Hurricanes can take Carter’s con

BY GREG HEAKES
rLETHBRIDGE, AB – Carter Bancks has never met an obstacle he couldn’t overcome.
rFor proof, look no further than the major surgery he had four years ago which left the Lethbridge Hurricanes forward’s hockey career in doubt. The complicated operation included reseting two broken legs so that Bancks could lead a normal life and eventually get back to hockey.
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r"The doctor told me if I didn’t have the surgery on both legs then the right one would be three centimetres longer than the left," Bancks said.
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rBut that’s a distant memory for Bancks as his only burden at the moment is making sure the Hurricanes beat the Calgary Hitmen and reach the next round of the Western Hockey League playoffs and eventually the Memorial Cup championship.
rBancks did his part in the Eastern Conference semi-final against Kootenay by scoring two crucial shorthanded goals to help Lethbridge take the series four games to one. It was a bitter sweet win for the 18-year-old Bancks who grew up in Marysville, B.C. just up the road from Cranbrook where travelled numerous times as a youngster to watch the Ice play.
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r"I might be shunned a little bit in Cranbrook but I’ll be welcomed in Marysville and Kimberly," said Bancks after his second post-season shorthanded goal.
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rBancks helped seal the series with a second-period shorthanded goal as Lethbridge beat Kootenay 3-0 to reach the Eastern Conference final for the first time in 11 years. His first shorthanded goal of the post-season came in game two of the Kootenay series. He stole the puck from an Ice player before scoring on a breakaway to give Lethbridge a 3-0 lead en route to a 5-4 overtime victory. That’s exactly the type of leadership and skills the Hurricanes were looking for when they brought Bancks in for training camp in 2006. By the end of the 2006-07 season he was named Lethbridge’s rookie of the year after scoring 31 points in 67 games. And Bancks had an even better 07-08 regular season, scoring 15 goals, 45 points in 70 games. But it wasn’t that long ago that Bancks wondered if he might ever play hockey again.
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rWhen he was 14 years old, Bancks was playing for the North Shore Winter Club against the Burnaby Winter Club when he collided knee on knee with one of the Burnaby players. Unknown to Bancks he suffered a leg fracture and not realizing the severity of the injury, Bancks continued to play.
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r"I broke my left leg around the growth plate," Bancks said. "I played for three months with a lot of pain. After the season I went to the doctor in Cranbrook. He told me it would heal and be fine. So I took time off and went back to playing but I still had lots of pain. I couldn’t run and I struggled to skate."
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rBancks’ father Jerry (a Hurricanes’ scout) took him to see a specialist at the Calgary Children’s Hospital. The doctors in Calgary told him the growth plate had been compromized and they would have to operate.
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r   "(Doctor) said my leg was starting to bow," Bancks said. "My leg was only growing on one side."
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rThe operation to reset the broken leg was tricky. And it got more complicated as doctors had more bad news for Bancks. Because of the lost time between the injury and diagnosis, the surgeon said he would have to break and then reset his good leg as well to prevent one from being longer than the other. As to whether he could continue to play hockey again that was still a question mark.
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r"I was nervous about the operation," Bancks said. "They said I would lose some height. I wasn’t sure how I would be able to skate. But the doctor kept telling me I would be better after the operation."
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rAfter the operation, Bancks was in wheelchair for two months while he "learned to walk again." Amazingly he was out of hockey for only four months.
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r"I started to walk again and then skate. I played my first game of the 2004-05 season in February with the Kimberly Dynamiters Junior B team." "I worked really hard. I had lots of mobility issues at the start. At first I felt awkward. But I was just thrilled to be out there. I took it small and broke things in gradually. So far it has turned out well. I have no leg problems."
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rBancks was listed by the Vancouver Giants then dropped before former Kootenay scout and current Hurricane general manager Roy Stasiuk signed him at age 16.
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r"I thought the WHL wasn’t for me," Bancks said. "Roy saw me play a lot when he was in Cranbrook with the Kootenay Ice." Bancks said strong support from his family helped him get through the ordeal. "The big thing is my family managed to stay positive for me. I was pretty down when I was in a wheelchair and couldn’t play. Lots of my buddies were signing with WHL teams."
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r"My dad played hockey and he had some major surgeries," he said. "He helped me a lot. He told me to play hard nosed and not be afraid."