Late within the first interval, Greg Koehler rose from the Hurricanes bench. He flung his legs over the boards and, for the primary time, propelled himself into the guts of NHL motion. The second his left skate hit the ice, a dream was realized. It was Dec. 29, 2000, and he was a giant leaguer.
Sitting on the bench many of the interval had given Koehler time to soak up his environment at Columbus’ Nationwide Enviornment and settle his nerves. By the point he went on for his first shift, he was clear-headed, hungry to indicate he belonged. He skated ahead, crossing the GMC brand in entrance of the bench earlier than turning towards the offensive zone. Carolina’s Ron Francis, a number of strides forward, raced towards a unfastened puck within the nook. Koehler adopted, his eyes up in anticipation for a move from his captain. It took eight strides for him to cross the blue line.
“Oh, there he’s!” shouted his mother, Cathy Koehler, watching on TV from the household dwelling in Scarborough, Ontario.
However as Koehler reached Carolina’s offensive zone, Blue Jackets ahead Steve Heinze’s stick hooked round Francis. The veteran crashed to the ice and slid into the wall. An official blew his whistle instantly. It was a clear-cut penalty.
“Ah, f—,” Koehler thought to himself and immediately turned towards the bench. He wasn’t on Carolina’s energy play unit, so he knew his shift was over. There had been different moments within the interval Koehler had been able to take the ice, however one thing at all times appeared to get in the way in which, be it a penalty or a teammate not heading to the bench for a line change.
“Sorry, child,” Carolina coach Paul Maurice stated, wanting down the bench towards his new ahead. “I’m attempting.”
The sport stayed tight the remainder of the night. With Carolina chasing the lead in opposition to the growth Blue Jackets, Maurice by no means known as Koehler’s title once more. He didn’t get again on the ice. Not that day, and by no means once more in an NHL sport.
After 4 seconds and eight strides, his NHL profession was over. His stick by no means touched the puck.
For the reason that NHL started monitoring ice time in 1997-98, no skater’s profession has been shorter than Koehler’s 4 seconds. Jeff Libby, who performed 43 seconds with the Islanders in 1998, is subsequent closest. He and Koehler are the one skaters in NHL historical past to have recorded just one shift.
The official field rating and NHL database mistakenly say Koehler performed 46 seconds. However upon evaluate of the sport footage supplied by the Blue Jackets, Koehler’s reminiscence is right. He took the ice solely as soon as, within the moments main as much as Heinze hooking Francis. Time on ice figures are stored manually, so it’s fully doable the NHL workers logging 38 skaters’ time within the Carolina-Columbus sport mistook another person for Koehler. Shane Willis, one among Koehler’s teammates within the Hurricanes group, remembers one thing comparable taking place to him. He remembers getting credited for a shift as soon as in Buffalo regardless of sitting on the bench the complete sport.
Errors occur, particularly relating to monitoring who’s on the ice at an actual second.
Now 48, Koehler isn’t blown away by the magnitude of creating the NHL, neither is he tortured by staying there for much less time than it takes to tie a shoe. Possibly, as he believes, the Hurricanes didn’t give him a good shot. Possibly he acquired unfortunate.
Or perhaps he was merely adequate to achieve the very best degree — to inhale the chilly air at ice degree for one fleeting night — however not adequate to remain there. These are unanswerable questions, although not ones that eat at him.
“I’m not right here to cry the blues,” he says. “I’ve no regrets about what occurred.”
As his dad and mom advised him within the aftermath of his lone NHL sport, he had made it. Of all the children all over the world who develop up enjoying hockey, solely a fraction of a fraction of a fraction play within the NHL. Koehler was one among them. He reached the head, even when just for mere seconds.
Koehler’s relationship with hockey was a love affair from a younger age. He as soon as used a patch of ice frozen on the sidewalk to follow skating till his mother known as him inside. He watched “Hockey Night time in Canada” each Saturday together with his dad and mom. He performed ball hockey on the street together with his neighbors and brothers and anybody he may discover. He awakened each morning a poster of Wayne Gretzky in an Oilers sweater.
When Koehler was 13 and captain of the AAA Pee Wee Toronto Marlies, Hockey Corridor of Famer Ken Dryden was within the midst of making “House Recreation,” a CBC TV sequence that may ultimately be became a guide co-written with Roy MacGregor. Dryden wished to commit one chapter to youth hockey and the pressures and time commitments that got here with it, for the gamers themselves and for his or her households. He recognized Koehler — together with his 5 brothers, a child sister and all of the ensuing chaos — as an ideal topic.
So Dryden shadowed the younger Greg because the Marlies ready for the Quebec Worldwide Pee-Wee Hockey Match. He got here by the Koehlers’ bungalow on Amberley Drive nearly day-after-day. As soon as, he acquired down on his fingers and knees to assist Greg and his pals retrieve a ball from the bushes so they might proceed their sport on the road.
Greg was a quiet child, and Cathy doesn’t keep in mind Dryden being essentially the most vocal, both. Maybe, she thinks, that’s why he and Greg had been in a position to have good conversations on digital camera. Dryden captured the essence of Koehler’s youth. He had posters of Alyssa Milano, his movie star crush, in his room, sometimes modified his child sister’s diaper and was at all times serious about hockey. Within the TV episode, “Enjoying Fields of Scarborough,” Dryden displays on his personal upbringing, how he had video games or practiced 75 nights a yr and made the NHL as a result of he outworked everybody else. Koehler, in the meantime, devoted 140-plus nights to video games and follow yearly.
“As with all prodigies, Greg will go so far as his thoughts drives him, as his physique permits,” Dryden says over photographs of the household driving to hockey follow. “So far as his dad and mom scrimp and save, encourage and push him on.”
Dryden caught Koehler throughout a tough season. Although he would sooner or later develop as much as be 6-feet-2 and 194 kilos, he was tiny at 13. He couldn’t dominate video games like he used to. As Dryden pontificates, “at 13, solely the celebrities are left, and the prodigy stops wanting like Gretzky.” Greg advised his mother he was fearful he’d by no means rating once more.
Throughout Marlies tryouts the subsequent spring, Koehler walked as much as the board that listed gamers the crew wished to return again for remaining tryouts. Koehler learn over the taped sheet of paper twice, however he couldn’t discover his title. He flipped the web page over, questioning if there was something on the again. There wasn’t.
Tears sprung in his eyes. Inside one yr, he’d gone from captain of the crew to chop.
“That type of crushed him for some time,” Cathy says. “He didn’t actually need to play after that.”
Ball hockey on the street by no means stopped, however Koehler took the spring off from enjoying in an organized league. Then, the subsequent fall, one other space coach satisfied him to return out for a skate. That reignited Koehler, and he joined the crew, the Wexford Raiders. From there, Koehler went to a crew in Niagara Falls and began to develop bodily. He ultimately earned a scholarship to UMass-Lowell, then signed with the Hurricanes group after two years. He used his $650,000 signing bonus to repay his dad and mom’ home, the place they nonetheless dwell.
Greg Koehler, in crimson, performed for a number of minor league organizations, together with the Lowell Lock Monsters in 2001-02. (Jill Brady / Portland Press Herald through Getty Photos)
Years later, when reflecting on his NHL debut, Koehler thinks again to that dreadful day on the Marlies rink, the day that he says hardened him and, in the end, pushed him ahead.
“It’s nearly like, ‘f— you,’” he says. “‘I advised you I may do it.’”
Koehler owed his coach an apology. He was with the Cincinnati Cyclones in his third full skilled season, and the employees had put him in a 3rd line checking position. That irritated him. He was within the IHL, then only one degree under the NHL, and believed he needs to be enjoying in additional offensive conditions. One early-season sport, his anger boiled over on the bench. He slammed his stick, then threw it behind him within the common neighborhood of coach Ron Smith.
“What was that?” the coach requested Koehler in his workplace after the crew’s subsequent follow.
Koehler apologized but additionally shared his frustration.
“I do know I can rating 25 objectives on this league no downside,” he advised the coach.
Over the approaching months, the ahead proved prophetic. And in the course of what would find yourself being a 35-goal season for Koehler, Hurricanes middle Rod Brind’Amour went down with a groin harm. Carolina’s prospect pool was skinny, and common supervisor Jim Rutherford and assistant Jason Karmanos went to a Cyclones sport on Dec. 28, 2000, to judge Craig MacDonald and Koehler, who had good fingers and was additionally prepared to battle opponents.
One of many two was developing.
After the Cyclones sport, a 6-1 win, a Cincinnati coach advised Koehler to pack his luggage. Smith then known as him into his workplace and advised him the information. He was going to the NHL. Ecstasy rushed by Koehler’s physique.
“I don’t suppose it was due to my good habits,” he jokes now.
The crew supplied him with a shuttle service from Cincinnati to Columbus, and the subsequent night time he walked into the plain, spacious guests dressing room in Nationwide Enviornment. He discovered his stall and pulled a crimson Hurricanes street sweater over his head. He’d made it.
Throughout warmups, Koehler skated with out a helmet, letting the air fly by his hair as he took in his environment. He hoped he’d be capable of settle his nerves early within the sport, maybe by getting concerned in a scrum or laying a giant hit. Twirling across the Hurricanes finish of the rink, he felt sooner than regular. Like an NHLer.
Luke DeCock, then a 26-year-old beat author for the Raleigh Information & Observer, watched from the press field as Carolina’s Jeff O’Neill gained the opening faceoff in opposition to Geoff Sanderson. Even now, the sport stays contemporary in his thoughts.
“The sport that Greg Koehler acquired known as up and performed a shift in, remains to be — 23 years later — one of many strangest video games I’ve coated,” DeCock says.
Carolina had a sub-.500 report and was struggling to win in opposition to lesser opponents, and DeCock had heard rumors questioning Maurice’s job standing. That wasn’t a recipe for a minor league call-up to get a lot ice time. Plus, Maurice didn’t play his fourth line a lot, even when his job was safe.
“There was a lot strain each night time for them to win as a result of they wanted these factors,” says Willis, who additionally struggled to get enjoying time when Maurice first known as him up.
Koehler anticipated “considerably of an everyday shift” in his debut, however that probably wasn’t going to be within the playing cards with the way in which Maurice coached. The way in which the sport unfolded led to even much less alternative. The 2 groups dedicated a mixed 56 minutes of penalties, and Koehler wasn’t on Carolina’s energy play or its penalty kill unit. The Hurricanes dedicated 11 minor penalties within the 3-1 loss, and O’Neill took a 10-minute misconduct for screaming at referee Kelly Sutherland. Maurice was so offended on the officiating that he pretended to not keep in mind Sutherland’s title postgame.
Koehler acquired misplaced within the chaos.
Rutherford didn’t find yourself firing Maurice that night time, and the Hurricanes pulled themselves collectively, getting a minimum of some extent of their subsequent 9 video games and ultimately making the playoffs. Koehler dressed for warmups in a minimum of one of many crew’s subsequent two video games — he remembers Tampa Bay goalie Kevin Weekes, whom he knew from minor hockey within the Toronto space, congratulating him at middle ice — however didn’t get into the lineup once more. Carolina despatched him again to Cincinnati on Jan. 6, 2001.
“I want (Maurice) would have given me perhaps somewhat bit extra alternative,” Koehler says. “However I don’t have any bitter tablets or bitterness about it. There clearly was a purpose for it. I simply don’t know what the rationale was, however I by no means in all probability will. And that’s tremendous.”
Koehler’s path crossed with a number of notable hockey figures. Francis, who drew the hook that despatched Koehler to the bench, is the fifth-leading scorer of all time and now runs the Kraken as common supervisor. Brind’Amour, whose harm led to Koehler’s call-up, captained Carolina to a 2006 Stanley Cup victory and now coaches the crew. Maurice is the sixth-winningest coach in NHL historical past and led the Panthers to a Stanley Cup Closing berth over the summer season. Rutherford, now the Canucks president of hockey operations, has gained three Stanley Cups as an govt.
Francis and Rutherford are already within the Hockey Corridor of Fame, and there’s a world wherein Maurice and Brind’Amour be part of them. Their recollections of Koehler differ. Francis acknowledged the title, and Rutherford stated he couldn’t recall sufficient to reply questions concerning the ahead. Reminded of the circumstances across the sport, he laughed.
“That’s in all probability why I don’t keep in mind it,” he says. “As a result of I don’t need to keep in mind it.”
“I ruined his profession, did I?” Francis says when advised of the hooking penalty.
“He solely performed one sport?” says Brind’Amour, who remembers Koehler.
Just one sport. Just one shift. “A glimpse, and that was it,” Cathy Koehler says. “Achieved.”
Over the next years, Koehler bounced across the minors, at one level incomes a call-up with Nashville. He skated in warmups, however the Predators scratched him for the precise sport. Accidents bit Koehler as he aged. After the 2006-07 season, six years faraway from his sport with Carolina, his profession was completed.
Wanting again, Koehler needs he labored tougher within the gymnasium throughout summer season coaching. Apart from that, he wouldn’t change a lot. He has nothing unhealthy to say concerning the sport.
“It gave me a terrific head begin in life,” he says.
Koehler owns barely any bodily artifacts from his lone night in an NHL lineup. He has a photocopy of Hurricanes-Blue Jackets sport sheet and the recollections that got here with it, and that’s about it. He’s not even constructive the place his jersey is. He believes he might need donated it to UMass-Lowell, not anticipating it could be his just one.
He at all times thought he’d be again.
These days, Koehler is again within the Toronto space, and likewise spends loads of time at an Ontario cottage he purchased together with his signing bonus. He at all times wished to work together with his fingers, so he’s a mechanic putting in and servicing heating and air con items. Wanting rather less put on and tear on his physique, he’s hoping to transition to the gross sales facet in some unspecified time in the future.
“I’m getting older,” he says. “I get pleasure from what I do, however on the identical time, I’d like to make use of my mind somewhat extra, my information somewhat extra that method than with the instruments.”
Koehler has two youngsters: a 17-year-old son, Jaxon, and a 14-year-old daughter, Lilly. They each, in fact, play hockey. A couple of years again, Lilly was even a youth participant chosen to take the ice earlier than a Maple Leafs sport. She stood on the ice for the nationwide anthems, proper in entrance of the starters for the opposing crew — the Carolina Hurricanes, paradoxically.
Greg Koehler together with his son Jaxon and daughter Lilly. (Courtesy Greg Koehler)
Greg likes to observe Maple Leafs video games and notably enjoys NHL motion come playoff time. He nonetheless performs males’s league hockey, too. The beer tastes good, he says with amusing. It’s chilly.
For Koehler, his love for hockey has been a continuing since he was a boy. At first of the Dryden documentary, the well-known goalie interviews the teenager in his bed room. Koehler is a good-looking child, with broad eyes and a head stuffed with blonde hair. A set of trophies sit behind him.
He’s nervous in entrance of the digital camera, wanting down between ideas. However he speaks with conviction when discussing his objectives.
“Effectively,” he says, “I need to be an NHL participant once I develop up.”
A hint of a smile crosses his face, as if he’s imagining what that may appear like, what it could really feel wish to take the ice in an NHL enviornment and skate with one of the best gamers on the earth. His complete future lies forward of him. He can dream.
GO DEEPER
NHL goalie tandem energy rankings: Which groups are greatest arrange for fulfillment?
(Illustration: Sean Reilly / The Athletic. Photographs: Jill Brady / Portland Press Herald through Getty Photos; Patrick Smith / Getty Photos; Getty Photos / NHLI)
