"Growing up out West, especially in all the small communities, that's what you did. You played hockey in the winter and you played baseball in the summertime and that's all there was to do and that was your routine," Clark said. "As you grew up in a small town and graduated from level to level, you knew if you got a chance to play in the city, whether it was Tier II junior or Tier I junior, you were going to do whatever you needed to do to stay there.
"That was your way of either getting out of your small town or moving off the farm to the next level of hockey. I think a lot of players growing up in small towns pick either route: I'm not just going to be a finesse player or a tough guy or whatever, you'll do whatever that team wants you to do to make it.
"I think you see a lot of that in Western kids. Usually, on your minor hockey team, everyone that leaves there was a leading goal scorer on their team, but when you get to the higher levels, in junior hockey or college or whatever it might be, you have to sacrifice and do what it takes for that team because you might not be the best player on that team. You learn about role playing and what it takes to be a different kind of player. That's one thing I think I learned growing up in a small town, moving to the city and then moving to Toronto. Also, from moving to forward. I started as a defenseman. Whatever it takes to stay, that's what you wanted to do."
This shows us another way that Wendel Clark is awesome. Many kids with the dream to play big league hockey have felt the same way, and hearing it from a successful man like Wendel Clark is pretty damn cool. Classy in Sasky.
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