original intent of Newfoundlanders Away wasn’t to focus on the NHL so much as it was to answer the question, where are they now for all the elite players who left the province. Every October, the veteran reporter will start receiving emails from readers asking him when “the list” is going to start up again.
“I don’t want to say the passion for a hometown player is stronger here than, say, in Saskatchewan, but I’d say it is wider spread,” McCarthy said. “There is a definite and different nationalism here. I’m originally from New Brunswick and I don’t believe someone from Moncton, for example, is as interested in a player from Campbellton, N.B., as someone from St. John’s would be in a player from Gander. It’s not a hometown-thing, it’s a home-province feeling.”
It is about being from the same rock, if not the same town, and going away for work — but never truly leaving home. Pardy bounced around the minors before breaking into the NHL with Calgary in 2008. During his NHL rookie season he lived with his two older brothers, Neil and Todd, electricians who moved away to Alberta to find work. The boys’ father, Stan, worked construction in Lloydminster. Stan has returned to Bonavista, where he and his wife own a small hotel with ocean views. Lorraine says that they get guests from as far away as Germany and England.
The couple’s youngest son has built himself a new house in town. But his mother says he won’t be home for Christmas. On Dec. 19, Adam Pardy was recalled to Nashville.
He was back on the list.