O’brien a stay-at-home defenceman who puts up points
Mount Pearl Blades’ star rearguard had opportunities to play on the mainland, but is glad to have remained in the SJJHL
For much of his minor hockey career, Mount Pearl’s James O’brien flew under the radar, preferring to enjoy his other passions than going whole hog at hockey 24-7.
Not that he didn’t appreciate a skate, or wasn’t good at it. Far from it.
It’s just that hockey wasn’t everything to the now 20-year-old defenceman. For as much as he liked to play, he also enjoyed the outdoors, specifically hunting and fishing.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s the reason he didn’t, like many others, look to chase the hockey dream across the country in what is all too often a futile effort.
“I know a lot of senior hockey guys,” said Adam Collins, coach of the Mark’s Mount Pearl Blades, the team O’brien is carrying, like a quarter of moose, on his young shoulders, “and James plays with those guys during the week in different rec skates.
“And every one of them is saying the same thing: ‘This guy can play! How is he still playing junior B hockey here? How is he not off playing junior A somewhere on the mainland?’”
The Mary Brown’s St. John’s Junior Hockey League is a tidy, little nine-team circuit, and competitive, too, with only four points separating the top three teams — Mount Pearl, CBR Renegades and the upstart St. John’s Caps.
Talk to most junior hockey pundits and they’ll argue O’brien may be the best player in the league; certainly top three.
Entering a couple of games Friday night, O’brien was second in league scoring to the Caps’ Kyle Mcgrath, a former Quebec Major Junior Hockey League player. Mcgrath is lighting it up with 20 goals and 42 points in 19 games. A strong skater with a high hockey IQ, O’brien’s not far behind with nine goals and 38 points in 22 starts with the Blades.
But here’s the thing: O’brien’s a defenceman. Last year, he won the Justin ‘Barney’ Goodland Award as the junior league’s top reraguard.
Collins, for one, will be shocked if he doesn’t cop the award again this year.
The Blades came oh-soclose to winning last season, dropping Game 7 of the league final to the Renegades on a CBR goal in double overtime.
“Going away to play hockey was not something that appealed to me. For me, education was always a priority… school and family are certainly the primary reasons which kept me from going away.”
James O’brien
It still leaves a sour taste with O’brien and the rest of the Blades, which fuels Mount Pearl this season.
“Yes,” O’brien said, “for sure. That was a tough one to lose, so we’re leaving nothing on the table this year.
“We feel we have a point to prove.”
A graduate of Mount Pearl’s O’donel High School, O’brien is enjoying his third year in the junior league, and plans on a fourth next season as an overager.
Rather than play major midget while in high school, O’brien broke in with the Junior Blades as an underager while finishing off Grade 12.
It’s a move he doesn’t regret.
“Going away to play hockey was not something that appealed to me,” he said. “For me, education was always a priority… school and family are certainly the primary reasons which kept me from going away.”
Not that he didn’t have opportunities. Following the 2018 Don Johnson Cup Atlantic junior B championship in Membertou, N.S. (where the Blades lost the gold-medal game 4-1 to the Kasmeron Junior Miners of the Nova Scotia junior loop), O’brien was approached by a couple or three Maritime Junior A Hockey League teams. One club went particularly hard after the Blades’ defenceman (he was among the tournament’s top scorers that year ,along with teammates Michael Broders, Grant Thompson and Colin O’neil). He didn’t budge.
“I love the local game,” he said, “and I love being home with family and friends. I love playing with my buddies every night, in some cases guys with whom I played high school.
“I love doing other stuff.
Any time I get a chance, between work and school, to go off in the woods, I’m gone.”
These are sunny days for O’brien, who is close to completing his electrical engineering technology course at the College of the North Atlantic.
On top of that, he’s having a ball as one of the Blades’ leaders in their quest for a second junior league championship in three years.
There was a bit of turnover last season, with veterans Thompson, Broders and O’neil winding up their junior eligibility.
“So I’m in a leadership role,” he said, “and I enjoy that.
“It’s a challenge trying to keep everyone in line,” he says with a chuckle, “but it’s always good fun.”
“He’s an unbelievable kid,” said Collins, the Mount Pearl coach. “He’s committed, dedicated.”
And the Blades, he said, are glad O’brien elected to remain dedicated to staying home and enjoying his brief time with the hometown team.