He’s a Hawk on social media
BLACKHAWKS’ NEW DEFENSEMAN IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL PLAYER
Calvin de Haan — the most interesting man in the hockey world — uses Twitter critics as motivation.
Ask almost any NHL player about Twitter — or litter or glitter or anything that remotely sounds like Twitter — and he’ll automatically reach into the cliché grab bag and find the one labeled “social media.”
“You’ve just got to block out the noise,” he’ll say.
But Calvin de Haan wouldn’t.
He doesn’t, in fact, do much like a typical NHL player.
Before last month, the stay-at-home defenseman never had been traded, dating back to juniors.
His second job as a brewery co-owner gives him a strong case for hockey’s most interesting man.
He doesn’t even like clichés — after instinctively describing his offseason plans as getting “faster, bigger, stronger,” he amended his answer to “all that b.s. you hear every day.”
And he actually loves Twitter.
“It’s how I get my news,” he admitted. “Like, I don’t get up and read the morning newspaper anymore. We’re millennials, that’s how we get a lot of our information.” (Editor’s note: The Sun-Times forgives him for that quip.)
So when Twitter was abuzz with Niklas Hjalmarsson comparisons after de Haan was acquired from the Hurricanes on June 24, de Haan saw it, was flattered and mentioned it on a media conference call hours later, without prompting.
And when critics and angry fans disparage his performance on the ice, de Haan sees that, too, but instead of blocking out the noise, he uses it as motivation.
“Seeing stuff and reading stuff about you that you may not agree with, sometimes it makes you work harder, makes you want to be a better player,” he said.
If it ever crosses the border into inappropriate, de Haan — simultaneously thickskinned and laid-back — has fun with it.
“Oh, it’s hilarious,” he said. “People will come back and be like, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it. Blah blah blah blah blah.’ “Whatever, you obviously did.”
If anything, de Haan had less trolling content to work with than usual last season, playing for a smaller and friendlier fan base in Carolina than he did the previous five seasons with the Islanders. He knows to expect more trolls — and worse weather, he was quick to mention — in Chicago.
But he also says that it’s “good to feel wanted” by a team after the Hurricanes, one year after signing him to a four-year contract, blindsided him with the trade. For once, Twitter let him down.
“I had no idea. There wasn’t any rumors on the internet,” he said. “[Hurricanes general manager] Don Waddell called me, and it was a minute conversation because I didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t think it was gonna be me.”
After processing the news with his fiancée and talking on the phone with Stan Bowman and Jeremy Colliton — a teammate with the Islanders’ AHL affiliate in 2011-12 — de Haan warmed up greatly to the move.
It turned out the Hawks had been trying since the season ended to work a trade for the 28-year-old Canadian. De Haan’s reliable defensive style should be invaluable for a unit that ranked as one of the NHL’s worst last season.
“I’m just playing my game and taking meaningful, strong minutes,” he said. “Whether it’s 18 minutes or 30 minutes, who knows? I think I can be an asset for the organization.”
That’s essentially how de Haan handles every obstacle, both on the ice and in life: composed, relaxed, nonchalant.
It’s the way he has been since his childhood on the rinks of Carp, Ontario, where he first befriended Jake Sinclair. Now, he and Sinclair are two of four partners co-owning Ridge Rock Brewing Co. in Carp.
“Laid-back, that’s definitely the word for Calvin,” Sinclair said. “If anybody were to sit down and meet him, you’d never know he’s a professional athlete. He doesn’t really carry that swagger that a lot of other guys do and doesn’t really show it off much. He enjoys the simple things.”
If he does have internal anxieties about a recent run of unfortunate injuries, he doesn’t show those off, either.
A freak stick-to-the-eye accident in March that caused a cut inside his eyeball, internal swelling and temporary — not that he, at first, knew it was temporary — blindness? No big deal, the way de Haan described it.
“So that was weird because I couldn’t really see out of it for like 30 hours,” he said. “You take that sense for granted. Trying to get around with one eye was a little weird, to be honest.”
What about an injury to his right shoulder — an area of concern for de Haan, considering his lengthy history of left shoulder issues — in the first round of the playoffs? Nothing he couldn’t play through the next two series.
“I tried to win the Stanley Cup, and I put my body on the line,” he said. “Yeah, it kind of ruins my summer, because I’m not golfing, and I haven’t even put on skates yet, so stuff like that kind of sucks. But looking back on it, it was the right decision to do, and I would do it again.”
It certainly has disrupted his summer. Initial prognoses had de Haan out potentially until November.
He’s hopeful he’ll be ready for the opener Oct. 4 in Prague, though, because he’s already feeling great — it’s just his doctor holding him back for now.
In the meantime, he’s back at home near Ottawa, spending time with his family, at his brewery and on his Twitter account.
“We’re pretty pumped [for Chicago],” he said. “It’s a new beginning and another speed bump in the road here, but it’s part of the journey.”
“Seeing stuff and reading stuff about you that you may not agree with, sometimes it makes you work harder, makes you want to be a better player.” CALVIN DE HAAN