Walser overcame challenges as player
New Petes assistant coach for defence hopes players take chances, just as he did in a 19-year pro career
Nothing ever came easy for Derrick Walser but the things he learned during a 19-year pro hockey career give him a lot to offer aspiring young players.
As a five-foot-nine junior defenceman in the 1990s it was a challenge to make his way. Growing up in the Maritimes he applied for eligibility to the OHL draft but was passed over. He was selected by the Beauport Harfangs in the QMJHL’s Maritime draft and by the end of his junior career was named CHL defenceman-of-theyear as a member of the Rimouski Oceanic. He scored 41 goals and 110 points in 70 games that season.
It wasn’t enough to get him drafted by an NHL club.
“It was a different era,” said Walser, the Petes defensive coach, prior to practice on Wednesday. “Big teams like New Jersey were winning Cups and it was a big, slow, clutch and grab type of game. It really made it hard. It was one of those things you use to try to motivate you to prove people wrong.”
The Calgary Flames signed him as a free agent and assigned him to the minors where he spent more time in the press box than playing with the AHL’s Saint John Flames or down in the ECHL with the Johnstown Chiefs.
There were times in Saint John he admits he considered quitting. He said Johnstown coach Scott Allen believed in him and when Jim Playfair arrived as Saint John head coach in 2000, at Allen’s urging he gave Walser a chance. He was an integral part of their Calder Cup championship that season.
All these years later, Walser said he appreciates how those tough times made him better. Peterborough Petes new assistant coach Derrick Walser takes part in a team practice on Wednesday at the Memorial Centre. The Petes host the Oshawa Generals at 7:05 p.m. Thursday at the Memorial Centre on fridge magnet night and student night.
“If there is a will there is a way, you just have to find your path,” he said. “It can eventually pay off if you keep doing the right things and meet the right people and show passion in what you care about.”
The next year he made his NHL debut with the Columbus Blue Jackets and over the next three seasons played 82 NHL games.
During the NHL lockout in 200405 Walser jumped to Europe where he helped the Berlin Ice Bears to their first German Elite League title in 20 years.
When he returned to North America in 2006 he was back in the minors with the exception of nine games in Columbus. It was a hard period for he and his wife to start a young family. The bouncing between teams was difficult.
“It was tough on my wife. She gave birth in Albany and I got traded the week before. I drove home for the birth and played three-in-three. She had to drive herself home from the hospital,” he said. “I drove to Syracuse, N.Y. two days later and she had to move into a hotel by herself with a baby and a dog while I was on the road.”
He decided to return to Europe for the stability but says the biggest mistake of his career was joining the KHL’s Chekhov Vityaz. He said the club stopped paying players in November and fearing he’d never see his money if he left he stuck it out.
“I had to sue them,” he said. “I ended up winning my court case but all that trouble I went through I could have made just as much money in Germany and had my family with me.”
The next six years he played in Berlin and then Rapperswil in Switzerland before taking a playercoach job with the Belfast Giants in 2015. He spent two years there coaching more than playing before joining the Petes this year. Walser said he’d been coaching in an unofficial capacity for a number of years as a player.
“You can’t play forever and I wanted to prepare myself for something like this,” he said. “This is exactly what I wanted to do after (playing), to help develop kids. Help them to learn at this level to be able to move up when the time comes.”
His biggest advice to players is to put the work in and always be open to learning.
“Don’t take it for granted. Work on your weaknesses but also continue to work on your strengths to set yourself up. Don’t wish and hope. Set yourself up by doing the right things and learning. Put yourself out there and don’t be afraid to take a chance.”