Bet the farm: Against all odds, Shaw arrives ready for NHL opportunity

EDMONTON -- When Mason Shaw isn't in the middle of hockey season, you can usually find him on his family's farm just outside of Wainwright, Alberta - population, 6,200.
Shaw's farming background isn't some folksy offseason hobby. He's an actual farmer who also happens to play hockey.
A fourth-round pick of the Wild in the 2017 NHL Draft, Shaw didn't buy a car or a house or jewelry with his first signing bonus.

He invested his money in cattle.
"Yep, that's where the first little bit of money went to," Shaw said with a smile. "Growing up on a farm and just being able to have cows, that's something I've always loved. So that's where my first little investment went to."
Every offseason, Shaw returns to his rural Alberta hometown, located a two-hour drive southeast of Edmonton roughly 40 miles from the Saskatchewan border. Cattle is the main export on the Shaw family farm, which also grows hay and green feed, all of which gets put up for the cattle. His dad, Aaron, and his mom, Lindsey live on the farm year round.
After a long hockey season, it's a great place to Shaw to recharge the batteries and invest in something that he's truly passionate about.
"Going home, that's always been something totally different than what we do eight months of the season for hockey," Shaw said. "I just enjoy going home and me and my dad, helping him out and spending the summer on the farm, it's something I really enjoy doing.
"But it definitely gets me hungry to come back for the hockey season because you turn the page a little bit."
Shaw, who was called up from the Iowa Wild on Monday morning, travelled with Minnesota to his home province and will - at the very least - be in the house Tuesday night when the Wild faces the Edmonton Oilers, his favorite team growing up.
He expects a few family members to make the trip to Rogers Place for the game, and depending on whether he's in the lineup, several more could make the journey as well.
"Being two hours from home though, there'd be people I know even if I wasn't there," Shaw said. "It's going to be pretty cool."
Whether Shaw makes his NHL debut in Edmonton - or at all on the Wild's four-game western road trip - doesn't at all diminish the fact that he's reached the NHL against some pretty improbable odds.
There are plenty of Alberta farm boys with dreams of reaching hockey's biggest stage, but not all of them are 5-foot-8 and weigh about 180 pounds.
That alone makes Shaw's journey pretty remarkable.
But he's also overcome a tremendous amount of adversity to get to this point. Shaw has rehabbed and returned from three torn ACLs, including two since being selected by the Wild in 2017.
"Just a story of perseverance," said Wild assistant coach Brett McLean, who coached Shaw for three years in Iowa and was behind the bench for each of his past two major injuries. "Your heart breaks any time a player gets injured, let alone when you know it's a long-term injury ... add to that, he's a young prospect, add to that, that it has happened multiple times.
"It was just so hard to see him go through that, but he's such a positive guy."
Shaw's latest came in Game 3 of a first round AHL playoff series against the Milwaukee Admirals, when his left knee was pinned awkwardly against the boards and he was sucker punched in the back of the head.
Shaw's knee gave out and he crumpled to the ice.
That injury came less than two years after his other knee was shredded in a freak incident at the Traverse City Prospects Tournament in September of 2017, two months after Minnesota selected the undersized from the Western Hockey League's Medicine Hat Tigers.
Writhing in pain on the ice at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena, Shaw wondered immediately whether his already longshot chance of reaching the NHL was officially cooked.
"I think there were points in my career where I thought, after that third ACL surgery, that maybe this dream wouldn't become a reality," Shaw said. "I've definitely had a lot of good people in my corner to keep me in the right frame of mind, especially right after those times. But here we are now and I'm just extremely excited to be here."
It was in those tough moments where Shaw would lean on his upbringing on the family farm, where hard work was expected. This is a guy who would do his summer training around his schedule tending to cattle.
If there was work to be done mid-day, Shaw would get up early and do his hockey work. If there was stuff to be done at the break of dawn or at dusk, Shaw would get a lunch-time workout in.
"He's just got such a strong foundation," McLean said. "Great family, great person and I think with situations like [the injuries], you see the good people really rise up, and that's what he is first and foremost. He's a heart-and-soul guy, and with where he comes from ... when you grow up like that, you're a strong-willed person and that's really shown through."
Shaw, who is second on the team in Iowa in scoring and is one of its alternate captains, learned of his call-up following game on Sunday, in Des Moines, a 4-0 loss to the Chicago Wolves.
Waiting for him in the dressing room were Iowa head coach Tim Army, Iowa General Manager Mike Murray and Minnesota GM Bill Guerin to share the news that he would be making the trek north up Interstate 35 to St. Paul, and following a practice at TRIA Rink on Monday, to his home province of Alberta.
At long last, Shaw's dream of reaching the NHL - one that had driven him through three ACL rehabs and some long days working the fields on the family farm, had arrived.
"We had a tough loss down there, but being told that definitely changed my spirits right away," Shaw said. "Crazy how that works, being two hours from my hometown. It couldn't be a better opportunity for how it worked out. It's crazy how this works sometimes, I'm just truly blessed to be here."
Photo by Erin Loughrey