Like all incoming freshman, Eamon McAdam will have walked to his first class at Penn State this week marking the official start of an arduous journey through an unspecified number of years of a college education.
But unlike any of his fellow freshman, McAdam will leave campus and travel to Newark New Jersey as he joins many of the nation’s top hockey prospects for the 2013 NHL Draft this weekend.
One of the draft’s top goalie talents, McAdam is amidst a week unlike any other in his life.
On Monday night he watched the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in a 17-second span in the game’s final minute to stun the hockey world.
By midweek he had started some of his first classes at Penn State, and by Sunday night he could have heard his name called by any of the 16 NHL teams to have interviewed him prior to the draft.
But sitting in one of Penn State’s athlete lounges following a workout, none of this seems to bother the 18-year-old Perkasie, PA native. He’s just another kid working his way towards a bigger goal. He takes a quick phone call from one of his new teammates about a volleyball game later in the afternoon and then quietly places his phone face down on the table.
“Sorry about that,” McAdam says.
Only days away from what could be the most important moment in his life so far, McAdam admits that the entirety of what could happen is a little too large to completely comprehend.
“I’m not even really sure it has set in yet,” He said. “I’m not even sure it’ll set in until after it has happened. Or until I actually get there and see everything. The past couple of weeks I’ve been thinking about it and it’s really awe inspiring. It’s something that’s hard to really wrap your head around and you have to keep things in perspective. Even if I do get drafted it’s not like I’m going to be going there any time soon. I’ve still got my time here that I have to focus on.”
Thankfully for McAdam he won’t have to live in the purgatory between college and the NHL alone. Penn State Junior forward Max Gardiner was drafted by the Saint Louis Blues in 2010 and incoming transfer defenseman Pat Koudys was a 2011 Washington Capitals draft choice. While both have NHL credentials, both arrived at Penn State having already been drafted, McAdam would be the first Penn State player to have been drafted while only attending classes in Happy Valley.
As if his story wasn’t a little out of the ordinary already, McAdam picked up the game of hockey late. Where many of hockey’s greats seem to have been born stick in hand, McAdam didn’t really start to get into the sport until later in his childhood. Even with the success he had playing for Waterloo Blackhawks out of Waterlook Iowa, the thought of pursing the sport as a profession didn’t seem like a real option until about two years ago.
“I started at nine or ten,” McAdam said. “Most guys when they start are five or six. Everybody always dreams about it, I mean I watched the NHL when I was growing up and my Mom is a Flyers’ fan. So I always dreamed about it but it wasn’t really a real thing until this year, maybe a year or two ago, and now it’s finally coming together and it has been a pretty cool experience.”
“When I went to Waterloo early, people were telling me that I could make something of it,” McAdam said. “But I felt like it was almost a lot of talk and I think it really started to set in and I really started to notice that this could be something I could do for a living.”
Heading into the draft McAdam finds himself rated anywhere from the third best to the sixth best goalie prospect in his class. Where McAdam will fall exactly on Sunday is an unknown, but in all likelihood he will find himself going in the middle rounds of the draft. In a surreal twist, the Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks were one of the 16 teams to sit down and talk to Penn State’s budding netminder. While there is no doubt that McAdam will be happy to get his foot in the door with any team, it only makes the week even more special.
Freshman on Monday; potentially a Chicago Blackhawk draft choice by Sunday. A pinch on the arm would be required by most at this point.
For Penn State fans McAdam’s future will still involve time in Happy Valley. Unlike almost every other major sport, being drafted doesn’t make a player ineligible in the eyes of the NCAA. The NHL’s draft process is more about laying claim to young talent while it matures. If McAdam flourishes and develops at Penn State he could find his way to the NHL by the end of his junior season if he was needed.
“It’s pretty rare to find a player who is NHL ready on Draft day at 18 or 17 years old, so organizations take their time and let them mature,” Dustin Leed, Flyers’ beat writer and writer for TheHockeyGuys.net said. “I’d compare the draft process to Major League Baseball, where you select a lot of young players and then let them mature as a player so help your team down road.”
“Goalies are a little different, it really just depends. He’s got a real good chance after his junior season to go to the NHL. AHL goalies are usually around 21-22 years old when they turn pro unless they’re on fast track to NHL. So it depends on how fast he develops. Some guys move quickly and can turn pro at 20.”
Following the draft, life will fall back into some type of normalcy for McAdam. Sitting only a few hundred feet from the Lasch Football building, McAdam took part in TV and print interviews, a small sample of the number of ones he has done. Unlike football’s omnipotent shield of protection for freshman players, McAdam has mostly been out on his own handling the media like a seasoned veteran. But even the experience doesn’t mean McAdam isn’t looking forward to just being a freshman in college.
“In a way, I’m looking forward to it,” McAdam said. “But I don’t want to overlook it too much, I don’t want to miss out on the experience but I’m definitely excited for it to be over with and really move on with the season.”
Like any freshman enjoying the first few weeks of college life, let alone one with a professional career well in hand, getting down to business and focused on the extraneous general education courses can take some effort.
“I’m sure it’ll be a struggle to begin with,” McAdam said laughing as he checked his phone. “It’s one of those things that being a pro is more than just playing. It’s about taking care of business, in whatever you’re doing. You always have to have an outlet because anything can happen, your career can end in a second and you have to have something to back that up. If I keep that in mind it should be pretty easy to work on the classes and take care of things.”
For right now though, he just has a volleyball game to play in.
