Columbus Blue Jackets Curtis Glencross, centre, celebrates his winning overtime goal against the Calgary Flames with teammate Adam Foote on Dec. 1, 2007. (Larry MacDougal/Canadian Press)

This was a hockey road trip unlike any other for the Glencross family.

They arrived in Calgary as a bitter windchill signalled the arrival of December. Minus 25. Nothing unusual about that. These were veteran travellers of minor hockey's long drives on the windswept backroads of Alberta, like those cold, dark nights down Highway 36 from Provost through the Badlands to Drumheller and Brooks. But as the mercury nosedived on this trip, the expectations couldn't be higher.

Tonight, they would sit in the big league confines of the Pengrowth Saddledome to watch, in person for the very first time, as their son played in the NHL.

Curtis Glencross was centring the second line tonight as the Columbus Blue Jackets played the Calgary Flames. In the Columbus dressing room, Glencross was running around collecting souvenirs - sticks, t-shirts, anything he could get his hands on for this special occasion. A sign on the team's dressing room door indicated he also needed 25 tickets!

In the stands, family and friends gathered for the morning skate. His parents Mel and Robin were there from Red Deer. His grandparents, Glen and Bette Strutt had come from Kindersley, Sask. His junior hockey billet family from Brooks, Alta., Richard and Shelly Dunk; they were all there.

Nobody ever expected this. Nobody ever saw this coming.

Typical Canadian boy

Curtis Glencross grew up in Provost, Alta., population 2,072, a small town smack dab in the middle of oil and cattle country and proud to be the home of NHL star Norm Ullman.

Curtis was not unlike any other boy growing up in this small town. "He could never sit still," said his mother Robin. "Fishing and golfing all summer with his friends. Hockey and snowmobiling during the winter."

Oh sure, he dreamed of playing in the NHL, like all the other boys. But by the time he was a teenager that was not looking very likely. Curtis Glencross played for the Provost Lonkar Midgets in the "C" Division of the Northeast Alberta Hockey League.

His parents had encouraged him to challenge himself and tryout for the AA Polar Kings, 90 kilometres up the highway in Wainwright. He got cut one year and his friends always complained he was leaving their Provost team in the lurch. Standing in the Blue Jackets locker room and reflecting on that time in his life, Glencross said midget C in Provost was where he belonged.

Glencross, seen in uniform with the AHL's Portland Pirates in October 2005, worked his way up through the hockey ranks. (Lisa Meyer/Getty Images)

"I was playing with my friends and having fun," said Glencross. "I never went to hockey school. I never played summer hockey. Every hockey season, my buddies and I would stick around. We'd practise a couple of times a week, go snowmobiling and play hockey on weekends." And did he ever, leading his team one year with 211 points in 41 games.

But the NHL was not on his horizon. He fully expected to follow his father Mel into the cattle auction business.

Timely visit

Then one night, a scout from the expansion Brooks Bandits of the tier-two Alberta Junior Hockey League, noticed Glencross dangling with the puck in a midget C hockey game. The new team in Brooks needed players and Glencross was offered a chance to play. He took it.

Glencross thrived for two seasons amid the stiffer competition of junior hockey just as his unlikely journey took another turn. Undrafted and unnoticed by the NHL, a scout from the University of Alaska at Anchorage was pounding the Alberta landscape when he came upon a hard-nosed forward with a blue-collar work ethic. Glencross was just what the Seawolves were looking for and they offered a scholarship. Hedging his uncertain hockey future with a university education made good sense to Glencross and his parents.

By the spring of 2004, his sophomore year, Glencross had emerged as one of the UAA Seawolves' top scorers and most physical forwards. And for the first time in the school's hockey history, they advanced to the Final Five of the WCHA Playoffs, upsetting nationally-ranked Wisconsin along the way. Suddenly, NHL scouts were taking notice.

The Seawolves' airplane had barely touched down in Alaska after their historic hockey breakthrough, when Curtis Glencross's phone was ringing. The Anaheim Ducks were offering him a contract.

The NHL locked out its players that year and Glencross's journey would take him to the minors, spending three seasons in the AHL, criss-crossing the continent, playing for Cincinnati, Portland and later Syracuse.

In 2006, he scored 25 goals and 26 assists in 60 games and was called up by the Ducks. Glencross, skated on a line with Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, a pair of first-round draft picks who had taken a more celebrated path to the NHL.

That night against Colorado, fate smiled on Glencross. He scored his first NHL goal on his first shot on goal. The minor league call-up drew immediate attention and within days of his first NHL goal, Glencross was experiencing his first NHL trade, to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The journey continued. From Provost, Alta., to Anchorage, and three years of bus rides in the minors, he arrived in Columbus, Ohio.

Making the big league

An industrious forward, Curtis Glencross had finally made it on hard work and a love for the game. Ten years removed from those midget C games in Provost, there he was IN the bright lights of his first season in the NHL.

And so in Calgary, on that cold December night, this was a big occasion, playing in the NHL in front of family and friends and on Hockey Night in Canada. A night he would never forget. "It was unbelievable," said Glencross. In the first period, he beats Miikka Kiprusoff, one of the NHL's best goalies, to give Columbus a 2-0 lead.

Then, with the scored tied at 3, Glencross gets precious ice time in the overtime and pounces on a loose puck to score the winning goal, the most glorious goal of his life. Next came the post-game interview with Scott Oake and Kelly Hrudey, a Hockey Night in Canada towel hanging around his neck, his badge of honour. "I'll never forget that game," he said. "I don't know how many phone calls I got after that game."

As his teammates left the Saddledome and avoided the crowds through a 'players-only exit,' Curtis Glencross went to the arena concourse that night to be surrounded by friends and family. If he never played another game, his hockey career was complete. "It's the highlight of his life so far," said his mother Robin.

Glencross slips the puck past Calgary Flames netminder Miikka Kiprusoff during NHL action this season. Through 32 games this season, the native of Kindersley, Sask., has six goals and six assists. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

This week, Curtis Glencross returned to the Columbus line-up after missing five games. He has battled through a fractured cheekbone, back spasms and the flu. "He's not afraid of anything," said Rae Croteau Jr., one of those friends and one of Canada's top chuckwagon racers. Over the past two summers, Glencross has worked cleaning Croteau's barns and exercising his horses in one of rodeo's most hazardous events. "He's the kind of guy who never complains. He didn't tell people in Columbus when he was hurt because he didn't want to lose his job."

Yes, the Curtis Glencross who never went to hockey school now spends his summers, rolling up his sleeves on the chuckwagon circuit. "We're like brothers," Croteau said. "With the same humble work ethic."

When I asked him how growing up in Provost, Alberta, playing midget C hockey prepared him for the NHL, he answered modestly, "It didn't prepare me at all, but it did make me realize how lucky I am.

"I'm not supposed to be in the NHL," he said. "All my friends back home, we still talk once a week."

That's what attracts everyone who has met Curtis Glencross; humble and hard working, outworking perhaps more talented opponents and loving the game, all the way to the NHL.