Former Red Wings defenseman Jake Walman is embracing his role as something of a veteran on the rebuilding San Jose Sharks–or at least he was suggesting as much while expressing his excitement about joining the Macklin Celibrini-led team on a conference call with reporters yesterday. As a result, that infectious enthusiasm was on full display, as noted by San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng–and that’s what I’m going to miss about Walman:
Walman, on bringing the Griddy and lightheartedness to San Jose: I told Macklin, that was one of the things I said, we got to start growing this game. It starts with you guys, you got to live up to the hype. You’ll see me doing some celebrations too. I have some stuff in store, for sure.
We had some really interesting meetings this weekend at the PA meetings. Short story is hockey is pretty old school and thought about [in] an old school mentality.
[A celebration like the Griddy is] just who I am. You’ll see when I’m at the rink, even off the ice: I’m laughing, enjoying it. Being serious when it counts, but I think you need that light personality. Like you said, it’s not showboating.
My favorite player growing up was Alex Ovechkin. I just saw his crazy [celebrations] and how fired up he got when he scored, and when stuff was going well for his team. That’s why I first started celebrating. But we turned it into a positive this year when I was in Detroit.
I actually just finished coming from dropping off a check [in relation to the Griddy]: We did a charity t-shirt drop for the Boys and Girls Club there, and it did really well. I’d say about 90 percent of the messages are positive and 10 percent that I get are people that are pissed off or the other team thinks it’s silly. Fans of the other team.
But in the end, the thing that I do it for is I get those 90 percent of messages from parents that send me videos of their kids doing [the Griddy] on the ice. Other kids doing it. People wearing 96 jerseys and their kids doing it after they score. Or, wanting to play hockey. That’s really why I do it. Just trying to grow the game because I remember when I was young, I loved meeting NHL players or going to watch a game in Toronto. So that’s really why I do it. It’s nothing more than that.
Continued; it’s too bad that he’s gone, but the business of hockey is a brutal one.
