Hockey skates are designed to absorb the impact of a six-ounce piece of rubber moving at bullet velocity but sometimes there’s not enough protection in that molded plastic boot to prevent things from breaking.
Aiden Reeves knows that all too painfully well.
He spent nearly two months on the Prince George Cougars’ injured list after breaking the top of his foot blocking a shot against the Kamloops Blazers, Dec. 17. Coming in the second-last game before the holiday break, that was an unexpected lump of coal in his Christmas stocking and he missed 19 games waiting for his foot to heal.
There’s much more emphasis on blocking shots at the higher levels of hockey and to help prevent injuries, some players use shot-blockers, a piece of molded plastic that sits over the tongue of the skate and under the laces. Reeves wasn’t wearing one at the time he broke his foot.
“Guys shoot so hard now and it can do damage pretty easily,” Reeves said.
“You just try to stay as straight-on (to the shooter) as you can and try to get in the way of it. I just threw a shot-blocker in my skate (last weekend), but it’s tough to find ones that are comfortable and don’t restrict motion in your ankle. Lots of guys wear them but the problem is you’re never going to be fully-protected. Your skates are stiff everywhere, so if it hits a soft spot sometimes that’s just the way it goes.”
Reeves was on crutches for five weeks and couldn’t get close to the rink, but worked like a demon with trainer Mike Mathies on his upper-body strength in the gym and maintained a high level of fitness. Once he was able to take weight again on his foot and resume skating, he spent about a week doing one-on-one drills with Steve O’Rourke, the Cougars’ director of player development, while the Cougars embarked on their U.S. Division tour.
Like the rest of his teammates, he’d been looking forward to playing south of the border in the big American rinks in front of big crowds, and just being away from the team for that length of time was difficult for Reeves.
“Any time you’re sitting out on the sideline, either an injury or getting scratched, it sucks,” said Reeves. “You want to get out and contribute in any way, whatever your role is. I’ve been injured at the beginning of years, but never in the middle.”
Reeves finally got back into the lineup last weekend against the Vancouver Giants, not at his more familiar position on defence, but as a right winger, an experiment that started just before he got hurt. With seven other defenceman vying for ice time, the Cougars moved the 19-year-old Reeves up to a forward position to complete a fourth line and it paid off in Wednesday’s 5-2 win in Kelowna when Reeves helped set up linemate Cayden Glover’s opening goal 2 ½ minutes into the game. He played on a line with Glover and Carlin Dezainde.
“It’s so hard to simulate a game when you’re out, but I’ve got to give props to Steve, he knows exactly how to simulate as much as you can, one-on-one, and the first one or two practices were tough, but it wasn’t too hard coming back,” said the six-foot-three, 190-pound Reeves.
“Lots of guys might not be happy about that (switch from defence to forward) but I’m just happy be able to contribute any way I can. If it’s on the back end, I love shutting guys down, and if it’s on the front end I like disrupting on the forecheck. I’m working on it. There’s lots of thing you don’t realize about forwards who have been doing it six or seven years at a high level that they get good at, so it’s a lot of catch-up.
“I like working hard a lot and just like pushing the boys, even if it’s in practice, trying to make everyone better,” he said. “I just like creating energy, just making it easy on everybody. I just try to be the hardest worker, always. When you do that I think you set yourself up for success.”
The middle son of Andrea and Steve Reeves has gotten in the habit of always trying to bust his butt, and the Cougars are rewarding that trait and his familiarity with playing in the defensive zone by giving him penalty-killing duties.
“Whatever you ask him to do, he’s going to do to his absolute best,” said O’Rourke. “It’s not easy to come back from an injury like that but he worked so hard. He was supposed to be off eight weeks and came back in seven. He’s a kid you want to see succeed because he works hard, he’s polite and he’s just really well-raised.
“Anyone who plays the wing knows it’s really tough picking up pucks off the boards and that’s one of the things he does really well. The other thing that’s so strong for him is his skating and his physical presence. You can maybe hide a slow-footed defenceman and put him up front but we don’t have to hide Reeves because his skating is so good and he can be a real good energy player for us.”
Reeves played minor hockey in Prince George until 2015, when he moved to Kelowna to join the Pursuit of Excellence U-15 varsity team. The following season he moved up to the BC Elite Hockey League with the Okanagan Rockets U-18 triple-As, where he had five goals and 22 points in 28 games. He returned to P.G. in 2019-20 for his 17-year-old season and played for three teams, 20 games with the Cariboo Cougars, seven with the BCHL Spruce Kings and 12 with the WHL Cougars. He returned to the WHL pod season in the spring of 2021 and was in the lineup for 17 of the 22 games.
“He’s just all character and I like his work ethic, he comes to the rink happy, a great guy in the dressing room and he does everything right,” said Cougars head coach and general manager Mark Lamb. “You give a lot of respect to a kid like that.
“We’re pretty packed at the back end and he can really skate and really shoot. He’s a big body that can hit and we need that. He’s a valuable guy, and if we get in trouble on the backend, he can go there, but I think he’s really found himself a spot on the wing.”
Reeves and forward Fisher O’Brien were born and raised in Prince George and the privilege of playing for the team they grew up idolizing is not lost on Reeves.
“It’s definitely tough sometimes, when you’re going through tough times,” said Reeves. “It’s tough when there’s lots of people in the stands who know you and you’re talking to people, even when things aren’t going good.
“But at the end of the day, every hockey player wishes to play in their hometown. Every player wishes to play for the WHL team they grew up watching since they can remember hockey. I just ty to remember that every day and think what my younger self would have thought about this opportunity and what I’ve been able to accomplish. ”
Reeves is the only 19-year-old on the team, and he and the three overagers – Connor Bowie, Jonny Hooker and Jonas Brondberg - are naturally expected to be leaders of what is the youngest team in the WHL.
“We have the most-skilled young group and for any young group, coming together is going to be a challenge, but this is a team that’s going to be really special next year and the year after and even coming to the end of this year,” said Reeves. “We’re going to try to make a push and then see where we can go in playoffs.
“Lots of our young guys have taken leadership roles. This far into the season they’ve kind of figured it out and they’re just paving their own roads.”
The Cougars are back on the ice at CN Centre tonight (7 p.m.) against Kelowna in the first game of a weekend doubleheader.
