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LOS ANGELES - The traffic here in Southern California can be vexing, but a daily commute of better than five hours?
That’s what Emerson Etem faced Monday through Saturday during the summer, for the last three years, as he related Thursday, describing how he made his way from his native Long Beach to Venice.
The purpose was to work out with T.R. Goodman, trainer to the stars, and grunt with NHLers and former NHLers like Chris Chelios, Rob Blake and Sean O’Donnell, all to enhance Etem’s chances of making a bigger journey, all the way here, to the Staples Center for the NHL draft Friday night.
Etem, 18, would rollerblade four miles to a train station to start his trip, take two trains, transfer to a bus and rollerblade the final half-mile to Goodman’s studio.
“It took up a lot of the day, but it was worth it. It was humbling. They are old vets who were in the league for so long. You could learn so much from them and I did. If I’m going to have a long career, you have to make sacrifices and make a commitment. I tried to keep up to (Chelios) and use it as motivation. That didn’t work out so well,” said Etem, the leading rookie scorer in the Western Hockey League with the Medicine Hat Tigers last season.
He is projected to be part of what might be the biggest contingent of American born players ever taken in the first round of an NHL draft. The record for the most Americans taken in the first round is 10 which happened in both 2006 and 2007.
Some scouts are projecting the names of up to a dozen American kids could be called Friday night.
Etem might make into the top 15, another significant stop on a long trip that has seen him criss-cross the continent in search of competition to make him a better player.
He followed his older brother Martin into roller hockey at the neighbourhood YMCA before he was four years old and transitioned to the ice when he was six.
“It’s a little different atmosphere here with the weather and hockey not on TV that much,” said Etem, standing on a downtown terrace five stories from the street below and the Hollywood Hills in the background. “But once you were in the rink, we were like Canadian kids playing in California.”
The son of Patricia, an African-American, and Rick, who is white, he left their Long Beach home at 14 to attend Shattuck-St-Mary’s School in Fairbault, Minn., the prep school which helped shape the careers of Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Zach Parise and Jack Johnson.
He played the 2008-09 season with U.S. U17 development team and then moved to the Tigers for last season. He had those 37 goals along with 28 assists for 65 points.
His best assets are his speed and his shot. His athleticism shouldn’t come as a surprise. Pat rowed at the 1984 Olympic Games and in four world championships; Rick rowed at the Naval Academy and Martin is on the U.S. Under-23 national team.
“I wanted none of it,” said Etem of following his family onto the water, preferring his be frozen.
If he is taken 22nd or higher, he will be become the highest-drafted Californian. Jonathan Blum was taken 23rd overall by the Nashville Predators in 2007.
“It’s not what happens tomorrow,” he said. “It’s five years from now. I want to be at the top of this draft class.”
That might be another long road, but not anything that will intimidate a young man who apparently has no fear of taking the long way to get where he’s going.
chris.stevenson@sunmedia.ca