Former OHL Champion, Andrew Long, gives insight
Making the NHL is, of no surprise, a dream for most young boys at one point or another. The majority eventually outgrow the aspiration, while some come remarkably close to skating into the big leagues.
Getting that close however, requires unbelievable commitment and dedication. That commitment is often paired with complete tunnel vision towards the NHL light – the light that only gets intoxicatingly brighter as you inch closer and closer.
It doesn’t get much better than the classic story of that hardworking, humble favourite who finally reaches said light and makes a name for himself in the show. There isn’t a person in the sport who ever gets tired of hearing those.
But what about the story of the same hardworking, humble favourite who came up just short and moved on with life? This story, the undeniably more common story, is a strong reality that is either left unrecognized or ignored.
The fact of the matter is that, in a culture so passionately in love with a sport, looking past hockey is simply an unfortunate – but very real – taboo that has become more and more problematic, specifically for young prospects caught up in the required tunnel vision.
From a young age, players are taught through a way of the culture to live and bleed hockey. Anything else leads to questionable commitment, a seemingly black mark on a young prospect’s potential professional career.
Insert problem here.
Allowing, and sometimes demanding, a sport become the entire world for these young athletes is extremely crippling, leaving far too many players weighed down with a feeling of failure after what should be viewed as incredibly successful junior and professional hockey careers.
Andrew Long, who co-captained the Guelph Storm to their first OHL Championship in 1998, followed up a successful junior career with six years of professional hockey before making the conscious decision to move on with life in 2005.
“I had it in my head that at 25 – I know it sounds so young – but at 25 years old if I wasn’t in the NHL or knocking on the door, I believed that it was time,” Long explained of his personal decision. “I thought it would be a lot easier to get into the real world in your mid-twenties than it would be going into your thirties. I think you’re a lot more trainable.”
Long, who returned to Guelph following his hockey career and became the co-founder of real estate company Diloreto & Long, knows he was an exception to the rule.
“I was definitely someone where I was thinking more about after hockey than others,” the former Storm forward said, adding most players try to play for as long as they can. “It’s not to pass judgment on those guys, that’s okay. I just knew [the end] was coming, and I wanted it to come sooner rather than later.”
The Toronto, Ontario native credits his forward-thinking attitude to his parents.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t like playing hockey,” Long explained. “I just knew, with a decent perspective from my parents, I was going to spend most of my life not playing hockey.”
A reality that every hockey player, career minor-leaguer or big league superstar, will be forced to face at one point or another.
Before the decision to call it quits however, came the process. In the 1996 NHL Draft, Long was selected in the fifth round (129th overall) by the Florida Panthers, an accomplishment that can be seen as just another checkpoint along the way to the NHL.
“It’s surreal, but you’re also in that hockey bubble,” Long explained of the experience. “You really want to get drafted and you’re excited, but at the same time, it’s just part of the process of trying to make it to the NHL at that moment.”
“It’s something you’ll always have,” Long continued, adding that he still has the jersey in his basement. “But, at the end of the day, it’s a hat and a jersey. The next day you realize you have to go and get a contract. It’s all part of that process you go through.”
Even the process has flaws, however, with some of hockey’s best left undrafted.
“If you’re gonna make it, you’re gonna make it.” Long said, using now NHL star Ryan Callahan as an example, a player who returned to the Guelph Storm line up for his overage year without a pro-contract. “It takes different ways to get there. It doesn’t matter where or how you do it.”
The reality however, is a lot of prospects don’t reach star-status or even get the opportunity to pull an NHL sweater over their heads. The end dream falls short, resulting in too many successful athletes hanging their heads in unwarranted shame, unaware of how to take the next step into the real world.
“Everything becomes magnified. Getting benched or not making a team, it’s the end of the world. It’s actually scary,” Long said of young athletes needing a back-up plan and other interests outside of the sport, adding it’s an area where he’d like to volunteer and get involved with. “People get too wrapped up in it.”
Long, working alongside Guelph Storm alumni Cody St. Jacques and former Winnipeg Blue Bombers player Nick Fitzgibbon with Diloreto & Long, is a strong example of life existing successfully after sports.
“The one thing that was difficult was I wanted and liked being part of a team atmosphere,” Long explained. “So I joined up with [Adam Diloreto] to make sure I had somewhere to get going and have a life. We did that so we could back each other up.”
Alongside ensuring he had the team environment he had grown accustomed to, Long finds the same values instilled in athletes in his real estate business regularly.
“A lot of the things we learned in sports, we shared,” Long said of his business teammates, St. Jacques and Fitzgibbon. “If you can trust someone and they work hard, you’ve got ninety per cent of what you need. Everything else is teachable and can be learned.”
A former OHL Champion, recording 48 goals for 140 points in 188 games for the Guelph Storm, with six years of professional hockey under the umbrella of the Florida Panthers organization, and now successful real estate business owner and proud father, Andrew Long is the kind of story that the culture of hockey needs to recognize.
When asked of his proudest moment, including his hockey career, Long didn’t hesitate.
“My kids,” Long said. “I get more enjoyment watching their sports than I ever did playing my own.”
Hockey players are more than just hockey players, a concept a lot of us don’t grasp, nor one we wish to. They’re heroes, placed gently on sought-for and earned pedestals. However, these hockey players need to be given the chance, and the space, to define themselves outside of the label. They need to feel free to think of a life beyond the sport.
“There’s a whole other world out there,” Long said of his advice for young athletes. “When you show up to whatever it is – the rink, the stadium, the gym – like anything in life, you work your hardest while you’re there and you let it go after that.”
When it comes down to it, NHL superstar or hardworking, humble favourite who falls just short, hockey players need to be given the opportunity to become people. Despite it all, there will inevitably come a point in time where life needs to go on without the sport.
“There’s a lot more to enjoy in the world than just playing sports,” Long said. “It’s a great opportunity and it only lasts for so long, so work hard but don’t forget to enjoy it.”
Enjoy it. Two words that often get lost in a country’s overwhelming passion for its beloved pass time.
Hockey may be our early Saturday mornings and Saturday nights, it may be the warm spot on the coldest winter day, but it shouldn’t be our entire lives.
A lesson that begins with all of us.