BWC Alumni Profile: Austin Madaisky, Kamloops Blazers

January 13, 2012
Posted in BC Edition, Minor

By Graham Perkins /

Anybody who is serious about becoming a professional hockey player knows the list of required attributes is long and varied, depending on who the coach is. A heaping dose of natural talent certainly helps, but that only takes you so far and can easily become a crutch unless you put in the time to polish up all different aspects of your game.

Traits like perseverance, flexibility, and a relentless work ethic always look good on a scouting report, and they are qualities that have helped former BWC Bruin and current Kamloops Blazers defenseman Austin Madaisky climb through the Junior ranks.

Like most talented youngsters, Madaisky started his hockey career as a forward playing for Cloverdale. But when a BWC kid named Kevin Sundher moved next door and told him about the winter club, Madaisky liked what he heard and jumped ship in his second year of Novice. The only problem was, despite being a superstar back home, he wasn’t good enough to crack the top squad with the Bruins and ended up starting his first Atom season on the A2 team.

“To get cut from a team was a bit of a wake-up call for me,” he recalled. “It was then I decided I wanted to work as hard as I could to give myself a shot.”

With forwards such as Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Sundher in his year, Madaisky decided the best shot for him to crack the Peewee A1 team was to drop back to defense. It wasn’t a seamless transition, but his rink-rat determination to be on the ice every day before and after school soon started to pay dividends. His skating improved dramatically and by the time tryouts came around, he had brought his game to another level.

“I was a bigger guy and it gave me more ice time, which was great. Once I made the switch I felt a lot more comfortable.”

Like many players at the winter club, Madaisky wasn’t sacrificing his mornings, evenings, and weekends just because he didn’t have anything better to do. He wanted fulfill his dream of being a professional hockey player and realized the only way to do it was to put in as much work as possible and do whatever his coaches asked of him.

While other kids in his class would sleep in on Sundays and have video game marathons, he’d be at the rink honing his craft. He moved up a grade in elementary school and finished all his high school courses half a year ahead of schedule so he could have more time to train. It wouldn’t have been easy for his classmates to complain about algebra when he was around, and he credits his parents for instilling his goal-oriented work ethic in him early.

“In the summer, my dad would say ,‘you can get a job, or train like it’s your job.’ He’d pay for it as long as I’d put it in. I was really lucky to have parents like that.”

BANTAM & BEYOND

He considers his Bantam years some of his favourite times as a hockey player. The Bruins squad that won the 2007 Western Championships will go down in club history as one of the best ever, and Madaisky was a key cog in the team’s success.

“That year, our top four were as good as anybody’s top four in the country,” said Bantam head coach John Batchelor. “He was a real good teammate, a good puck moving defenceman with offensive upside. He played powerplay, was key on the penalty kill, and had a real good shot from the point. I think playing forward in those early years really helped with his edge control and acceleration.”

He got snapped up by the Calgary Hitmen in the first round of the Bantam draft and, after that year, he decided the WHL was the best way to pursue his NHL dreams despite his mom’s best efforts to convince him to take a scholarship and play NCAA hockey down in the States.

But after a few years of adjusting to the size and speed of WHL forwards and a trade to Kamloops that pushed him into a top-pairing shutdown role, Madaisky has established himself as one of the best all-around defensemen in the league.

He was drafted by Columbus back in 2010 and played in his first exhibition game this past fall, which just happened to be Winnipeg’s home opener.

“It was absolutely insane,” he said. “It was the loudest building I’ve ever been in. You couldn’t hear the anthem singer or the starting lineups.”

He was sent down with a positive report from the Columbus brass, who told him to continue to grow as a player and take advantage of the opportunity in Kamloops. He hasn’t disappointed, putting together an impressive 2011/12 campaign that has him on pace for career highs in nearly every major category (except for PIMS) and earned him Blazer-of-the-month honours for December.

It would have been easy for Madaisky to spend his childhood as a big fish in a small pond, but eventually you outgrow that pond and end up floundering. He was humble enough to recognize he wasn’t going to be one of the best forwards at the winter club, and determined enough to turn himself into one of the best defensemen instead.

He’s got a bright future ahead of him, and it was worth skipping all the sleep-ins in the world.

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