According to Elias Sports Bureau, Lubomir Sekeras made his debut with the Wild at the age of 31 on Oct. 6, 2000.
NCAA hockey analyst Dave Starman, who coached Cannone in 2003-04 with the New York Bobcats of the Tier 3 junior ice hockey organization when he was 17, was ecstatic to hear the news.
"People told him this is what we think you are and his feeling was I can be better than that," Starman said. "He had a really good inner drive, but he had it in a very simple way. He never gave you that edgy attitude like he was out to prove you wrong. Pat gave you the attitude that he was out to prove himself right."
Cannone spent four seasons at Miami University (Ohio), where he learned the value of nutrition and conditioning.
"The knock on him was that he did things quick but didn't have quick feet," Starman said. "I think that's what might have held him back a little bit. At the end of his junior year at Miami, he was running half marathons. He was a conditioning freak, and that was a reason he was as good a Division I player as he was."
Never drafted, Cannone played two full seasons with Binghamton of the American Hockey League before being signed to a one-year, two-way contract by the Wild on July 1. He played in Chicago (AHL) for three seasons and scored three goals in the 2016 AHL All-Star Game, which he was named most valuable player.
"I remember one time when he had broken his thumb with the Bobcats, he still skated every practice," Starman said. "He was the only player who was on time for practice and I told him he didn't have to skate since he was injured. I put the team though a bag skate because they were late, and Pat wanted to skate with his teammates because, as he told me, 'I'm part of the team.'
"That, to me, was who Pat Cannone really was as a person."
