From Land Down Under to the Great White North
Newest Oiler Walker left Australia for Czech Republic at age 13 to pursue dream
Nathan Walker moved from Australia to the Czech Republic at 13.
Going halfway around the globe to chase his hockey dream in a non-English speaking country, frankly, boggles the mind of Todd McLellan, as not only a coach but the father of two boys.
“I had to move a 17-year-old son (Tyson) across the country for school and it wasn’t easy,” the Edmonton Oilers coach said. “We’re all big, tough hockey guys until that has to happen.
“The commitment level from the player and the family to do that is incredible. Speaks to the type of person Nathan is, speaks to his character, to handle that move at such a young age, facing adversity, deals with a lot of emotions being so far from home.”
Walker, claimed on waivers from the Washington Capitals on Friday, admits he was terribly homesick, billeted with a family that couldn’t communicate with him, but it was all part of his master plan.
“I actually wanted to leave Australia when I was 11,” Walker said.
Where, he was asked, would he have gone?
“Who knows?” said Walker, laughing when it was suggested he throw a dart at a map.
He was playing for an Aussie youth team at a tournament in the steel Czech town of Vitkovice, when he was so good the Czech coaches wanted him on their kids’ team. He never went home, somehow convincing his mother, Ceri, and father, Wayne, over the phone that this was his dream.
Of course, Ceri came over for a couple weeks to check things out before she officially gave the thumbs-up. Again, he was 13.
“Being in the Czech Republic was definitely a cultural shock. The first year I billeted with a family there was a lot of Google translation and hand-signals because they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Czech,” said Walker, who couldn’t even ask what was for dinner.
How many times was he homesick?
“Too many to count,” he said. He went to an international school for two years where the classes were in English, but hockey took over when he was 15. He’d get up at the crack of dawn, take the tram to the rink, then hang around a restaurant connected to the rink
I remember a couple of teachers telling me that hockey was never going to be a thing for me.
for hours and try to make friends until making the trek home. Rinse and repeat.
He eventually got to play for the Vitkovice senior team, scored against Canada in the Spengler Cup as a teenager, then hiked off to Youngstown, Ohio, to play junior in the United States Hockey League.
The five-foot-nine, 186-pound forward who played centre in Hershey last year before switching over to left wing in his seven games with the Capitals this year, went through two NHL drafts without hearing his name until the Caps got him as a 20-year-old in the third round in 2014.
Two hundred AHL games later, he’s become an NHLer at 23. The Capitals weren’t happy to lose him on waivers and they could well reclaim him if the Oilers send Walker to the minors.
“I remember going to the Hockey Hall of Fame when I was there for the world inline hockey championship in Brampton when I was eight or nine and we bought all the Wayne Gretzky videos. You’d throw that in the VCR and watch it for hours,” said Walker, who also watched the NHL online.
Gretzky wasn’t his favourite player growing up, though.
“(Jaromir) Jagr, he was on a lot of the videos we had, too.”
It should be noted Walker, who first put on skates at six, got hooked when he saw Disney’s Mighty Ducks movies. “Yeah, that’s true,” he said. He was born in Wales but moved to Australia, when he was two. The whole country only has 4,000 registered players and 25 rinks. The rinks in Sydney were pretty spartan, like hockey shells.
“You’d be lucky to get a couple hundred people in there,” he said. “An ice-sheet and a little grandstand. I remember a couple of teachers telling me that hockey was never going to be a thing for me.
“You’ve got the stereotypical rugby and soccer back home.”
Still, Walker said he never thought the NHL was a million miles away.
“I just wanted to play hockey,” said Walker, who fought Andrew Shaw in the 2016 pre-season.
“He went after one of our guys (Connor Hobbs) and I didn’t like it,” Walker said of the tilt.
He’s fast and feisty, a good penalty-killer.
“He looks like a hungry player at practice today and it’s nice to have him,” said McLellan who, for now, has him as an extra forward but will likely eventually play him on the fourth-line.
Hungry enough to go on a remarkable odyssey to reach the NHL.