The story of the No. 2 NHL Draft pick who chose the simplicity of his Manitoba farm

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The story of the No. 2 NHL Draft pick who chose the simplicity of his Manitoba farm

Post by Sexymarinersfan » Mon Aug 02, 2021 9:56 pm

At any given time, there could be more people reading this story than actually live in Foxwarren, Manitoba. That is where you will find a 1,200-acre grain farm that grows canola and hard red spring wheat. While some locals joke it is a hobby farm compared to the 8,000-acre combines in the area, the fourth-generation farmer who runs it loves his land. He loves the process of farming and he speaks at great lengths about these crops. He does it in a manner that conveys he is a fourth-generation farmer who did indeed grow up in small-town Manitoba.

It’s Canada Day, and the farmer has taken a break. A week earlier, he was stunned to learn a reporter wanted to talk to him about what he did before farming. It isn’t like that experience has come up often in daily conversations over the past 30 years.

When he was once a highly touted prospect who 30 years ago became the No. 2 pick in the NHL Draft and it is not like that experience comes up in daily conversations.

He uses the next two hours to discuss everything. His rise as a junior star. The day he was drafted by the expansion San Jose Sharks in 1991. The shoulder injury that changed his career and still limits him today. Why he chose to be a farmer instead of a coach, executive or scout, like several of his contemporaries.

He offered advice to Matthew Beniers, the first player drafted by the Seattle Kraken, repeating what Brian Lawton and Doug Wilson told him as a rookie.

“The first thing I would do is look around, find a good veteran who has been around the league and latch onto them,” the farmer said. “Just take in all the information from someone on that team.”

Pat Falloon grew up in Foxwarren, the tiny rural western Manitoba hamlet that is more than three hours from Winnipeg. Asked how many people live there, he remarks that it could be around 75 or so people. His is something of a familiar tale in the NHL. He was drawn to the local rink at an early age and played the game for countless hours over the next several years. Getting to the NHL became a serious goal around 11 or 12.

When he was 16, Spokane Chiefs GM Bob Strumm and coach Butch Goring showed up on the farm.

“They said we want you to play junior hockey for us,” Falloon said. “The other choice was to play junior B, go to high school, get drafted or go to university. For me, the quickest route to the NHL was going to the WHL … and our family decided I was going to Spokane.”

In Spokane, Falloon quickly drew the attention of NHL organizations. He scored 22 goals and 78 points as a rookie, a team record that still stands. His second season saw him explode for 60 goals and 124 points. Everything was aligning for Falloon as a top prospect. He won gold with Canada’s world junior team even after suffering a knee injury playing baseball and guided the Chiefs to their first WHL and Memorial Cup titles.

Scouts were taking notice. Falloon speaks of it today with a certain level of humility, giving all the credit to the opportunity he was given and the teammates he had in Spokane —which included the “best center in the league” Ray Whitney, who scored 1,064 points in 1,330 NHL games.

“Pat showed you pretty much everything,” said Chuck Grillo, the Sharks’ director of player personnel when the club drafted Falloon. “All you had to know was the inner workings. He was a farm boy who seemed to be very humble. His parents were very humble. We thought we were getting a great kid who excelled at everything. I don’t know if he was a great skater as much as it was his release was phenomenal. He and Whitney ran crazy numbers that year. They were ridiculous. Everybody we brought in from the GM on down, they all left saying there are some good players (in Spokane). I think we took three or four players out of the franchise.”

Falloon was part of a controversially famous draft that saw Eric Lindros go first to the Quebec Nordiques. Lindros, a Hall of Famer, was the consensus No. 1 prospect. So it was a matter of who would go second to the Sharks. In consideration along with Falloon were Alexei Kovalev and Markus Naslund, plus two future Hall of Famers in Peter Forsberg and Scott Niedermayer.

Grillo has heard it before. How could they not take Forsberg? How could they not take Niedermayer? Or why not go after Kovalev and Naslund, who had strong careers? Grillo said the Sharks knew about Forsberg and Niedermayer. They liked what they saw. They just felt stronger about taking Falloon as part of a larger plan that would see them use their two second-round picks to take Whitney and defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh.

“You can always second guess yourself, but I am not going to do that,” Grillo said. “I am not giving up on that kid because things did not go as well as they did for Kovalev or Forsberg. I see these articles that come out where people say, ‘I would have taken this guy but our staff took that guy.’ What the guy who says that forgets is that he had a chance to open his mouth, but he didn’t.”

Getting drafted should have been the highlight. But what made that day even more memorable was when he was joined in the Sharks organization by someone he already knew.

“Pat was already down at the Sharks draft table after doing interviews and photos and such when he looked up into the stands and smiled at me,” Whitney recalled.

It did not hit Falloon until later that he was going to a non-traditional market and one of the largest markets in the United States. Both Falloon and Whitney described going to the Bay Area as an educational experience. They got the treatment that comes with being top prospects but it was intensified because they were the top prospects for a new NHL team.

Sharks public relations ushered them around all the local television stations. ABC. CBS. NBC. They did them all. One of the highlights was when they went to the Oakland Coliseum to watch George Brett when the Kansas City Royals played the Oakland A’s. Clearly, this was different from life in Spokane. But both Falloon and Whitney said they were the furthest thing from stars who got stopped on the street.

“Nobody knew much about hockey,” Falloon said. “We went on the sports channels and we are trying to explain this game in five minutes to a sports broadcaster who does not know what offside is. He could not pronounce our names or who the coach was. Right away, you’re like, ‘Holy shit. This is going to be an education.’ We were playing at the Cow Palace. It smells like rodeo in there and they are cheering for offside and icing. Then, there was the crew of fans that remembers the (California) Golden Seals from when they were in Oakland. The fans came out of the woodwork and it was a pretty good crowd.”

Falloon was somewhat on his own that first season with the Sharks as Whitney was playing in Germany. Falloon was the youngest player on the team. He was actually the ninth-youngest player in the league that season, according to Hockey-Reference. But Falloon made an instant impression by leading the Sharks with 25 goals, 34 assists and 59 points. He finished fourth in Calder Trophy voting behind Pavel Bure, Nicklas Lidstrom and Tony Amonte.

It was only one year, but it appeared the Sharks had a building block with Falloon. He was young. He had promise. He was proof that the Sharks’ draft strategy was potentially heading in the right direction. Falloon said he was confident and went about his business but acknowledges that he might not have handled what came with being the young face of a franchise to the best of his ability.

What Falloon wishes he had done differently was how he approached the game with his preparation. He wishes he would have been better with his diet and training regimen. Falloon said the NHL was different back then. Guys would have beers and pizza after a game. They would use camp to get in shape whereas today’s players are in a perpetual cycle of monitoring their food intake and creating specific workout routines to maximize every inch of their bodies.

“If I look back on that, just those two things in itself, how much better could a guy have been?” Falloon said. “I was not the only one. We had some guys who were working out hard. I found that out when I went to Philly. I watched Roddy Brind’Amour in the weight room for a couple days. I was like, ‘Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What the hell?'”

Going into his second season, Falloon was on pace for a 56-point campaign. Perhaps he would have liked a bigger jump in production. But at least there was consistency. Or that was the case until Jan. 10, 1993, when a game against the Ottawa Senators changed his life. Falloon was in front of the net when he was hipchecked and landed on his shoulder.

Falloon said it took three doctors to reset his dislocated right shoulder while he laid in a hospital bed. He was given a choice to let it heal, go straight into rehab or get surgery. He sought a second opinion and elected to receive surgery to repair the damaged cartilage.

Falloon was never the same. Even to this day, the shoulder still ails him.

“I never got full range of motion back,” Falloon said. “If you threw a ball like we were just playing softball. If there is a ball that is five feet over my head and coming with pace, I am scared to jump up and catch it. So that started a whole series of rehab and the game was never the same. I was good enough to play. Certainly, I am not blaming anything on that. As the years have gone by, I have realized that more.”

Whitney said the shoulder injury changed a lot for Falloon. After all, he was their leading scorer. He was earning heavy power-play minutes and was trying to build from a strong rookie campaign.

“If he does not have that surgery, his stats would have a different look,” Whitney said.

Falloon bounced back to score 22 goals and 51 points in his third season, but the shoulder limited him. He was someone who wanted to play hard but was smart enough to know to stay out of a scrum with a heavyweight enforcer. But he was forced to change his game, which he felt did not mesh with what was demanded.

A coaching change marked a sign of change for Falloon. He went from thinking he would spend his whole career in San Jose to being a healthy scratch. He spoke with his agent who then spoke with Sharks GM Dean Lombardi. They decided to find Falloon a new home. He was moved to the Philadelphia Flyers in his fifth NHL season. His final three seasons saw him traded to the Ottawa Senators, Edmonton Oilers and Pittsburgh Penguins. Falloon’s NHL career ended with 575 games, 143 goals and 322 points in nine seasons.

He played the next season for Davos HC in Switzerland, then he returned to North America awaiting his next step.

“I went home to the farm and guessed that was the end of my career,” Falloon said. “I headed home and started farming and thought if nothing comes in the summertime, I would not think much about it. Then, I started the business of farming and that was the end of my hockey career.”

Falloon played senior league hockey for a team in Foxwarren for several years. He said it was nice to be around the game and enjoy the camaraderie he built with his teammates. That much reminded him of the NHL. He coached his now-teenage daughter a couple of seasons starting when she was 6 years old, but he prefers supporting her from the stands. “I thought I knew more than I did,” Falloon quipped.

Living in Manitoba means he watches nearly every Winnipeg Jets game. And he can be a bit of an armchair coach. Those brief moments are when he thinks he would like to work in hockey as a scout. But that is as far as it goes. He enjoys being back on the farm. He was never comfortable in big cities, and large gatherings were never his thing.

“Patty is a farmer first,” said Whitney, who now works in the NHL’s department of player safety and hasn’t talked to Falloon in some time. “… I don’t think he had any aspirations to go further in the game of hockey as an executive. He had always intended to go back and farm. He is doing what he loves.”

Falloon’s name might not come up often. But he hears the conversations about how he was a bust. How the Sharks would have been better going in another direction.

“I am not going to lie to you. There were times in my life when that has crossed my mind,” Falloon said. “Was I a bust? Were there things I should have done differently? You can’t change anything. … Nobody comes up to me and says, ‘Let’s go through your career and what the fuck happened?’ I have not had that conversation with anyone.

“Overall? I wake up in the morning and I am happy and I go on. … I did not play 1,000 games and I wish I would have. I didn’t win a Cup and that hurts. But what do I have to really complain about?”
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