Fashion Lighting Player Spotlight: Brock McGinn
By Scott Tracey, Guelphstorm.com
Storm winger Brock McGinn is off to a blistering pace this season, with 50 points in just 32 games to lead the team.
In fact, with half a season left McGinn is just four points shy of last season’s career-best 54.
But it will be some time before the 19-year-old manages to surpasses that mark. McGinn was scheduled to fly this week to Charlotte, North Carolina, for surgery on his wrist to hopefully address an injury which has nagged him for two years.
“He’s been playing through a lot of pain all season,” his dad, Bob McGinn, says. “His wrist has been anywhere from five to seven out of 10 all year. He’s getting treatment for it daily.”
Which makes McGinn’s team-leading 24 goals and 26 assists all the more remarkable.
The 2012 Carolina Hurricanes draft pick – second round, 47th overall – has learned a lot from his still-limited exposure to the big time.
“You bring a lot back from the NHL camps,” he says. How much faster they are and what they bring to the ice.
“You have to be able to play at a whole other level and that’s what I’m trying to do this season,” McGinn says. “Obviously next year I’m hoping to play professionally somewhere, either in Charlotte (with ‘Canes AHL affiliate Checkers) or maybe even to get a shot in Carolina. That’s what I’m working towards.”
(McGinn is not eligible to play with the Checkers this season, as the American Hockey League requires players to be at least 20.)
“My immediate goal is to help the Storm win the Memorial Cup,” he says confidently.
McGinn is the youngest of Fergus’ first family of hockey. Oldest brother Jamie, 26, plays for the Colorado Avalanche while Tye, 23, has worked hard to earn a full-time spot with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Bob admits it’s hard to even imagine all three of his boys playing in the NHL.
“It’s a numbing feeling, to be honest,” he says. “It’s surreal. I get a shiver up my spine when I think about it.”
The brothers honed their skills on a rink in the backyard of their Fergus home.
“I give their mother Cori full credit for that,” Bob says, “because she was the one out there at two or three in the morning flooding it and taking care of it.”
Brock says that rink likely launched three careers.
“Growing up we were out there all the time,” he says. “We’d be out there in the morning before school and then after school we’d have all our friends over. That’s where our love for the game came from.”
While smaller than both of his brothers, McGinn makes up for it with his physical play.
“Somehow, and I don’t know how it happened, he figured out how to hit like a Mack truck,” his dad says with a laugh. “We see him lining someone up and we know it’s not going to be good. It’s just a perfect hockey hit.”
Asked what the future might hold for his youngest son, Bob is optimistic.
“With him the sky’s the limit,” he says. “I just don’t know what his ceiling is.
“For him to have that many goals with his wrist as bad as it’s been is amazing. I don’t know what he’ll go on to accomplish.”
Scott Tracey is a Guelph-based writer. He can be reached at [email protected] or followed on Twitter @scottjtracey
