Just when he thought his Junior hockey career was coming to a close they pulled him back in.
Joel van der Velden has re-joined the Okotoks Bisons after parts of two seasons spent with the arch-Nemesis Strathmore Wheatland Kings.
“It was a little different, but I think my heart has always been in Okotoks,” van der Velden said of playing with the Kings. “I had fun in Strathmore, but this is where the real hockey is with a championship team and coaching staff.”
The Chestermere native said there are also a bevy of familiar faces in the Bisons’ organization.
“I just wanted to come back and play with my friends Jeremy Smith, Kevan Mikkelsen and Matt Howatt are all from Chestermere and that’s why I came back.”
It’s been a long return journey to Okotoks for the 20-year-old forward.
Van der Velden started his Junior career with the Bisons in 2010-11, but left midway through the season for work overseas.
“I had an opportunity to go work in Australia for oil and gas with my dad,” he said. “There were 12 games left in the season and I left.”
The Bisons went on to win the first of consecutive league titles that season, one the scrappy centre remembers fondly.
“It was a good, good team with great coaching and they went on to win the championship that year,” he said.”
In the 2011-12 season he joined the nearby Kings, but missed most of the year with a hernia.
His decision to join Strathmore was due to an arduous school schedule at SAIT to go along with his games and practices in Junior B hockey, making the proximity of Strathmore much more enticing than the weekly trips south to Okotoks.
Once the Bisons’ new number 12 was cut by the Wheatland Kings coming back to the friendly confines of the Murray Arena was a no-brainer.
“I was an older guy there and I think they were building for the future and I just didn’t fit into their plans right now,” van der Velden said. “I’ve got a grip on the school now so it was time to come back here.”
Bisons general manager Jay McFarlane said van der Velden left the team on good terms and the door for his return was always open.
“Right now we’re giving him a look, we have 26 guys right now and have to get down 25 by Dec. 16 and 23 eventually so he’s fighting for a spot coming in late,” McFarlane said. “We have got some coaching decisions to make, we want to be thorough, but we are not panicking.”
McFarlane admitted he would probably not have allowed a new player to join the team at this juncture in the season, but van der Velden was an obvious exception to the rule.
“Knowing what he had to bring it was worth carding him to give him a look,” he said.
Van der Velden’s role on the team has been clearly defined by the Bisons’ coaching staff.
“I think the coach (Mike) Hannigan wants me to play more of a character role so a fourth-line, third-line role,” he said. “And I’m more than happy to do that.”
The five-foot-nine, 165-pound forward certainly has the tools to be an effective bottom six-forward as a talented antagonist and pest in the mold of Todd Callaghan, who wore the number 12 last season for Okotoks.
“When you get older you try to play a character role and set an example for the younger guys,” he said. “The biggest thing about being a pest or an agitator is getting under the other team’s skin without taking a penalty or even sucking them into a penalty.
“It gets you going, it gets the team going.”
