“The week of the all-star festivities was like the Bieber fever for him,” Hurricanes captain Eric Staal said. “He was everywhere and there were people screaming for him. And he’s got a Bieber look with that hair and stuff.”
When Skinner arrives a few minutes later, his light brown curls and boyish looks are exactly as described by Staal.
But make no mistake, this is a determined young man. It was no happy accident that Skinner made the NHL to stay this season as an 18-year-old.
After the Hurricanes picked him seventh overall in the 2010 NHL entry draft, Skinner vowed to make the jump from the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League to the big show. His 50 goals and 90 points in his last season in junior hockey gave Skinner a leg up on his goal but he knew there are not many 18-year-olds who manage to stick in the NHL.
To prepare, Skinner turned to one of the people he rooted for when he grew up in Markham, Ont., just north of Toronto, as a fan of the Maple Leafs. Gary Roberts, known as a fitness maniac when he played, is now a player development consultant with the Dallas Stars and trains several other young NHLers like Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Skinner turned himself over to Roberts’s gruelling regimen last summer with an eye to making the Hurricanes.
source:theglobeandmail.
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