Your First Prospect

[Jysk]

My first prespect is my son Eric, born in 11 july 2002. He learned to skate in september 2004. In Sweden we have a thing called "Björnligan" its for kids who are 5 or 6 years old. My son and i were going to skate on the rink in mid Februari and Björnliga had a pratice. I talked to one of the coaches and he laughed and sad that we could skate with them. He must have tought that i was a complete idiot. Well i tied my son skates and off he went. Everybody on the ice stoped ant the parents yelled " look at that kid" ( you think that i was proud or what). He skated with them for 20 minutes ( ok it was a little here ant there, remember that ha was just 2,5 years old at tha time). The head coach came and talked with me after and he was amazed. He couldnt understand howe a 2,5 year old could skate better the all of his 5 and 6 year olds. He didnt belewe me that he was so young. Eric is a verry big boy in all ways, he is bigger than most 4 yearolds. I solud say allso that he started to walk when ha got 7 monts !!! i didnt walk until i was 13,5 months so he is werry earely...

He gets his hockey stick from Lars-Gunnar "Krobbe" Lundberg the greatest Swedish stickhandler ever. In the 70s he won the scoringtitle in the sel and he has promised thet he will coach my son when he starts playing, because he has never seen a so young boy taht can skate so well.

 

[mercury]

My first prespect is my son Eric, born in 11 july 2002. He learned to skate in september 2004. In Sweden we have a thing called "Björnligan" its for kids who are 5 or 6 years old. My son and i were going to skate on the rink in mid Februari and Björnliga had a pratice. I talked to one of the coaches and he laughed and sad that we could skate with them. He must have tought that i was a complete idiot. Well i tied my son skates and off he went. Everybody on the ice stoped ant the parents yelled " look at that kid" ( you think that i was proud or what). He skated with them for 20 minutes ( ok it was a little here ant there, remember that ha was just 2,5 years old at tha time). The head coach came and talked with me after and he was amazed. He couldnt understand howe a 2,5 year old could skate better the all of his 5 and 6 year olds. He didnt belewe me that he was so young. Eric is a verry big boy in all ways, he is bigger than most 4 yearolds. I solud say allso that he started to walk when ha got 7 monts !!! i didnt walk until i was 13,5 months so he is werry earely...

He gets his hockey stick from Lars-Gunnar "Krobbe" Lundberg the greatest Swedish stickhandler ever. In the 70s he won the scoringtitle in the sel and he has promised thet he will coach my son when he starts playing, because he has never seen a so young boy taht can skate so well.

Sidney Crosby, look out! Good luck, Jysk. Eric is now at the top of my list of 2020-eligibles.

 

[Fighter]

Sidney Crosby, look out! Good luck, Jysk. Eric is now at the top of my list of 2020-eligibles.

Another fan of your boy here. Good luck!
This story reminds me of Dustin Rose, who learned to skate at 7 months!

 

[Jysk]

The first thing he does when he wakes up is grabbing one of his hockey sticks. He plays day in and day out and im not crying over that
It was my mother taht started all this. She gave him a stick when he was abot 11 months old and that was probobly the best gift hes ever gotten exept from his little sister Sara.

 

[gretzky1545]

i'm fairly new to hockey, started following only a few years ago, favorite prospect was far and away frolov. B/c i love afros, and hes...ya know...good and stuff.

 

[The Nemesis]

I don't think one prospect really got me into all of this. I watched the draft for the last 4-5 years on TSN, but it wasn't until I got my first THN draft preview as a part of my subscription a couple of years ago that I really began to follow prospects more closely. Sadly, Gilbert Brule is probably the first pre-drafted prospect that I singled out and followed more closely, but I have yet to reach the stage where I go out and acquire tapes of guys, or ship myself all over the place to watch people.

 

[clefty]

Kraft in 98 and Koltsov in 99.

 

[shveik]

I followed the Red Wings drafts since maybe 1998 (mostly figuring out whom they drafted post factum). But there were two Wings prospects that sucked me into this whole prospect thing. First, in 2001 I was (as I recall) one of the few who were quite excited over Grigorenko being picked by the Wings. Grigorenko then proceeded to make a major splash the next year. That year, fancying myself a prospect "expert", I actually looked at the info on *all* top prospects *before* the draft. Based on the prospect rankings I figured that the Wings would have a shot at Fleischmann, who seemed like a promising sniper prospect. Can you beleive my excitement when Wings picked Fleischmann with their 2nd rounder! Never mind the fact that they also picked highly ranked Hudler as well in the 2nd...

Needless to say that my prospect "insight" was beginners luck

 

[Form and Substance]

2001-Jason Spezza, Ilya Kovalchuk, Mikko Koivu and Stanislav Chistov

I think 2001 marked the last year of exaggerated hosannas. Prospects pre 2002 always had ENORMOUS shoes to fill (like Fata being labeled a potential 50 goal scorer ha!), it was probably because everyone was looking for the next Mario or the next Gretzky, ever since Crosby entered the scene some of the pressure's been lifted from other highly touted prospects. Their given much more humble projections now.

 

[Hyped]

Forgot to mention my first prospect watch. It was a friend's brother, Tyler Wright. He was the biggest show in town when he played his minor hockey (and another guy by the name of Charlie Keshane, who had a whack of talent, but never went anywhere for personal reasons). The rink was full to watch that bantam team and from there I followed his every move. And that's carried over up to the point where I follow absolutely everyone now...

 

[Wonder Boy]

Dustin Rose.

His size, skating and shot had me thinking he was the 1st, 2nd and 3rd coming.

 

[sveiglar]

Who was the prospect that got you going about hockey prospects?

For me it was during the 1990-91 season when Toronto's GM Floyd Smith inexplicably traded Toronto's #1 pick for a average offensive defensiveman in Tom Kurvers. That year the prize in the draft was Eric Lindros and the Leafs ended up finishing with the third worst record (23-46-11) and the Devils were awarded the third overall pick in the draft. In fact the outcome of who would get the #1 overall pick was not none till the end of the season when the Leafs had a nice little run that took them out of the running.

But despite that we still made out like bandits and after Quebec selected Lindros overall #1 and the Sharks took Pat Fallon with the second pick, we had the third and I remember that the talk was that Lou had narrowed his choice to two defensemen, Scott Niedermeyer and Scott LaChance. And this was the first time that I got involved in following the NHL draft and praying that Lou would take Nieder, mostly because of the exaggrated comparisons to Paul Coffey.

And Lou did select my boy Neider and I started to follow his progress in the WHL and thus lead me to being a complete fool when it comes to hockey and their prospects.

Exactly the same guy for me, Lou. I remember vividly following the Leafs all that year praying for losses (even more so that I normally did).

On a whim I decided to watch the draft with a couple of buddies that I showed the magazine to and when Lou said "The New Jersey Devils are proud to select... from the Kamloops Blazers.... Scott Niedermayer" with his New York accent I was hooked on the event.

I've got that draft (and a few others from the early 90s) on VHS, and you omitted my favourite part of Lou's selection announcement: "... from the Kambloops, loops Blazahs, Scott Niedermayah".

 

[pei fan]

This is an interesting and original idea for a thread. What got me interested in
following "prospects" was the arrival of a QMJHL franchise to my hometown
(PEI Rocket).Also,it was timed with the arrival of one of the greatest prospects
ever in that very same league and also he's a maritimer,so it's pretty exciting
to follow him and other prospects.My favorite prospect on the Rocket is Marc
Andre Gragnani,a highly skilled defencemen, but he needs to put on a little
muscle and get a little more physical.

 

[Zoo]

Alexander Daigle !!

Yep I got caught up in the hype....

 

[Anthony Mauro]

2000-Marian Gaborik and Dany Heatley. These guys had amazing bio's and were very intriguing to me.

2001-Mike Komisarek. He was a local guy and I was just pulling for him to do well and get drafted high. Came from the same rink that I play at and it was just something that was just cool.

 

[sveiglar]

What got me interested in following "prospects" was the arrival of a QMJHL franchise to my hometown (PEI Rocket).

I had never lived anywhere to follow a hometown junior team until I moved to Victoria in '99 and started following the Salsa (Jr. A). Became a fan of a big, goal-scoring, fist-flinging forward named Aaron Voros. Made huge strides from almost pure fighter at 16 to accomplished BCHL scorer at 18. I was rooting for him to be drafted , and he was finally picked by my favourite NHL team, well that was just icing on the cake.

I figure now that I'll follow the Q a lot more closely with the arrival of the Fog Devils.

 

[habsfansam]

It wasn't actually a prospect that got me into prospects... I was in Montreal in 1998, working my butt off at McGill, and Montreal was sucking it up. I think Recchi had been the pre-season point leader, but things had gone wrong and he was sick as a dog and the team was pretty bad. Fortunately, the prospects were doing pretty well that year... Jason Ward, Michael Ryder, Mike Ribiero, and Eric Chouinard.

Really, I got into prospects as a break from the pain. I first really started following the draft when Hainsey and Hossa were selected by the Habs in the 1st round, and even that pales in comparison to how obsessed I became when I was running a draft for a FaceOff league in 2003...

 

[ProctorSilex]

Eric Lindros, I was just a kid and we got cable so I finally got to watch the World Juniors and all that. He was the most dominant player I ever saw in my life, and I started collecting his Score rookie cards so that was it... never missed a draft since.

Was also big on Paul Kariya in 1993.

 

[Blackshad]

Players i saw in the Q that i followed..

Pascal Dupuis - Dont know why he was not drafted.. he was dominating.
Radim Vrbata - You saw that he was that good. And alot better than all the players on the ice. So deadly in the offencive zone.
Marc-André Bergeron - Played a mean game. Was always slashing and crosschecking in front of his net... had the best fighter of the league as defencive partner (Etinger, EDM prospect who sadly died). Was the type of guy that could take the puck behind his net and pass the entire team and score. Had an hard slap shot. I was so happy when Edmonton tryed him.
Christian Larrivée - Had good seasons in the Q and was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens.. May never play in the NHL but i played with this guy for 2 years in the same team in Gaspé.

 

[MattScott]

Well I never really got heavily into the draft and prospects until the 2002 draft but I have early memories of the 1993 draft that I remember to rub in my brother's face once or twice a year. I was only 8 years old, he was 13 and we were watching the draft on TV. We didn't really know any of the prospects at that age but when the Habs took Saku Koivu at 21st overall my brother was outraged that we would take a tiny little european. I was always small as a kid and was thrilled at the pick telling my big bro how Koivu would be the best player on the team within a few years. Couldn't have said it better, even as an 8 year old.

More recently I followed the 2003 draft very closely hoping that the Habs would take Corey Locke in the 2nd or 3rd round thinking it would turn out to be a huge steal. Well after day 1 of the draft I was less than excited not to hear his name but had a feeling that the next morning I'd see his picture with a Habs jersey on when I turned to the TSN website. I was right again, not to say that Locke will ever be a Koivu type player, I just think he's got what it takes to make it. Never one to count out the little guys.

Just if those visions of Sidney Crosby and Gilbert Brule in Habs jerseys could come true now

 

[the_gman83]

As far back as I can remember, I've always tried to catch the Entry Draft on TV, but, living in Medicine Hat, I really started watching prospects in 2002, when two Tigers were selected as their respective team's MVP in the Top Prospect's Game, and subsequently taken in the top 10 in the NHL Entry Draft(Bouwmeester and Lupul). Ironically, it wasn't until these two players went on to bigger and better things that the Tigers won the WHL championship.

 

[Ismellofhockey]

I became a Sens fan the year they came into the league, for a while, prospects was all I had...

I started following the draft on TV in 2000.

 

[WADEugottaBELAKthat]

Jeff Freisen at #11 shocked and dismayed me. I had a feeling he was better than that, and proved it shorty thereafter with a solid rookie season as an 18 year old. Overall, he hasn't panned out as many thought he would, but he got me going on prospects - to answer your question

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

Scott Gomez and Mike Van Ryan really got me going for the Devils. Internet also really helped.

 

[HfxMoose]

Mike Ribeiro and Simon Gagne.