ALUMNI PROFILE: FORMER CAPTAIN KEITH AULIE
(Courtesy of Perry Bergson, The Brandon Sun) — Keith Aulie admits his move to the big city was a major transition.
Now 27 and a married father playing in the American Hockey League, the former Brandon Wheat Kings defenceman grew up on a farm, owned by his parents Bill and Karen, near Roleau, Sask., which is located about 70 kilometres southwest of Regina and perhaps best known as the town where “Corner Gas” was filmed.
“I was such a young guy coming to Brandon that I really didn’t know what to expect,” Aulie said. “I had never really lived in a city before. I had always lived in a small town and knew my specific group of friends and family. Going to a city was different for me, but it was such a tightly-knit community. That’s what I always appreciated about Brandon, it was just an easy place to live and such a storied franchise that it was cool being the talk of the town.
“It just felt like a natural place for me to live. I was always pretty thankful for my time I had to live there.”
The six-foot-six, 223-pounder went on to play 267 regular season and playoff games with the Wheat Kings in four seasons from 2005 to 2009.
While Aulie sometimes went to games to watch the nearby Regina Pats when he was growing up, the thought of becoming a Western Hockey League player himself didn’t occur to him until he was 13 or 14 years old.
“Once I kind of figured out that I was pretty good at hockey and having fun doing it, I came around pretty quick,” he said.
He played bantam AA in Weyburn, and then went to Notre Dame for midget AAA. The Wheat Kings selected him 11th overall in the 2004 draft.
After earning a spot on the team a year later, he made himself at home with his billets, Leo and Mary-Lou Collins and their sons John, Steven and Robert, but he admits it was a transition.
“I was never spoon-fed my whole life, but you go from your mom’s home cooking and kind of an easygoing midget life to all of a sudden you’re kind of on your own a little bit and you’re fending for yourself,” Aulie said. “You have to be at school at a specific time and you’re never allowed to miss school. You’re playing lots of games and putting on lots of miles on the bus. Luckily for me, school was never too challenging.”
No kidding.
The big defenceman was named the WHL’s scholastic player of the year in 2006-07 with a 91 per cent average in his Grade 12 year.
His WHL career came along more slowly, especially in his rookie season.
“There were lots of old guys and we had lots of defencemen too,” Aulie said. “That first 16-year-old year season, I think it was myself and Chad Erb who were coming in and out of the lineup every night because we had plenty of defencemen and we had to divvy up the playing time. I just remember it being a battle every day. Kelly McCrimmon was always pushing us every day and I just remember it being a shock how hard practices were and the travel. I remember getting home at six in the morning, going to school and then playing that night.”
Aulie was one of those players who improved each season, something that the Calgary Flames no doubt saw when they picked him in the fourth round of the 2007 National Hockey League draft.
“I was always kind of a late bloomer I would say,” Aulie said. “I had lots of potential coming into the league but I was really raw. I was a big lanky guy who didn’t understand how big I was and how much I could do until later in my junior career. It just kind of took time and probably lots of patience from our coaches and lots of reps, lots of games, lots of practices to really find my stride.
“I think that every year I got better and I think that’s why Crim had patience with me and confidence with me because he could see what I could eventually turn out to be.”
He would turn out to be team captain in his 19-year-old season as well as a first-team all-star in the Eastern Conference and a member of a gold medal-winning Team Canada at the world junior tournament in 2008-09. World junior fans will remember that year for Jordan Eberle’s game-tying goal with 5.4 seconds in a semifinal game with Russia which Canada won in a shootout. Canada beat Sweden 5-1 in the final.
While his game was more about defending his own net than attacking the other one, he also posted a career high 33 points with the Wheat Kings that season.
At age 20, he turned pro with the Abbotsford Heat of the AHL. Before he even played a game with the Flames, he was part of the Dion Phaneuf deal to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2010.
In the past eight seasons, he’s played with 12 teams, including 167 NHL games with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning and Edmonton Oilers.
“It’s been a wild ride,” Aulie chuckled. “As it goes on, you learn that it’s a business.”
If there’s been another defining theme in Aulie’s pro career, in which he’s bounced between the AHL and NHL, it has to be bad luck.
During a tryout with the Arizona Coyotes at training camp in 2015, he broke his hand 10 minutes into his first practice.
“I’ve had some real tough luck with injuries and continue to have,” Aulie said. “Last year I had three broken bones in my hand. I was counting up my broken bones the other day and I think I have 13 in my life. It’s just kind of ridiculous. I had a surgery on my shoulder that set me back six months. You always kind of sit back and wonder what could have been if it’s wasn’t for some of these injuries.”
He said most of the injuries resulted from blocked shots, hits or fights, all of which are part of playing the position the way he does.
Strangely, the Arizona injury proved to have a silver lining.
Aulie was invited to join Canada’s Spengler Cup team late in 2015. After he healed he played a few games in the AHL and headed to Europe for the annual tournament.
Canada beat HC Lugano 4-3 in the final, going 4-0 in the event in Davos, Switzerland to win gold.
After the event was finished, he was offered a contract to join HIFK, a team from Helsinki which plays in Finland’s top league, the Liiga.
“I worked on some parts of my game that I wouldn’t have been able to work on over here,” Aulie said. “I think it’s paying off a little bit this year.”
This season, after a short stint with another former Wheat Kings captain, Ryan Craig, and the Cleveland Monsters, Aulie joined the AHL’s Stockton Heat, where he has a goal and four assists in 32 games.
He said the path back to the NHL gets longer every year — his last game in the league was with the Oilers on April 11, 2015 — but he hasn’t given up hope.
“As the rules change and the game changes, I would say it’s changing not in my favour as a tall, stay-at-home defenceman,” Aulie said. “It’s tougher and tougher every day to make a comeback for sure, but it’s always in the back of my mind. Once you’ve been there, you want to get back there in the worst way because it’s pretty cool thing to do for a living, to play in the NHL.
“But when they say it’s hard to make it there, it’s even harder to stay there. The moment you make it you’re pretty happy, but somebody’s knocking at the door to take your job. It’s a cut-throat business.”
Despite eight years away, he certainly hasn’t forgotten his Brandon roots.
Aulie and McCrimmon occasionally text back and forth, and Aulie stays in touch with a good number of teammates including Andrew Clark, who stood up at his wedding, Matt Lowry, Brayden Schenn, Jay Fehr, Nathan Green, Del Cowan, Darren Bestland and Erb.
He said most of the guys on those Wheat King teams were from Saskatchewan or Manitoba so they shared a lot of common values.
“I’ve been asked about Brandon and Kelly McCrimmon a million times and I’ve always had nothing but good things to say about both,” Aulie said.
He married his longtime girlfriend Ashley Getzlaf in 2014, and they had a son, Emerson, last May. Getzlaf played hockey with the University of Regina Cougars, and is a cousin of Anaheim Ducks forward Ryan Getzlaf.
“I’m hoping my little guy gets some Getzlaf skill,” Aulie joked.
He owns land near his family’s farm, and he and his dad harvest the 5,000 total acres together.
While his pro career has had its bumps, his time with the Wheat Kings was much smoother sailing.
Aulie was one of the 50 players selected for Brandon’s WHL Dream Team voting to select the top two goalies, six defencemen and 12 forwards in team history. (Voting is now closed.)
He was humbled upon learning the news.
“That’s kind of a shock, to be honest with you,” Aulie said. “There have been so many really good players go through that organization. I certainly wouldn’t expect to be on that list at all. Obviously that’s an honour to hear that for sure. The team’s been around for a long time and it was a tight-knit group, so we were always hearing stories of all the guys who had come before us and hearing about the stats and some of the big years that the guys had.
“To be mentioned with some of those guys is pretty cool.”
