Around the world and back
His phone went bonkers on Sunday night when Don Cherry mentioned him on Coach’s Corner. In the midst of an on-air shout-out to the Stoney Creek Generals for their Allan Cup win the night before, the Flamboyant One mentioned the goalie by name for his outstanding play.
Suddenly everyone was calling and texting to add their compliments. That was cool, David Brown thought. It was also symbolic and a little poetic. Because 17 years before, it was Cherry — then the owner of the Mississauga IceDogs — who’d drafted him to the OHL.
“It was great to kind of have that come full circle,” the Stoney Creek native says.
True enough. It’s what came between Point A and Point B that’s the real story, though.
Brown never went to Cherry’s IceDogs. Instead he played for the Hamilton Kilty B’s which became the Hamilton Red Wings and then left for the University of Notre Dame on a scholarship. There, he won a national championship, was team MVP, a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as best player in U.S. college hockey and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Penguins.
In his first year as a pro, he reported to the Pens’ farm team in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton where he became a human yo-yo,
bouncing up and down between the American Hockey League and ECHL over and over again. At one point he was up and down and up again in just 24 hours.
“People just see all the glory on the ice,” Brown says. “They don’t see all the stuff going on behind it.”
When his contract expired after two years, he signed with a Georgia team, had a wonderful season and earned a deal for the next season in Illinois, which is where things got really strange.
He was terrific there. Set records, in fact. He was so good that a series of AHL teams, whose goalies were hurt and needed a backup, came calling. Unaffiliated with any NHL organization and free to go wherever, he started getting loaned out. First to the Texas Stars. Then to the Houston Aeros. Then to the Toronto Marlies. Then the Chicago Wolves.
This would’ve been awesome if he’d played a single game with any of them. Instead, he’d go there, practise each day, sit on the bench each night, and when the injured goalie was healthy again, Brown would return to the Quad City Mallards.
He eventually got into two games with the Grand Rapids Griffins that season. Which, combined with his outstanding work on the Mallards, got him a deal with the Calgary Flames. Who sent him to their farm team in Abbotsford, B.C. Who sent him to Las Vegas. Who sent him to right back to Quad City.
A year later after nother strong season with the Central Hockey League’s Arizona Sundogs, he decided he’d had enough bouncing around and enough not winning championships. So he signed with the powerhouse Allen Americans in Texas, which would let him finally remember the thrill of winning a title. He even took less money for the opportunity.
“They traded me to the lastplace team that needed a goalie,” Brown says.
Pouring salt into the wounds was the fact that Allen did, in fact, win it all that year. His Wichita Thunder, meanwhile, missed the playoffs.
That was it. Getting up in hockey years, he decided it was time to make some money while he could. So he crossed the Atlantic and signed with the Hull Stingrays of the British elite league. They offered free university as part of the deal so he could play while working on getting his masters in business.
Until the day the owner called to let him know that the team had gone bankrupt.
“Are you joking?” he remembers saying. “Are you serious?”
After a year playing in Scotland — occasionally commuting to England by train for school — he returned home. Where he was off the ice for eight months until the Generals reached out.
He wasn’t too familiar with senior hockey. By now he’d found a job in medical device sales and wasn’t sure if he wanted back on the ice. But he knew a few of the guys on the team and decided to give it a go. Which led him to Saskatchewan last week for the Allan Cup tournament.
After tying the hosts in the opening game and losing the second, the Generals (with Brown in net) won three straight to take the 109-year-old Cup. Giving him a championship again all these years later.
“It’s been quite the journey, to say the least,” he says.
Seems after travelling to every corner of the world while being everything from a Jackal to a Gladiator in an alphabet of leagues — ultimately wearing 22 sweaters in 19 cities — the secret to winning turned out to be rather simple.
Just come back home.