NHL hits leader a hit in his hometown
Welland native Cal Clutterbuck is this year’s winner of the H.L. Cudney Memorial Award
The National Hockey League’s alltime leaders in hits lives in Long Island and since 2013 has been a physical presence on the ice for the New York Islanders.
Cal Clutterbuck, a Welland native, has not touched a puck in a meaningful game in his hometown since he played 48 games at the junior-B level with the then-Welland Cougars.
Yet after all those years away — five seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, one in the American Hockey League, and six with the NHL’s Minnesota Wild before being traded to the Islanders — he has remained a hit in his hometown.
Clutterbuck, who on Nov. 22 became the first player from Welland to play 1,000 games in the NHL, is the unanimous selection for the H.L. Cudney Memorial Award as Welland’s sportsperson of the year for 2023.
Clutterbuck said in an interview from Detroit, where the Islanders were preparing to play the Red Wings, “I’m very humbled and I’m very proud” to receive the award.
“Welland will always be home for me, and given that I’ve been blessed to be able to play in the NHL for as long as I have, I’ve always felt where I grew up and the people who helped me along the way, were a part of that,” he said. “For a young hockey player, there really isn’t a better place to be, so for the city to recognize my achievements feels like sort of a full-circle moment for me.”
Thursday night’s game at Detroit was the 1,041st regular-season game the one-time Notre Dame College School student has played in the NHL since he was taken by Minnesota in the third round of the 2006 draft with the 72nd overall selection.
Clutterbuck, who turned 36 last November, has also appeared in 76 playoff games, all but five with the Islanders.
“I didn’t know I was going to play one game, to be honest with you,” he said.
When did he finally feel that he could make a career of playing in the NHL?
“I think your first 100 games you’re always kind of wondering if you’re going to be able to make a career out of it,” Clutterbuck answered. “I would say probably once you sign your second contract.
“I knew that I was a regular in the lineup and everything but you never know. I think once you get to your late 20s or early 30s, you’ve kind of put a decent career together, seven or eight years.
“But it really is just sort of a one foot in front of the other situation. Things can change quickly.”
When it comes to getting the job done, the son of Tim and Jocelyne Clutterbuck likens himself to everyone in the work-a-day world.
“I just try and show up to work every day like everybody would and, luckily for me, showing up to work for me is throwing my skates on and going out there and playing the game.”
His passion for hockey still burns brightly but it became different once the game became his profession.
“It’s different when there’s pressure attached to it. I have a specific job that I need to do when I play the game now,” he said. “I still love the game when I get out and play with my kids and skate around or go play a game of pickup.
“I still love it as much as I did when I was young.”
But playing the game at the NHL level?
“I love the competition, I love competing, but that’s a different sort of mindset than it would be when I was playing peewee hockey in Welland or when I was playing on Chippawa Pond.
“It’s still the same game.”
Clutterbuck, who is on the Welland Sports Wall of Fame as a member of a championship baseball team, played a “lot of sports” growing up in Welland.
“And I loved them all,” he recalled. “Just so happens that hockey ended up being the one for me, but I’ve always just enjoyed competing in sports in general.”
Clutterbuck has had a surprisingly long career, now 17 years and counting, given his physically demanding role on the ice as a player who hits and, consequently, often is a target for hits.
“I used to hear that a lot when I was younger that I wouldn’t be able to last. Luckily, genetically I think I was built well to withstand that sort of career,” he said. “I’m on the shorter end, quite stocky. I think for whatever reason, my body has been able to handle it.
“And, you know, the physical part of the game doesn’t hurt as much as it looks. I guess for some people it might, but I’ve always been pretty good at the physical part of the game.”
Clutterbuck feels his ability to be balanced and transfer his weight properly is key to the physical aspect of his game.
“It doesn’t hurt when I go in and do what I do,” he said. “I’m very lucky that way.”
What hurts more, hitting or getting hit, the NHL’s leader in career
hits was asked.
“It depends if you’re prepared for it. With the amount that I was hitting and with the way the game was when I started playing, I had to be very aware all the time when I was on the ice,” he answered. “I think you put a little bit of a target on your back when you’re that physical. I had to really be aware of what was going on around me.
“That awareness has developed over time.”
When Clutterbuck knows he is going to get hit, “I kind of like to give it back.”
“I’m not the type of person who sees somebody coming to hit me, I’m not going to get small and try and get up against the boards,” he said. “I’m going to lean into it and I found that to be a pretty recipe for taking hits.
“It’s a lot better to meet it head-on and prepare yourself and brace yourself and give it back a little. And the more you give it back, the less people come and try and hit you.”
Clutterbuck isn’t contemplating retirement at this point in his career.
“Physically I feel fine. I feel like I can continue,” he said. “It’s just a question of whether or not the people in charge think that I’m still capable.
“I think I’m still pretty efficient doing the things that I have always done. As far as my mind and my body, they’re both well intact and willing to keep going for sure.”
He is proud of achieving the record for hits — 3,948 and counting — in an NHL career.
“For me, it’s just a testament to the consistency with which I have been able to do this and over a long duration of time,” he said. “I think it’s just more of a testament to my consistency and my commitment to playing the game that I played when I first came in.
“The game has changed quite a bit and to be able to continue to do it is something I’m proud of for sure.”
Clutterbuck, more than a month shy of his 16th birthday when he joined the then Toronto St. Michael’s Majors for his first OHL season in 2003-04, is now among the older players in the NHL.
“The other day at dinner the guys were talking about how many guys in the league are older than I am, and they would only come up with 10 or 12,” he said with a laugh. “I definitely feel like an old man now.”
During the summer a couple of years ago he grew his beard out for a couple of weeks.
“There was a bunch of grey, so I think that’s probably the moment where I was like, ‘Oh boy, you’re not a pup anymore,’ ” he said. “But it’s not something that I think about consistently. Like I said, I feel pretty good.
“I think on your 30th birthday everyone kind of looks around — especially, in hockey — and you get the feeling like you might be on the back nine.
“Once you get to 900 games and 950 games and 1,000 games and 1,050 games, you start to feel like you’re definitely on the other side.”
Clutterbuck and his wife, the former Cassie DePalo, also from Welland, have three daughters — Harper, 11, Willow, nine, Stevie, nine months — and a son, River, five.
River is in his second season playing on a Jr. Islanders team along with the sons of four of his father’s teammates.
“He loves it, he loves being out there,” Cal Clutterbuck, the proud papa, said. “They’re all wearing our numbers and the name bars are on the back.
“When we travel around, it’s pretty funny. It truly is the Jr. Islanders.”
The H.L. Cudney Memorial Award will be presented at the City of Welland Sports Banquet on April 5, at Casa Dante.