The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Cotton brothers ready to embrace AHL grind
Jason Cotton didn’t play a game of hockey for 336 days, a dreadfully long skate between Sacred Heart’s 5-3 victory over AIC last Feb. 26 and the Chicago Wolves’ AHL preseason win over the Rockford IceHogs on Jan. 27.
Last season’s Hobey Baker finalist hasn’t been home to Texas since long before COVID hit. He hasn’t seen his parents since late last January when the Pioneers beat Yale and nationally ranked Quinnipiac to win the inaugural Connecticut
Ice tournament and Cotton was awarded the Gordie Howe MVP Trophy.
Jason has seen his younger brother David.
He has seen lots of David. Farm experts say the cotton-growing season is between 150-180 days, the longest of any annually planted crop in the nation. Clearly, they don’t know about the long, dedicated growth of these Texas Cottons.
Welcome to the AHL truncated regular season, which opens for the Sound Tigers at Providence, Chicago at home against Grand Rapids and for teams all across America on Friday.
Welcome, too, to the COVID world of AHL rookies, the world of shortened seasons, a small slice of opponents and pro-rated, two-way salaries that demand stretching the budget. There is a word in hockey for it all. The grind. A grind the Cotton brothers have shared for almost a year.
When COVID closed down college hockey in March, David left Boston College to live with Jason in an apartment in Fairfield. On March 24, the Carolina Hurricanes — known in another time, in another world as the Hartford Whalers — signed both to entry level deals. David, as a
2015 sixth-round draft pick. Jason as a free agent. The two then hunkered down.
“With the strict rules with maintaining distance and all, everything was closed,” Jason Cotton said. “The hardest part of the first six to eight weeks was we didn’t leave the apartment much. The one thing we did was work out.”
Yoga on-line. Home workouts. The Hurricanes sent them an app.
“We used it as a team, basic body-weight workouts,” Cotton said. “The biggest thing was just to stay moving. You didn’t want to sit around and do nothing. I guess everyone can relate to the stay-athome orders. It definitely got repetitive.”
David tested positive for COVID. Living in the same apartment, Jason didn’t.
When rinks started opening on a limited basis, the brothers began skating a few times a week at Northford Ice Pavilion. Closer to the summer, they began working out off-ice at BreakOut Athlete in North Branford. With Carolina’s training plan in hand, they went there five times a week. As matters began to ramp up again, they also skated four-five times a week.
And they waited. “Another hard thing was not really knowing when to report,” Jason Cotton said. “The whole plan all summer was they just wanted to get the NHL to the playoffs, the bubble (in Edmonton and Toronto). This season wasn’t tied up and ready to go until late.”
At first, they planned for a mid-November training camp. That got pushed back to December. Then January. The Cotton brothers went down to Raleigh five weeks before camp, training with the team in a couple groups for a month because of protocol at the Hurricanes’ practice facility.
“It was a nice change of pace,” Cotton said. “We were in Connecticut for like eight months training. It was nice to get to a new city and new situation.”
Because of the altered NHL schedule, training camp was condensed. Usually there’s 2-3 weeks and a set of exhibition games. Not this time.
“The first day,” Cotton said, “it was pretty well outlined that no one is getting cut and no one is making this (NHL) team in eight days. ‘We’re returning the guys who played in the playoffs.’ That’s totally understandable. There were basically two groups, one NHL and one with the guys slotted for Chicago.”
Still, it was their first NHL training camp. Jason said he took it all in, tried to learn something new every day. He and David were among the 13 players Carolina assigned to the AHL on Jan. 13. They drove the 800 miles from Raleigh to Chicago. Jason had time to reflect, about Sacred Heart’s memorable 21-10-3 season and the Connecticut Ice title. Individually, a rocky college start at Northeastern led to a stint in the USHL, an idle transfer year, and ended with three seasons at Sacred Heart and Jason recognized as one of the top 10 players in college hockey.
“The Connecticut Ice was such a great weekend for us,” Cotton said. “My parents were there. My uncle came, it was the first time he saw me play in college. Really memorable.”
With those memories in the rearview mirror, the brothers did the requisite quarantine before Wolves camp started early last week.
“It’s great to have my brother with me,” Jason, who’ll be 26 Sunday, said. “To go through your first season of pro hockey, with how weird the whole year has been, late starts, delays, it’s nice to have someone there with you to experience it.”
Who’s the talker?
“I am,” Jason said. “He’s more laid back.”
David, 22, had two goals in the preseason 6-1 win. Jason had a goal. With the Nashville Predators’ AHL team in Milwaukee deciding not to play this season, the Wolves have co-affiliations. That means a lot of guys.
“Obviously whenever you get the opportunity, you want to do the best,” Cotton said.
The Sound Tigers’ entire 24-game schedule is split between the P-Bruins and the Hartford Wolf Pack. With home games to be played with no fans at the training facility in Hoffman Estates, the Wolves’ 30game schedule is split among Grand Rapids, Rockford, Iowa and Cleveland. There was a late add for Saturday at Rockford after Cleveland had to cancel. COVID protocols. Of course.
“The first few games will probably be normal, but games four, five, six, against the same opponent, I think, it will get a little chippy,” Cotton said. “It’s a different season.”
David’s two-year contract calls for $700,000 in 2020-21 and $832,500 in 2021-22 at the NHL level. The deal pays $70,000 both seasons in the the AHL. There was a $185,000 signing bonus. Jason got a one-year deal for $700,000 at the NHL level and $50,000 in the AHL. There was a $25,000 signing bonus.
If the season is completed, the AHL players will receive 48 percent of their pay, with a minimum of $30,000 for a season that ranges from 24 to 44 games. Players will get 40 percent if their team’s season ended. And, remember, most of the pros haven’t been paid in nine months, while others are coming out of college. You don’t need an MBA to see the young guys are looking at $30,000-$36,000.
“It’s kind of the way the pandemic has affected everyone,” Jason Cotton said. “We can’t really control that. We’re slotted to play 30 games in 31⁄2 months. This season you’re really trying to get experience at the pro hockey level and try to build for next season. Hopefully, next year, it gets back to normal. But who knows?”
Does it drive him even harder?
“Absolutely,” Cotton said. “It felt great to play (even an exhibition game). I’m not going to lie. You get up, going to the rink and in the back of your mind you think the game is going to get canceled somehow. Something is going to happen. But once you got through warmups, it was, “Game on!”
Game on, Cotton brothers.