‘A student of the game’
Hayden learns his lessons well in freshman season with Acadia
Truro native Erik Hayden not only had modest expectations for his freshman season with the Acadia Axemen, but even more so this spring for his first athletic awards banquet at the Wolfville university.
So, when a visual presentation during Acadia’s awards night revealed Hayden had been chosen as the most improved player with the men’s basketball team, he was pleasantly surprised.
“I didn’t think I was going to get an award,” Hayden said. “I had no idea until I just looked up on the screen and my name was there with the most improved award.
“It was a big honour. I felt I’ve definitely put a lot into this basketball season, even though I didn’t get a ton of minutes over the year. I knew it was a big learning experience for me, even though our season wasn’t our best. I learned a lot during practice. I tried my best to better my craft every day. I guess coach noticed that a little bit more in me than other guys.”
It didn’t take Axemen coach Mike Leslie long to see those self-improvement attributes in Hayden, a sixfoot-three guard from the CEC Cougars high school program.
“From early on in the season, Erik became a student of the game and set a plan in motion to begin to figure out how he could best transition to the U Sports level as a player,” said Leslie, a former executive and coach with the Halifax Hurricanes pro franchise. “He worked with his coaches on developing his individual skills, as well as investing a number of hours developing on his own time.”
Regardless of his limited playing time with the rebuilding Axemen in the Atlantic University Sport conference, Hayden approached his practices like they were games and made the most of every opportunity to improve.
“Coming into the year, we had lots of guys here and I knew that if I really wanted to (develop), I was going to have to be OK with not playing (much),” said Hayden, who turns 19 in June. “I knew every day that I walked in the gym was an opportunity to show coach that I was working on being able to be comfortable in a game and be trusted in a game.
“So, every practice, I just treated it like a game setting. I tried to limit my mistakes, just to show that I can be trusted if you end up putting me on the floor.”
Hayden — a go-to man during his high school days as the MVP and captain of the Cougars — has already gained trust from Leslie and the rest of Acadia’s coaching staff.
“Erik is a very athletic player who exhibits great instincts at the offensive and defensive ends of the floor,” said Leslie, whose career has meshed teaching and coaching basketball at various levels. “He is a tireless worker and will give maximum effort each time he steps on the court.
“As a developing player, Erik will need to further improve his perimeter shooting, as well as gain the necessary bulk and strength to be able to defend multiple positions.”
Hayden has committed to spending even more time in the weight room. He already has muscled his way to 180 pounds, 15 more than his season-opening weight. And he’s begun to focus on nutrition more than ever.
For his sophomore season, Hayden will live with three of his like-minded teammates in Gabe Davignon, Kyle Munro and Nick Macdougall. As rookie Axemen, those four buddies spent much time together on and off the court. In some cases, their chemistry goes back to last summer’s Canada Games, in which Hayden, Davignon and Munro were members of bronze-medalwinning Nova Scotia while Macdougall played with New Brunswick.
During their first winter in Wolfville, Hayden devoted many extra hours in the gym with his former high school opponents from Halifax Grammar in Davignon and Munro.
“They’re definitely tough to play against one on one, so I think we all helped each other,” Hayden said of the informal sessions after team practices or on Saturday and Sunday nights. “I got better just by defending them every day.
“We’d play for a few hours, three or four of us, just playing a bunch of different spots. I felt my defence improved. I became more confident guarding guys one on one than I was at the start of the season.”
Davignon was selected as Acadia’s rookie of the year and he also was named to the AUS all-rookie team.
The Axemen’s MVP was senior Alex Muise and the Gib Chapman academic/athletic award went to Ryan Munro, Kyle’s older brother.
As he stepped onto the court in Acadia colours last fall, Hayden continued his family’s collegiate basketball legacy. He became the first fourth-generation player from the Hayden/Smith family to play at the Atlantic university level.
Late in the Axemen’s 4-16 season, Hayden scored one of his greatest achievements as a freshman, albeit during a six-point loss to the Memorial Sea-Hawks.
“My biggest memory, for sure, was when I stepped into our second of back-to-back games against MUN,” he said. “We won that first game, but our second game we didn’t play our best. But I got in there in the fourth quarter like (the reserves) usually do. It was me and three other first years and a fourth year, and we cut our 30-point deficit to seven. We made it a game that could have been almost won in that last six to seven minutes.
“I feel that was just a surreal moment for me because everything was going in for us, our defence was fully working and everyone was working together as a whole. Even though we didn’t secure the win, it still was like a big milestone for me. I realized how much I can be of an impact with the guys on the floor.”