EVERETT – There have to be some juvenile delinquents out there who think of Everett Silvertips goalie Michael Wall as The One Who Got Away.
So much potential here to be a Hall of Fame troublemaker.
Here’s a 19-year-old, hundreds of miles away from his hometown, Telkwa, British Columbia. A hockey player, for crying out loud. Because he graduated from high school last year, all Wall has to fill his days are hockey, hockey and working out to stay in shape for hockey.
That leaves a lot of free time for the extracurriculars that more than a few his age engage in.
Wall, however, is as far from that as it gets, a virtual Eagle Scout in a goalie’s mask. It’s not that other hockey players and other teenagers don’t take care of themselves and aren’t simply beautiful human beings, but Wall appears to represent the extreme.
“I’ve never even seen him in a bad mood,” said his host “mother,” Mitzi Werner of Lake Stevens.
Yes, but here’s a 19-year-old kid in your house …
“His room is always clean,” Werner said. “His bathroom is spotless.”
But, he has a DRUM SET …
“I’m assuming he plays them when I go out of the house,” she said.
Extended attempts to dig up dirt on Wall came up empty. His mother, Sheila Rauch, never had any trouble from him. Werner raves about him as though he is her own.
Wall doesn’t eat junk food during training, which is to say, the great majority of the time. No fast food, either. He cooks for himself, mostly chicken, and leaves Werner’s kitchen the way it was before he came in. He works out faithfully, always gets the right amount of sleep and drinks nothing stronger than the occasional soda. And even that’s diet soda.
“It’s something I take pride in,” Wall said. “I just feel better for doing it. I could probably get away with eating what I want, but I just don’t feel as good. I feel good and I feel quick and that’s when I’m best at my game. Eating healthy keeps me up there.”
His most egregious offense: So hyped on adrenaline, Wall tends to stay up until 2 a.m. after games, watching movies.
“Goalies are different,” Silvertips defenseman Mitch Love said, smiling, “but I think you’ve got to be a little bit different when you stand in front of 90 mph slapshots.”
But trouble? Ha!
Those anti-Western Hockey Leaguers who feared Everett would be overrun by the same knuckle-dragging, punch-happy, toothless, obscenity-spewing hooligans who turn Wembley Stadium into the WWE never met Michael Wall.
Look up “conscientious” in Webster’s Unabridged and Wall’s picture is there. Wall has zero inclination toward the temptations waiting for him out there. He has no time. Never did.
“I was always pretty scared to get in trouble as a kid,” Wall said. “When I was a little kid, whenever you got in trouble, you had to stand against the wall. I was always scared to go to the principal’s office. I didn’t like it, so I thought, ‘I’ll just avoid all the stress of this.’”
And get this. While Rauch acknowledges that the family set down expectations for behavior, she also gives youth hockey credit for the way her son is now. Instead of running around in the streets, Wall was on teams, went to practice, filled his days with school and hockey and simply fell for the sport from age 5.
“He was on rec teams and always had certain guidelines to follow,” Rauch said. “He always had good role models. I think they instilled some of that in him, as well: Here’s a set of rules we have to follow. This is why we’re doing it this way. I always point to the hockey as something that gave him something to focus on.”
Constantine points to Wall’s character as one reason he is, statistically, one of the best goaltenders in the WHL. Going into Saturday’s game against Vancouver, Wall (15-13-5) was fourth in the league in goals-against average at 1.95 a game. His save percentage is 92.8. He has a team-record seven shutouts.
“His strength as a player is him as a person,” Constantine said. “He is so dedicated, so well-prepared. He’s such a good kid in terms of how he lives his life. If you ask what the first thing about Wall is that he’s such a good person. Then you’d start talking about his goaltending.”
One, Constantine, leads to the other.
“If you picked a player and said, ‘Look, this is how I want you to sleep; this is how I want you to eat, this is how I want you to be as a person,’ he’d be the prototype of that,” Constantine said. “He’s a good liver.”
It is Wall’s desire, one he’s cultivated since he was small, that leads him into the type of life he lives. Since he entered the WHL with the Prince George Cougars in 2001, the NHL has been the goal.
The goal has sustained Wall through difficult times, such as his two-plus seasons at Prince George, where he appeared in just 15 games, before he was traded to Everett. It sustained him last season in Everett, where he played behind the wildly popular and successful Jeff Harvey.
And the goal has sustained him earlier this season, when he allowed the odd late goal that cost the Silvertips some games. That, largely, has been eliminated.
While the NHL is Wall’s goal, the game is his love.
“I don’t always like it,” he said, “but I always love it.”
Wall’s role has expanded greatly from last season. As the starter, he’s the guy, whether he’s going through a difficult stretch or not.
“Last year, I was kind of called upon when needed,” Wall said. “That’s a different situation. I can have a bad practice and not play for three games or more. Playing every day, you pretty much have to be perfect.”
Lately, Wall has been less than perfect. Although he can feel himself improving in certain aspects of his game, the goals have been trickling in. It happens to many developing athletes: Moving up in skill level, many temporarily take two steps back and one step forward.
That’s what Wall is going through now.
“This has probably been his toughest stretch,” Constantine said. “He’s been on the hot and cold ever since Christmas. He got two shutouts with a lot of our players gone. Then he’s had a couple of outings where he’s given up three or four. But overall, you look at his stats compared to those guys in the rest of the league and he’s right at the top.”
Wall seems to be fighting himself. He recognizes it. He’s attempting to correct it. He goes about it with the same meticulous, methodical way he lives his life.
“I’m just trying to be consistent,” Wall said. “I look at the things in my routine. I think it’s in the way I prepare for games. I think I’ve stepped it up and trying to find consistency at another level. I just have to go back to the simple things.”
And the right things. Always the right things.
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