Playing defence for the Prince George Cougars, Ian Walterson was never known as a scrapper, but there were times he couldn't avoid getting involved in an on-ice riot.
It helped prepare him for his current career as corrections officer at a medium-security prison in Egg Harbor Township, N.J.
Walterson tried to stick to the rules throughout his hockey career, but in junior hockey, boys will be boys and the gloves did get dropped.
Now one full year into his new occupation, the skills of knowing how to deal with an opponent in a scrum, come in handy.
"It helps when you have to tie somebody up," smiled Walterson. Walterson joined the Cougars in January 1995 in a trade from Brandon.
It was the Cougars' first season in Prince George after the franchise shifted from Victoria and he was one of seven new Cougars then GM/owner Rick Brodsky brought in at the trade deadline. The Cougars sent forwards Mike Leclerc and Alexandre Vasilevskii to Brandon for Walterson, winger Chris Low, midget-aged defenceman Jeff Church and two players to be named at the end of the season.
At the time, the Wheat Kings were building a team to host the Memorial Cup and those two futures turned out to be centre Colin Cloutier (a second-round pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning) and defenceman Scott Laluk. That year the Cougars won just 14 games and finished dead-last in the WHL.
"I was playing forward in Brandon and I was naturally a defenceman, so coming here was great for me because I started playing some power play, some penalty kill, playing defence again," said Walterson, in town for the fifth annual Cougars alumni golf tournament.
"Even though we were losing, I was young, seeing the future and getting lots of icetime."
The Cougars also made a 10-player trade that same year with Tri-City, picking up Ronald Petrovicky and defenceman Sheldon Souray, both future NHL'ers, as the key acquisitions.
"Souray was awesome, you talk about skill and a shot, you could see the difference between him and the other players and as a young guy could see what level I had to get to," Walterson said.
"He was one of those players that you'll always remember playing with," Walterson added.
While the Prince George Multiplex (now CN Centre) was under construction, the Cougars played that first season in the old Coliseum (since renamed Rolling Mix Concrete Arena).
As a 17-year-old who grew up in Oak Bank, Man., a small town just outside of Winnipeg, it didn't take long for Walterson to fall in love with his new hockey surroundings. Every game in the Coliseum was a sellout and the enthusiasm of the fans reached rabid proportions his next four seasons at the Multiplex.
He played 295 games for the Cats (fifth on the all-time list) and was an assistant captain before he graduated the junior ranks in 1999.
Walterson, now 38, was in Prince George for the Cougars' first extended playoff run in 1996-97, when a team which included Petrovicky, Joel Kwiatkowski, Blair Betts, Eric Brewer, Zdeno Chara, Brad Mehalko and Chris Mason knocked off top-ranked Portland and Spokane before losing a six-game Conference final series to Seattle.
"It was almost like being famous - it was awesome because every game was packed and you'd come back from playoffs and the airport would be filled with fans," he said.
"Looking back on it now, it was probably the best place I could have played, coming to a city that was excited like that. It was great for a young player like me to feed off that crowd. Tickets for playoffs games were selling out in 11 minutes, it was crazy, and you can't have a better experience than that as a 16- to 21-year-old kid."
Walterson began his pro career in the ECHL and played for the last-place Birmingham Bulls the season before the franchise was moved to Atlantic City, N.J., in 2001.
Two seasons later, the Boardwalk Bullies were Kelly Cup champions. Walterson remembers getting beat by lopsided scores his first year in Prince George but the team continually got better. The Cats didn't win any banners but Walterson grew from the experience. He started a hockey team 10 years ago at Stockton University in New Jersey, where he was the coach until he gave that up to take the corrections job.
"I pride myself on starting from that type of a season to where we finished," he said. "Even with Stockton, as low as it was in the ACHA, I started with street hockey and roller hockey players and built them into a national contender."
Walterson ended his playing days in 2005 and is also part-owner of a sports management company in New Jersey. He and his wife Karen have two daughters.
At Friday's autograph session at CN Centre, Walterson met up with his Cougar billet parents, Richard and Louise Lefebvre, who provided lodging for him and defenceman Dan Hamhuis.
Bayrack back for first time
Twenty-eight Cougar alumni players have gathered for today's tournament at Prince George Golf and Curling Club, which begins at 10 a.m. with a shotgun start. Among that group is former Cats' centre Mike Bayrack, in his first trip back to P.G. since he graduated the junior ranks with Walterson.
Bayrack moved from Edmonton to Calgary five months ago, where he works for Ethicon, a company which sells medical equipment to surgeons.
One of the perks of the job is he gets to observe surgeries in the operating room while doctors use the equipment he sells.
Bayrack, 37, started his WHL career with the Lethbridge Hurricanes and was part of a three-way deal, one game into the 1996-97 season. Thinking he was going to Portland, instead he was sent to the Medicine Hat Tigers, the archrivals of the Hurricanes.
Bayrack, 17 at the time, wasn't comfortable making friends with the enemy and right away asked to be traded. Cats GM Dennis Polonich heard he was available and Bayrack says it cost the Cougars nothing in return to get him here.
"I just didn't want to sit with guys I was scrapping with my first year, so I asked to be traded immediately," said Bayrack.
"I didn't even get to see the guys. Soon as I showed up I went right into the head office and asked for a trade. They literally just gave me up.
"I knew guys who were already here from the Edmonton area, like Jarrett Smith, Tyler Bouck and (Betts) and I wanted to come here, I was pumped."
His second season in Prince George, Bayrack contributed 21 goals and 59 points and he finished his 20-year-old season with 37 goals and 70 points.
He went on to play 14 seasons in the ECHL, AHL, UHL, Denmark, Germany, Austria and England before he hung up his blades in 2013. He hasn't been back to Prince George since he left the Cougars in '99.
"The fans here are what made the game fun and the players, too, made it fun," he said.
"We had a solid close group of guys. I haven't seen them in a long time and we're talking as if we played together last year. That's one of the reasons I wanted to come back, to build the relationships I had with these guys."
