Twice released by the Swift Current Broncos, Shaun Heshka allowed doubt to creep into his mind.
Michael O’Leary / The Herald
Self-doubt is a devastating enemy to an athlete. Here was Heshka, a winner in every level of hockey he’d joined since he began playing the game in tiny Melville, Saskatchewan. He’d been named Most Valuable Defenseman the previous season in helping the Tisdale Trojans win the prestigious Air Canada Cup, the nation’s midget-class championships.
And now, in the summer of 2003, Heshka was in the camp of the Everett Silvertips, an expansion team in the Western Hockey League.
Then barely 18, Heshka felt pulled in so many directions. U.S. universities, especially Ivy League schools such as Cornell and Princeton, invited him to their hallowed halls to learn life and play hockey. Many in Melville urged him to come home, where he could put the already-loaded Melville Millionaires over the top in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League.
Yet Heshka was with the Silvertips. And his failures caught up with his psyche.
He didn’t expect to make Swift Current’s team as a 16-year-old. At 17, he expected to make the Broncos’ roster. The resultant cut seared his very soul.
What if the same happened here, with a lowly expansion team?
“Being cut twice in a row was pretty tough on me,” Heshka said. “I was scared to come back, only to get cut again. I almost gave up. I began thinking that I may not have enough skills to play in this league.”
He even asked coach Kevin Constantine for a guaranteed roster spot. Constantine’s answer was a suggestion that Heshka take the next bus home and think about whether he really wanted to commit himself to play.
From then until now – a span of 19 months – Heshka went from that fragile state of mind and the team’s 10th and last defenseman to assistant captain, the squad’s third-leading scorer and the Silvertips’ quiet leader.
Heshka’s story is one of pride and a gentle parental nudge in the right direction. This was Heshka’s last chance and he knew it.
Motivation wasn’t a problem.
“I made it my mission to at least get a few years in and get my school paid for,” Heshka said. “Last year, I wanted to say I made an impact on us going to the finals, so I could go back to the Swift Current coaches and say, ‘Look at this. Think you’d cut me now?’”
His impact on the Silvertips was nearly immediate and was vital to the team’s ascension to the WHL finals.
“By the middle of last year, he had gone from the No. 10 defenseman when he came to us to No. 4,” said Constantine, formerly head coach of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils. “Now, you consider him one of our top guys. … When people call and ask who can play at the next level, we’re more than willing to throw his name into the picture.
“Because he has such good vision on the ice, he’s such a good passer and because he’s so big and strong, we just think he’s got a shot at making it.”
It almost didn’t happen.
In leaving the Silvertips for those five summer days in 2003, Heshka hit up as many people as he could for advice. His former coaches. Friends who were scouts.
Most of all, his parents, Dale and Linda Heshka.
The greatest pressure came from his hometown. The Millionaires, with several strong 20-year-olds returning, expected to win the SJHL title. Heshka, loyal to a fault, considered staying in Melville, with players – close friends, really – he’d grown up with.
“My husband and I saw it as he was being really unselfish and that was wonderful, but he also had to look out for Shaun,” said Linda Heshka, a school teacher for grades 10 through 12.
Linda Heshka talked to a scout in Melville to find out whether her son had a chance to extend his time in hockey. The scout was positive that Heshka could play three years in the WHL, telling Linda Heshka that, even if Shaun didn’t make it in Everett, another team would pick him up.
“My husband and I sat Shaun down and asked him, ‘What is it that you want?’” Linda said. “This was an opportunity and life doesn’t give you a lot of opportunities. He had to decide what was best for himself.
“That’s when he said, ‘I’m not sure I’m good enough.’ I think that was because of his experience in Swift Current. We reminded him that he was chosen for the Air Canada Cup for a reason. … So he went.”
Heshka gradually moved up the depth chart, using his 6-foot-1, 205-pound body, his vision and his mind. He finished the season with three goals and seven assists on a team that’s identity was its dogged defense.
He long surpassed those numbers this season. He now has 10 goals and 24 assists.
“His offensive numbers are because he’s good defensively,” said Silvertips general manager Doug Soetaert, a 12-year NHL goalie. “He makes the smart plays. He’s a pretty heads-up hockey player. Moving the puck and keeping it simple make it easy for him to be good offensively.”
Contributing to that is Heshka’s growing confidence, so damaged at Swift Current. Heshka’s experience in Everett – being part of a record-breaking expansion team that, stunningly, reached the WHL finals – complemented his own personal growth.
Heshka’s teammates, formerly skeptical of him because of his decision to take a respite, trust him to the point of voting him assistant captain.
“He has unbelievable poise,” Silvertips center Torrie Wheat said. “He’s just flawless all the time. I just think it’s his confidence that has come up so high. The players really respect him.”
Heshka hopes for an NHL tryout and is looking for an agent. If he returns to Everett next season, he’ll enjoy that. The self-doubt is gone.
And Swift Current seems very far away.
“Every time Swift comes here, I talk to the coaches and they say, ‘We’re happy you’re doing really well,’” Heshka said. “I just say ‘thanks’ and stuff, but really, you want to say, ‘Up yours. Look at me now.’”
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