His hardest shot? At redemption

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This article was published 04/04/2016 (3659 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Scott Glennie never imagined seven years after a night that seemigly promised a lifetime of riches he’d be sitting at the MTS Iceplex wondering where his next job would be.

It’s certainly wasn’t where he, or the Dallas Stars, expected him to be when he was drafted eighth overall in the 2009 NHL Draft. 

“Right now I thought I’d be sitting in Dallas, playing there and contributing to that team,” Glennie said in an interview with the Free Press. “Of course that’s what I wanted to do.”

It’s been almost seven years since Winnipegger Glennie, now 25, heard his name boom over the giant speakers at the Bell Centre in Montreal; since he hugged and thanked his family before making the trek to centre stage to throw on a Dallas Stars jersey that hung low on his giant 6-1 body and a cap that framed his boyish smile.

Pegged with the potential to blossom into hockey greatness one day, the former Brandon Wheat King has played just one game in the National Hockey League. Odds suggest he won’t play a second. He officially cut ties with the Stars in the 2014-15 season after playing parts of four seasons with the team’s AHL affliate the Texas Stars.

So what happened between then and now? What were the set of circumstances behind a young and elite talent who took the Western Hockey League by storm, but has since fallen short of even the most modest expectations?

Ask the man himself and Glennie says he just wasn’t ready for it mentally, even if he knew it was coming; that he eventually got swept up in the lifestyle, even if he knew at times it was destructive.

“A lot of things came at me really quickly, and I wasn’t mentally prepared for a lot of it,” he said.

That included getting a signing bonus from the Stars at 18 to the tune of US$270,000 — three separate installments of US$90,000 put into his bank account over the span of a year. For a kid who had yet to hold down a job in his life, who grew up in a modest home, he all of a sudden had more than he could handle.

He doesn’t want your pity. Talking about it allows him to take responsibility for his actions.

“I got drafted so high I thought maybe I was going to get that chance (no matter what) and I wasn’t prepared to put in the amount of work that I thought I needed to put in,” he said.

Glennie played four seasons with the Brandon Wheat Kings under current GM and head coach Kelly McCrimmon, scoring 308 points in 252 regular-season games. Asked in a telephone interview Monday whether there were any signs of a questionable work ethic with his star winger, McCrimmon was quick to shoot down the claim.

“I think you’re probably referring more to his time as a pro,” he said. “There were no issues here.”

Glennie was 16 in his first season with Brandon. He entered the league at the same time as two other young talents in Brayden Schenn, now with the Philadelphia Flyers and Matt Calvert, a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Those who had been his former linemates for the better part of three seasons are now daily reminders of what could have been.

“Every now and then people will make sure I know that those two are playing up but that’s good for them. They worked hard and they deserve it,” said Glennie, who after years of hearing and reading his name beside the word “bust’ has developed a thick skin.

It was during his time in Brandon that Willie Desjardins, who would later go on to coach Glennie for two seasons with the Texas Stars, including a Calder Cup Championship year in 2014, would first set eyes on his future project.

“I was coaching Medicine Hat at the time and he had a great talent. As a 16-year-old he was elite,” recalled Desjardins, now the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, in a phone interview Monday. “There’s a difference between loving the game and loving the lifestyle and I think for him he went to loving the lifestyle more and that got him off track. As a result, I don’t think you ever saw the best of Scott Glennie.”

It didn’t take long for Desjardins to see the red flags. In his first season as head coach of the Stars he caught word Glennie was thinking of missing training camp. Worried he may actually follow through on the decision, Desjardins made one of the most unorthodox moves over his long coaching career: he called his mom.

“She got him down there and he came down to camp and I told him ‘I’m not going to let you play until you get into great shape’,” said Desjardins. “He hadn’t trained all summer, he hadn’t done anything.”

Glennie would sit out close to 25 games to start that season, but it would change the way he viewed hockey and his life. The move, albeit unusual, was out of respect for a player Desjardins knew possessed a rare talent.

“He has a good soul inside him,” added Desjardins. “He’s a good person and I certainly hope it turns out for him. He has the skill level to do it.”

It will now be up to his determination as to whether he can forge a successful comeback. After spending a year away from the game to recover from shoulder surgery, Glennie said he’s more determined than ever. He had finally hit his low point: At 25 he was living back at home, stuck to the couch watching others play the game he loved.

“I didn’t really know what my future had in store at that point,” he said. “My parents were great, my agent was great. My mind is clear for the first time in a long time. They’ve gotten me to a good place where I need to be.”

Right now, that’s back living in Brandon with his agent, spending hours in the gym every day with the help of Jim Frederickson, his old strength and conditioning coach with the Wheat Kings. Monday, he was in Winnipeg on the ice getting instruction from NHL Hall of Famer Adam Oates, now a player consultant, in the first of what he hopes will be many future sessions.

“He’s a guy that’s trying to become a better hockey player,” Oates said about their hour-long session. “I really just gave him a couple things to work on, on his own.”

Now, it’s up to him.

jeff.hamilton@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @jeffkhamilton