Storm’s first pick a foundation for 25 years
Beginning the Guelph Storm’s 25 years spent in the Ontario Hockey League, first ever selection Todd Bertuzzi became the star, and more, the organization would go on to build and model around for years to come.
Steph Coratti, GuelphStorm.com —
There’s something to be said for starting it all.
In 1991, the Guelph Storm began their tenure in the Ontario Hockey League by selecting Todd Bertuzzi as the organization’s inaugural draft pick.
Bertuzzi – who now in the club’s 25th anniversary season is being celebrated as the second best player to have hit the ice in the Royal City – undoubtedly became a more than solid foundation in which a standard for success was built on.
Ironically enough, however, it only took General Manager Mike Kelly one look to recognize exactly who the Storm had to begin building around.
“I didn’t get a chance to see him other than one time,” Kelly explained, adding that he had just taken the position with the organization about a month prior. “I drove to the Under-16 camp in Walden, Ontario and saw him. One look was enough to confirm what our head scout had been telling me.”
In fact, the decision process, contrary to what most would think, was actually fairly straightforward.
“We saw that he was something special and that he should be the Storm’s first pick,” Kelly recalls. “It was as simple as that.”
But perhaps, with a player like that, things are best kept simple.
Bertuzzi went on to record an impressive 276 points (116 goals, 160 assists) in 230 career games with Guelph, not to mention the 45 points (19 goals, 26 assists) registered in 24 playoff games – numbers that obviously speak for themselves.
Yet, the numbers aren’t what define the Sudbury, Ontario native’s time with the Storm.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a junior player, or a professional player for that matter, as naturally strong as what he was,” Kelly said of the Storm’s first star, noting that the 19-year-old Bertuzzi could hold off players with one hand while in full stride, at full speed. “He just had an incredible amount of natural strength and he, as that 19-year-old, could do things that just made you see a man against boys.”
The then-and-now Storm General Manager brings out the incomparable combination, however, that truly made the now six-foot-three, 229-pound winger special.
“It would be his pure size and strength,” Kelly continued. “But you don’t expect to get the soft hands that he had with somebody who is that huge, and that strong.”
Strength, size and offensive prowess, a package that would eventually lead Bertuzzi into a successful 18-season NHL career, spending time with the New York Islanders (where he was selected 23rd overall in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft), the Vancouver Canucks, Florida Panthers, Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, and the Detroit Red Wings.
In those 18 seasons, Bertuzzi would play 1159 games, recording an impressive 770 points (314 goals, 456 assists).
Getting to that point, though, required an off-ice development – a development Kelly recalls happened before Bertuzzi’s NHL career was in the picture.
“It was the maturing process,” Kelly explained. “He came to us as that 16-year-old boy – a little naïve, a lot to learn, and I don’t think I’ve seen somebody grow as much as a person and as a hockey player as he did in terms of 16-to-19-years-old.”
Two people, Kelly remembers, were significant contributors to the maturing of an NHL star – one on the ice, and one off of it.
“He met his now-wife when he was 17 years of age and I think she had an awful lot to do with that process,” he continued. “I also think Craig Hartsburg, who coached him as a 19-year-old, helped along the maturing too.”
Overall, looking at the package and the process, expectations for the Storm’s original star were certainly met, if not more so.
“I would say he probably exceeded expectations,” Kelly said, basing his analysis largely off of the play of 19-year-old Bertuzzi. “As a 19-year-old with us, it was probably the most dominant year that I’ve ever seen a junior hockey player have.”
“He was good as a 16, 17, 18-year-old, you kind of got what you had anticipated,” Kelly continued. “But as a 19-year-old, he might have been the best junior hockey player in Canada.”
Not bad for the guy who started it all on the ice.
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Todd Bertuzzi
- Guelph Storm, 1991-1995
- OHL Totals: 230 games played, 116 goals, 160 assists, 276 points
- Playoffs: 24 games played, 19 goals, 26 assists, 45 points
- OHL Second All-Star team (1995)
- Named second all-time forward in Guelph Storm history
- Selected in the first round (23rd overall) by the New York Islanders in the 1993 NHL Entry Draft
- 18 NHL seasons
- NHL Totals: 1159 games played, 314 goals, 770 points
- NHL All-Star (2003, 2004)
- NHL Teams: New York Islanders, Vancouver Canucks, Florida Panthers, Anaheim Ducks, Calgary Flames, Detroit Red Wings
- Represented Canada three times; 1997-98 World Championships (six games played, one goal, three points), 1999-00 World Championships (nine games played, five goals, nine points), 2006 Olympics (six games played, three points)
