Little Johnny Hockey

He looks like a younger sibling of one of the Team USA players, and if size mattered, he would be considered one of the last guys you would expect to have an impact on Team USA's World Junior hopes. You couldn't be further from the truth. Little Johnny Gaudreau, all 5'9" and 150 pounds (that is NOT a type-o) has gotten onto a vintage scoring roll that in his case, leads to a championship hoist.  USA has faced elimination in that last three games, and he's scored 7 times and the US is in the Gold Medal game. He is now the leading goal-scorer of the 2013 World Junior Championship, a showcase for the best players on the cusp of the NHL. A fourth round draft pick of the Calgary, Johnny Hockey has no qualms in the land of the giants.

"With my speed, I like to shy away from the checks in the corners," he said between practices at the Team USA mini camp, taking a mid-season break from the top-ranked Boston College Eagles. "I'm pretty shifty down low, I kinda use that shifty and quickness to my advantage against bigger guys who might be a little bit slower and not so quick." As they say on the street, "True Dat." The guy is slippery as an eel, bringing back memories of classic little big men like Stan Mikita, Robbie Ftorek, and Danny Briere.

If you do a Google Image search for John, you'll see him hoisting hardware as big as he is for Dubuque of the USHL, or celebrating wildly after winning a national championship for BC last spring. All he does is score, and win, and he does a whole lot of both.

After a mere four practices for this hastily assembled USA World Junior Team, practices in which line play consisted entirely of small games compressed into fractions of the ice, a normally cautious head coach Phil Housley gushed about his newly created scoring line that included alternate captain J.T. Miller and Gaudreau, a classic combination of grit and inane hockey sense. "The way they moved the puck, the offense they created..." Housley, a member of The U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame as a player, just smiled and shook his head.  Housley is the top scoring U.S. born defenseman in NHL history and knows a little something about undersized offensive players, and he is thrilled with little Johnny.

Hockey is about time and space, and Gaudreau creates plenty for himself and others. Coaches just need to give him the proper ice time (tons), and they end up hoisting trophies. Maybe that's why Housley couldn't contain his mirth.

When you look at Johnny Hockey, you can't help but see the quintessential American boy next door.  When Russians see him, they see one of their own.  Creative, elusive, shifty and offensively gifted small forwards is a familiar genre in Mother Russia. They have been producing such players since before they were known globally as "The Big Red Machine."  One in particular bore a striking on-ice resemblance to Johnny Hockey. His name is Slava Bykov, a clever little sniper from the 1980's and 90's raised in Chelyabinsk, the next major city east of Ufa, 4 hours down the road on Highway M5.

                                        Bykov and Gaudreau... Separated at Birth??

You may remember Bykov as the guy who dashed USA's medal hopes in the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Albertville, filling the USA net with two killer goals in the third period of the semifinal.  As an adult Bykov reached a playing weight of 160 pounds, essentially the same build as Gaudreau. He's been seen around rinks recently as the head coach of Russia's national team.  Russia is a nation of hockey lovers, and they recognize technical ice wizards who have no fear of of larger players.  Johnny Hockey is dazzling today's quintessential defensive "giraffes" in those deep corners of the 100 foot wide rinks of Russia. Show some pity for those bigger, slower defensemen; it's men against boys.

He hails from Southern Jersey, will never be forgotten by Iowa hockey fans, and is engraved in gold up at the Heights of Boston College, but Johnny Hockey may have found his true hockey home here in Russia, 11 time zones away. Mother Russia has embraced this reincarnation of one of their most adored hockey masters, the small forward. And like the Russian masters, Johnny Hockey has gotten used to hoisting gold.