Hockey players used to come from places like Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat and Prince Albert. Now they come — some of the biggest stars, it seems, some of the most explosive players — from Scottsdale and Phoenix and suburban Los Angeles.
When Tage Thompson scored five goals the other night for the Buffalo Sabres, bringing his total to 21 in 26 games at that time, Auston Matthews wasn’t the least bit surprised; he wondered what took Thompson so long.
Thompson is from Phoenix, the son of a marginal NHL player. Matthews was born in Northern California, grew up in Scottsdale, an area better known for golf courses and vacation properties than wrist shots. The two were born six weeks apart in 1997.
They grew up playing together, training together, and somehow learning their massive shots together. Matthews, the natural, a star from the day he got to the NHL; Thompson, more of a late bloomer, is now one of the most powerful-and-dangerous shooting forwards in hockey.
Matthew Tkachuk, with 37 points, was born in Scottsdale. Jason Robertson, the unlikely scorer in Dallas, first grew up in Arcadia, Calif. These are four of the absolute best forwards in the NHL, who grew up and learned to play far from the centre of the many hockey universes across Canada and the United States.
Matthews is not so much proud of how far Thompson has come — he has only played 250 NHL games — but convinced that he is here to stay.
“I think his body has…
