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Believe in Steve - Mar. 16 , 2009 - Ken Campbell - Vol. 62, Issue. 20
IT WAS AROUND THE TIME he became a Peach King – now there’s a handle that must strike the fear of God into its opponents – that Steve Mason began to realize he might have something special going on.
Others, well, let’s say they needed a little bit of convincing.
You have to realize Mason grew up in Oakville, Ont., about a half-hour drive from The Center of the Hockey Universe™ and, four years ago, he was an ex-midget backup goalie looking for a junior team that might be willing to give him a shot. Now, you couldn’t swing a dead cat from his driveway without hitting a Jr. A club in what was then a bloated 35-team Ontario Provincial Junior League, but Mason could find only one team that was interested in him – from nearby Burlington – and it cut the goaltender at the end of training camp.
So here he was, an 11th round pick of the London Knights, the 16th goalie taken in the 2004 OHL draft, looking way up from the bowels of the depth chart on what would become a Memorial Cup-winning team. Grimsby Peach Kings Jr. C team, here we come. (Exactly 200 players were taken before Mason in that ’04 OHL draft, but the only other ones who are currently full-time NHLers are Patrick Kane and Jordan Staal.)
“I remember talking to a scout who said he’d never be anything more than a church goalie and he’d always get beat high,” said Lyle Killins, then the GM and owner of the Peach Kings. “I said, ‘A church goalie, what do you mean by that?’ and he said, ‘He spends all his time on his knees.’”
Ouch. But what that scout didn’t realize is when you’re 6-foot-4 with the wingspan of a wandering albatross, maybe you don’t have to stand up all the time. Perhaps it’s good enough to just have an incredible mind for the game. When you have lightning-quick pads and feet; throw shooters off by catching with your right hand; and, possess the mental makeup of a player 10 years your senior, maybe it doesn’t matter you go down a little too often.
To be sure, nobody could see then that just four years later, Mason would go from being a Jr. C Peach King to putting together an NHL season that could see him become just the fourth goalie since GMs began voting on the Vezina Trophy in 1982 to win both the Calder Trophy as top rookie and the Vezina as the league’s best goalie. There’s even talk of the Hart Trophy as league MVP – which is probably a bit of a stretch, but if the guy can get the Columbus Blue Jackets into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, you’d have to think he’ll get some consideration.
“The group of guys we had on that team was unbelievable,” said Mason of his Jr. C days. “Halfway through the year, Burlington came back calling and I said, ‘No thanks, not interested.’ Every day I went to the rink, I knew it was going to be a fun time. It was probably some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing hockey.”
He’s probably having just as much fun this season, but it’s not quite so innocent these days. In case you haven’t noticed, the Blue Jackets are not exactly the Montreal Canadiens circa 1977 when it comes to producing offense. They’ve staked their organizational reputation on making the playoffs this season and nothing will re-ignite the passion of a fan base that grew tired of supporting a bad, boring team like a playoff run. When the Jackets desperately reached into their farm system for Mason after starter Pascal Leclaire went down with a serious ankle injury in the pre-season, it had the potential for disaster.
But it’s entirely fair to say Mason, the 20-year-old who looks like a 12-year-old and plays like a 35-year-old, has saved Columbus’ season. In a conference where a team can go 6-3-1 and make up one point in the standings, the Blue Jackets have come to rely heavily on their goaltending. It helps they give up the third-fewest shots in the league, but it helps even more that Mason has been so unflappable and impenetrable.
“We’re a hard-working, honest club, but he has given us the hope that when we have a lead in the third period, he’ll shut it down,” said Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock.
“There have been games that could have been devastating to us, but we walked out feeling good about ourselves because of him. We’ve got a really good foundation, but he has been the difference between us being in the 50s (in points as of mid-February) and being in the 60s. We’re in the middle of it rather than chasing teams and he’s the major reason.”
Mason is much like the team he backstops, quietly efficient and rather unspectacular. He rarely makes the kind of flashy saves that have become Tim Thomas’ stock-in-trade, largely because it’s difficult to make eye-popping stops when the puck is hitting you in the middle of the chest. Mason follows the play with an uncanny sense of puck radar and slides across his crease without giving the shooter any open space.
“It’s not a fluke that he’s in the right place at the right time,” Hitchcock said. “To me, he’s a good goalie because he has hockey sense. He has the ability to not be surprised by the movement of the puck. He’s ahead of the movement or he’s on time with the movement. It’s not like there’s a back-door play and he’s surprised there’s a guy standing there.”
Mason attributes almost all of his technical success to the work of former Knights goaltending coach Dave Rook. He played just 12 games in his first OHL season, but then-Jackets scout Rick Walmsley got some tape of him playing – from Mason’s billet in London – and the staff was blown away by a youngster who seemed to always be in the right place to face the puck.
“From the shoulders up, he was one of the best goalies I’ve ever worked with,” Rook said.
Think Ed Belfour without the scowl. In fact, Mason has such a baby face that if he weren’t so big he’d probably be mistaken for the team’s stick boy.
“I don’t think he’s ever going to get one of those full beards like (teammate Michael) Peca,” said Mason’s mother, Donna.
Mason has a beyond-his-years ability not to get flummoxed by flurries in front of his net or by a bad game. At the World Junior Championship in 2008, Mason found out he had been traded from the Knights to the Kitchener Rangers the day before the gold medal game, then backstopped Canada to the title in overtime, inspiring a new rule in junior hockey that prevents players participating in the WJC to be traded during the tournament. In January, Mason earned one of his league-leading seven shutouts by stopping 12 shots off the stick of Alex Ovechkin.
Mason’s mettle was tested last spring when a knee injury in mid-April derailed his chance to play in the Memorial Cup. But two months later, his world was turned upside down when his 50-year-old father, Bill, developed pneumonia, which resulted in blood clots on his lungs that were so bad he needed life support. The steely resolve that helped Steve Mason become one of the best young goalies in the world abandoned him when he saw tubes coming out of his father’s nose. But soon enough, it returned.
“I think it was the only time I ever saw him say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I can handle this,’” Donna said. “At first he didn’t even want to come home to face it. But he did and he grew up pretty fast. He’s a lot older than his age.”
There have been, and will be, bumps along the way. In Mason’s fifth game back after recovering from mononucleosis, the Blue Jackets set a franchise record by allowing just 13 shots in a game against Anaheim. Mason, however, was lit up for five goals. Still, the green Jacket believes he’s adequately prepared for the NHL’s inevitable ups and downs.
“There’s a lot of experiences I’ve been through and overcome and it definitely makes you stronger,” Mason said. “It makes you realize how fortunate you are in to be in a situation like playing in the NHL.”
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