Throughout his hockey career, Hunter McKown has been a traveling man.
He grew up in the Almaden Valley near San Jose, moved to St. Louis and then Michigan to continue playing junior hockey, and then went to college in Colorado. Now, he’s in Ohio, having signed with the Blue Jackets in free agency a season ago.
So how did his journey in the sport California isn’t necessarily known for take him from the West Coast to the Buckeye State?
He started as a kid playing a game called “gockey,” and, well, we’ll let him explain it from here.
“It’s actually kind of an interesting story,” he told Dylan Tyrer on the latest episode of the Pipeline Podcast, presented by Ruoff Mortgage. “So there’s this game called gockey and it’s like a foosball table basically, but there’s no paddles in the middle. It’s just open, and you stand on the outside with a little stick and try to shoot it in the little hole.
“When I was a little guy, a year and a half old, my parents, they were just talking to people, so they plopped me in the box there and I had the little stick, perfect size for me. So I just started going to town. I guess that's where it started.”
Of course, the NHL’s Sharks were nearby, and McKown quickly became a fan of the squad and played for the organization’s AAA program. But as he reached 14 years old, the squad was set to be discontinued, so the McKown family looked at a number of places for Hunter to keep playing.
They could have chosen Boston, where his mother had plenty of family. They could have chosen Southern California, a much more sensible geographic location. But somehow, they ended up in the Gateway City of St. Louis.
“St. Louis was not even remotely on the radar, but we had a lot of friends in St. Louis and they kept telling us, ‘We’ll get you in touch here. It’s a great city,’” McKown said. “We were like, ‘Yeah, whatever. St. Louis, sure.’ And so they put us in touch with the coach, Jordan Janes, who we absolutely loved right away."
It helps that St. Louis has become one of the top producers of young hockey talent in the United States, and two years in the program put him on the radar of the U.S. National Team Development Program. After two years there playing with the best young American players in the game in Ann Arbor, McKown went to Colorado College, where he scored 21 goals as a junior last season before signing with Columbus.
There’s a lot to like about his game, as McKown is a big center who can win faceoffs and score goals. He also saw a fit in Columbus, signing with the Jackets and skating in 12 games last year with two assists.
“It was a feel thing for me honestly,” he said of signing with the Jackets. “My interview with the management, staff and everything went really well. I got a good feeling from them and what they were doing with the organization. … Overall, it was the best setup for me out of all the options.”
McKown has started this season with AHL Cleveland, posting two goals and an assist in the first three games.
To learn more about McKown, listen to this week’s edition of the Pipeline Podcast presented by Ruoff Mortgage on Soundcloud or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Monsters Post Weekend Sweep
After splitting the opening two weekends of the season, the Cleveland Monsters built some momentum this weekend with wins at Grand Rapids and Chicago to move into third place in the AHL North Division at 4-2-0.
The top farm team of the Blue Jackets won one of the more interesting games of the weekend Friday, taking a 3-2 overtime victory at Grand Rapids. A pair of Carson Meyer tallies gave Cleveland a 2-0 lead before the Griffins rallied to tie with 27 seconds to play, but the home fans responded by tossing a foam puck giveaway item onto the ice to draw a penalty for the Griffins. Brendan Gaunce then scored on the ensuing power play in OT to give Cleveland the win.
A night later, Cleveland tripped to Chicago to take on the Wolves and scored all four goals in the third period to earn a 7-3 victory. Seven different players – Eric Robinson, Mikael Pyythia, Nick Blankenburg, Owen Sillinger, Yegor Chinakhov, McKown and Jacob Christiansen – scored for Cleveland, while Luca Del Bel Belluz (two assists) and James Malatesta (one assist) each earned the first points of their professional careers.
On the weekend, goalie Jet Greaves stopped 57 of 62 shots against (.919 save percentage) to improve to 4-1-0 on the season. Trey Fix-Wolansky leads the squad with a 2-6-8 line in six games, while Meyer’s four goals are most on the squad.
Cleveland returns home to Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse this week to host Grand Rapids tonight, then a pair of games Friday and Saturday against Providence.
Prospect Notes
- It’s not shocking news, but Jordan Dumais continues scoring. The 2022 third-round pick started the season in Columbus and was sent back to Halifax of the QMJHL a few weeks ago; in his first five games with the Mooseheads, he’s posted a 6-8-14 line for 2.80 points per game, beyond his historic 2.19 mark a season ago. The 19-year-old wing had a 2-2-4 line Friday in a win at Charlottetown and then scored the winning third-period goal and added two more assists a night later in a victory over Acadie-Bathurst.
- Staying at the CHL level, another Blue Jackets prospect who stayed in Columbus until nearly opening night was 2022 first-round pick Denton Mateychuk. The 19-year-old defenseman has upped his point production this season, posting a 3-12-15 line in his first nine games. Mateychuk scored his first three goals of the season this weekend, potting two Saturday against Prince George and another a day later vs. Prince Albert. He has at least a point in every game this season.
- In the college ranks, it’s been a rebound season for the University of Wisconsin, which has jumped to No. 5 in the national rankings thanks to a 7-1-0 start. Included in that was a sweep this past weekend of then-No. 1 Minnesota, and 2023 third-round pick William Whitelaw had a big part in it. The freshman forward has taken to the college game quite nicely, posting two goals and five points in his first eight games, including a goal in the second contest against the Golden Gophers.
- Gavin Brindley also continues to produce at the college level, posting a 2-2-4 line Saturday night as No. 4 Michigan completed a sweep of Lindenwood with a 10-1 victory. A second-round pick in the most recent draft, Brindley has seven goals and 13 points in the Wolverines’ first eight games. Whitelaw and Brindley will meet this weekend as the Badgers welcome the Wolverines to the Kohl Center for a two-game, Big Ten set.
- Whitelaw spent last year with Youngstown of the USHL, winning a championship on a team that also included CBJ draft picks James Fisher and Andrew Strathmann. And with an assist this past weekend, Strathmann set the Phantoms all-time record for points by a defenseman with 72 over three seasons and 127 games. The bad news for Strathmann is he was scratched for the Phantoms’ last two games over the weekend.
- Speaking of Fisher, the 2022 seventh-round pick is off to a great start in the BCHL. After his one season with Youngstown, the Massachusetts native decided to spend this year in the Canadian junior ranks, and Fisher has nine goals in his first 13 games with the Penticton Vees.
- Loaned to Admiral Vladivostok this season after SKA St. Petersburg acquired that team’s starting goalie, 19-year-old netminder Sergei Ivanov is off to a good start in the far eastern part of Russia. The 2022 fifth-round pick looked good in limited action with SKA, one of Russia’s top KHL teams, and has continued that with Admiral, posting a 2.30 GAA and .911 save percentage in his first four games at the top level squad.
- Oiva Keskinen has gotten off to a strong start in Finland’s Liiga, posting a 2-9-11 mark in 17 games with defending champion Tappara. And the 2023 seventh-round draft pick now has been selected for a Finnish U-20 national team, as the 19-year-old will take part in an upcoming Five Nations tournament in Czechia.
