Carolina Hurricanes welcome Jack Hillen with ‘New Guy’ tag on locker (Photo)
By Robby Sabo
Newly acquired Jack Hillen came to find that his locker had the name of ‘New Guy’ printed on it. He felt the love immediately.
As sport fans we tend to gravitate towards certain athletes. Most of us are also frustrated athlete-failures ourselves.
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So when we hear stories like Cleveland Browns wide-receiver Josh Gordon basically throwing away his career over off the field incidents, we tend to get a bit peeved.
These guys make millions and are so fortunate, we think to ourselves.
It’s not all good stuff however.
Professional athletes with families have to travel from city to city on a regular basis and uproot their families on a drop of a hat should their current employer trade them away.
For Jack Hillen, his recent move from the Washington Capitals to the Carolina Hurricanes comes just shy of the NHL trade deadline.
It’s the life of an NHL player though playing in today’s salary cap stricken world.
What’s odd about this one is how unorthodox the Hurricanes decided to welcome their new player into the fold.
Newly acquired Jack Hillen's locker stall nameplate: "New Guy" - http://t.co/j6xOBM5bQL pic.twitter.com/b2djODGjhQ
— Rory Boylen (@RoryBoylen) February 28, 2015
“New Guy” is what his locker name plate so affectionately displays.
One might think the new team would do anything to open the figurative arms wide open welcome to their new defenseman. Instead the Carolina contingency decided to have a little fun with the newest Cane.
Actually, while most wish the story was that of a fun razzing of the new guy, it turned out to be just as innocent as the Canes staff not having enough time to get his name printed out properly for his locker name plate.
On Saturday morning the trade happened so fast, which also included Tim Gleason, that Hillen described himself very emotional while grabbing his gear from within the Capitals locker room for the last time.
In fact, his former teammates in Washington had nothing but glowing things to say about the eight-year pro from Minnesota.
“There’s very few guys that I’ve ever met in my life that work as hard as Jack does,” former teammate Karl Alzner said, via the Washington Post. “I could maybe count on one hand as good skaters as Jack. He’s a guy that can play the game. He just needs the opportunity and the confidence. If he gets that in Carolina, it could be really good for him and for them.”
Up to this point on the season the defensive minded Hillen has skated in 36 games with five assists and a +1 rating. In his first game with Carolina he played just over 17 minutes and recorded two shots on goal.
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