CBC-Sports

Is Steve Mason the next Marty Brodeur?

March 15, 2009 04:26 PM | Posted by   Elliotte Friedman  

On Saturday night's Hockey Night in Canada pre-game show, you saw the past (Patrick Roy) and the present (Martin Brodeur) of goaltending excellence. It’s hard to predict the future — Carey Price is proof you shouldn’t anoint the Next One too quickly — but it’s hard not to be impressed with Blue Jackets rookie Steve Mason.

And since there is so much we couldn't fit into our Inside Hockey feature on him, here, as the late Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

A decade ago, Mason’s only goaltending duties were in street hockey, in front of his family’s Oakville, Ont., home. He played forward or defence in house league, and in the words of his mother, Donna, “was pretty good at it.”

But he wanted to switch to goalie. His parents agreed, though they weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea. His grandfather, Wally Pollock, tells a great story of Mason getting run a few years later, losing his mask, charging at the offending player and hearing Donna yell, “Your teeth!” because he’d just had his braces removed.

Mason's maternal grandmother refused to watch the overtime of the 2008 world junior championship gold-medal game, in which Mason led Canada to victory over Sweden.

As his dad, Bill, says, Steve doesn’t understand why they all get upset, “because he’s the one who’s under pressure.”

The Out of Nowhere Club

Remember what a goof you were at 20? (I do.) Mason is unbelievably confident, composed and well-spoken. His only weakness appears to be his Blackberry, with teammates saying they’ve never seen anyone spend so much time on one.

“I have a blackberry, too,” says defenceman Mike Commodore. “And I’m pretty sure he’s only texting one person (his girlfriend)… But if I spent that much time contacting one person, I’d hate them, I think.”

Other than that, the Blue Jackets have no issues with Mason. As Commodore says, “He saved our season.”

It’s an amazing story, as Mason joins the likes of Curtis Joseph, Ed Belfour, Adam Oates and Steve Thomas in the Coming Out of Nowhere Club. Unlike those four, however, Mason had some earlier backers.

Don Boyd, the Blue Jackets' director of hockey operations and player personnel, jokes that if he knew how many teams Mason had been cut from, “I might not have taken him.”

Thank God for Columbus that no one told Boyd, since it happened several times at the minor hockey level.

Yanked in London opener

Mason's first break came with the Junior-C Grimsby Peach Kings. Danny Syvret was playing for the OHL's London Knights at the time, and his father, Dave, who lives in the Hamilton area, saw Mason play. Impressed, he tipped off the Hunter brothers, who used an 11th round draft pick on him.

Mason's first season in London, 2005-06, was also his NHL draft year. Adam Dennis was the No. 1 goalie but, when the season began, he was still trying out for the AHL's Rochester Americans. Mason started the home opener, complete with a banner ceremony for the previous year's Memorial Cup championship.

He gave up five goals on 14 shots and was yanked. He didn't get another start for almost three months. Despite that, the Columbus organization was onto him. Two area scouts, Andrew Shaw and Johnny Williams, really liked what they'd seen from him as Mason played Junior B in Petrolia, Ont., when he didn't dress for London. They told Boyd about him, and Rick Wamsley was dispatched.

Wamsley, who played 407 NHL games, happened to sit behind Mason's billet family the first time he went there. Striking up a conversation, he learned that there were several game tapes available. He watched them, saw a few of Mason's practices, and liked what he was seeing. He wouldn't specifically discuss what impressed him — secrets of the trade — but did say he liked who Mason played for.

"I played with Mark Hunter," Wamsley said. "I know him. I want to stress that I mean this as a compliment, but I knew if Mason could play for Hunter, he could play for anyone."

As Mason says with a laugh, "With the Hunters, any goal you give up is a bad goal."

Thank you, Jared Boll

He didn't give up a ton for them that season, mostly because he didn't play much — just 12 games. How crazy was it? Mason tells a wild story about how he won a game in Ottawa on a Friday night and thought his performance was good enough to stay. As the team got on the bus for a trip to Kingston, Dale Hunter approached and told Mason that he was needed to play in Petrolia the next day.

Mason went with the team, then took a train to Toronto. There, he switched to a different train for London, where he got a lift to his Junior B city, lugging his goalie gear all the way. After his game with the Jets, he had to go all the way back to Kingston to back up Dennis on Sunday. But, on February 10, 2006, it was all made worthwhile.

"I guess I have to thank Jared Boll, because he started it," Mason says of his current Columbus teammate, who was playing for the Plymouth Whalers at the time.

Boll instigated a line brawl that led to a fight between Dennis and opposing netminder Justin Peters. As a result, Dennis was suspended two games. Mason got the subsequent starts against the OHL's top teams at the time, Kitchener and Peterborough. At Kitchener, Mason made 34 saves in a 6-3 win. Against the Petes, he made 52 to win 4-1.

Dennis didn't lose his job, but Mason had arrived. He later added a 54-save game in Owen Sound the night London clinched the West. By that time, Boyd and Columbus GM Doug MacLean had already decided that Mason would be a perfect third-round pick, and they got him 69th overall. They were smart to do it then, because word has it that the Islanders, picking in the next spot, were very interested. (The only bad news for Wamsley is that he works for St. Louis now, which means six games a year against Mason.)

While being drafted gave proof to his belief that he was good enough for hockey's highest level, Mason's road from there wasn't always smooth.

Invited to Canada's world junior team camp in 2007, he was ranked fourth on the depth chart to start. He earned the starting role, but on the eve of the gold-medal victory he found out he was going to be traded from London to Kitchener. He showed great mental toughness in overcoming that ill-timed news, which led to a new rule that deals can't be made during the tournament. Off the high of his Team Canada glory came the low of a knee injury that KO'd him from the playoffs and the Memorial Cup.

But Pascal Leclaire's injury and Fredrik Norrena's ineffectiveness gave him a faster-than-expected shot in the NHL. Only four men have won the Calder and Vezina Trophies in the same season: Frank Brimsek (1938-39), Tony Esposito (1969-70), Tom Barrasso (1983-84) and Ed Belfour (1990-91).

Overlooked no longer, Steve Mason could become the fifth.

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