Mitch Maxwell was sitting in the Olds Grizzlies dressing room one day a couple of weeks ago for a team meeting. Coach Kevin Hasselberg walked in and asked veteran Brance Orban who he was rooming with at the Scott Safety AJHL All Star game in Calgary on January 31.
“Orban looked down at the list and said my name,” Maxwell recalled with a smile, “and that’s how I found out I’d been named to the South All Star team. It was quite a moment. I was a little surprised. It’s quite an honour. I’ll be playing with a bunch of the top guys in this League and I couldn’t have asked for anything better, especially because it’s my first year in the AJHL.”
One of his teammates in Calgary will be Orban, who, like Maxwell, came out of southern Alberta’s hockey development program. Maxwell grew up in Magrath, the son of Greg who’s a Crown prosecutor in Lethbridge, and Lisa, who works as a substitute teacher when she’s not busy running a family of three boys and two girls. Maxwell played up to the atom level in Magrath before he moved into the Lethbridge minor hockey system. He played through the AA bantam program before graduating to the AAA midget team last season.
“I guess I’m a bit of a late bloomer,” he told me. “By the time I got to midget hockey we had a pretty good team. I think I had 10 goals and 31 assists in 35 games in AAA last season. I had gone to Brooks’ camp in the fall but didn’t make the roster. It was a good year in midget, a fun year. And when Kevin came calling in the spring, he talked to several players about coming to Olds. Four of us actually did come to Olds in the fall, although Cale Wright and I are the only two players remaining in the program.”
“He was an easy player to want to have in our program,” Hasselburg told me. “Great talent, tremendous speed. He’s been a little snake bit offensively of late. I’ve been playing him with Cory Campbell and Jordan Kwas, however, and they are finding their way.”
“It’s been fun to play with Cory and with Jordan,” Maxwell noted. “I think we’re looked upon as a scoring line. But we’re trying to play a stronger game defensively so that we can go out and do a good job against other team’s top lines. One of the many things I’ve learned here is how playing good defensively can lead to scoring chances at the other end of the ice.”
That sort of attitude is a big part of the Grizzlies story so far this season. The team languished in the bottom half of the South Division for the first couple of months. But it has come alive since late November and now finds itself in third place in the division, seven games over .500.
“We shook up the roster a bit and brought in defenseman Frank Carbonero from Spruce Grove, defenseman Ryan Cornforth from Augustana College and forward Chad Berglund from Camrose,” said Hasselburg. “They’ve all helped us to put more pressure on the puck, which is one of the things we identified that needed improvement. And they’ve helped in things like leadership and team building.”
They’ve also helped in relieving to some extent, the pressure of young players to produce as rookies in the League. It’s a big move for a 17 year old to leave home and go to some town three hours away to play hockey.
“I think it bothers my mom more than anybody,” Maxwell told me. “She and Dad are still able to get to a bunch of games. But my brothers are both into hockey and my two sisters play basketball so Mom and Dad have to spend some time with them as well. My brother Russell just played in the bantam AAA All Star game. He and I both have the same number of points (35) in our respective Leagues.”
And it helps that Greg and Lisa know their boy is being looked after very nicely by Bruce and Shelley Collins in Olds.
“Ben Wilson and I billet with them and they’re great,” Maxwell notes. “Shelley’s a great cook (always an important consideration!) and Shelley owns the M&M Meat Store franchise in Olds. We pretty much have the basement suite to ourselves.”
“And I’m able to get some work done in school. A bunch of us are writing the SAT’s on Jan. 24th and we’re getting together once a week to prepare for that. I’d really like to do well on the SAT’s because then perhaps I can garner some college interest.”
Some colleges have already expressed an interest according to Hasselburg. It won’t hurt that the scouts will get an extra chance to evaluate him at the Scott Safety AJHL All Star game January 31 at Max Bell Centre. There, he’ll be matched up with and against the top players in the League. That’s always the best way to watch a player perform.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Maxwell says. “It’ll be a great learning experience and a lot of fun. I’m just happy to be a part of it.” |