The HockeyDB page of Nick Huard, the North Bayer who is having a fine first full season with the ECHL's Cincinnati Cyclones, reads like a great Canadian novel.
The late, great author Paul Quarrington, of King Leary fame, coined the term 'life boxes' for the grid of numbers that summarize a player's career. It offers clues about a player's path through the puck world. With Huard, who is having a steady ECHL rookie season with a good Cincinnati Cyclones, what is not in his 'life box' reveals how his success story has been a 10-year path.
No games in his home province's major junior league, and only 59 in the Q, most with the long-gone Lewiston MAINEiacs. Then three years apiece of hustling and skill honing with the Junior A Woodstock Slammers and Ontario University Athletics' Guelph Gryphons, before joining Cincy late last season. The 5-foot-9, 181-pound center is third in team scoring and is one of just two Cyclones who's competed in all 62 games. He's also taking online classes and aiming at earning his bachelor of arts degree at U of Guelph by the end of 2016.
“It is crazy, I have to admit,” says Huard, whose parents Glen and Frances and supportive young sister, Alexis Huard, recently made the long trek through Indiana and Ohio to watch him play. “Everyone has that dream as a 15-year-old to get drafted and work your way up through the system, but you play junior, you go to school and keep working. When you go to school you do so never knowing if you're going to make your jump, once you're doing it, you realize you have a shot. Like, 'I'm still young enough to make the jump, maybe not in the NHL, but in the ECHL or Europe or the American League (AHL). There's just so much more to experience than just the NHL.”
Huard had an exposure to the AHL with a one-game cameo last season with the Adirondack Flames. That's his beacon.
“What I have to work on is mostly the cliché stuff – being stronger, faster, trying clean up some D [defensive] zone,” Huard says. “Coming from playing 25-28 games [an OUA regular season], this year has been all about really competing every night. With 72 games here, you learn how to manage that.”
The hockey world, of course, shines on those whose aptitude is unmissable from an early age. There can also be room to take in knowing about players who persevere.
“He turned every 'no' into an opportunity to prove himself,” Glen Huard relates. “It's kind of surreal, knowing all of the decisions he had to make to and follow up on to get to where he is.
“There were probably two watershed moments for him. The first was not being drafted into the OHL in his 15-year-old year [2007]. There were positive talks with the St. Michael's Majors, then they had a bunch of management changes and he was not drafted.
“The second was leaving junior hockey to play CIS at Nipissing when he was 19 [in 2010],” Glen adds. “Three-quarters of the way into the fall, he saw where his place was: to play junior hockey. He made the decision to go back to Woodstock, then in his OA [overage] year, they won the Fred Page Cup [Eastern champions] and had silver medal in the RBC Cup [national Junior A championship].”
To sum it all up, Glen adds, “We always said we never got to see to too many places in the world... but we've been to probably every arena in North America.”
At both Woodstock from ages 18-20 and at Guelph from 21-23, Huard put up points at a high rate and had it lead to team success. His OUA days were capped off by helping the '14-15 Gryphons make the Queen's Cup for the first time in 17 seasons, while also playing in the University Cup.
“CIS is a great route for hockey,” says Huard, who turns 25 late this month. “The coaches I had there, the assistant coach Chris Clancy and, in my first year, Dave Milik who worked a lot with me on my 1-on-1 skills, they spent a lot of with me.
“And as you get older, it's more important to get your degree,” Huard notes. “I've seen guys who have come in [to minor pro] at 20 and don't get the proper ice and and they have to go back to school age age 24, 25. It's nice to see guys getting their degree before they go pro.”
With post-junior players, the tired CHL-or-college debate gets recycled into CIS or minor pro. Huard notes that in the Coast league, there's a unique bond between players.
“It's almost like a college. We live in one apartment complex and us and the players with girlfriends and wives will take turns cooking. We go play basketball on off days when it's nice. Everyone here has a done a great job making me comfortable.”
'Comfortable' is not a word used lightly in the hockey industry. It works here, though, since Huard knows from how hard it is to get the right fit.
