EDMONTON — Darryl Sutter had one foot up on the bottom rail, his arms folded over the top rail as he watched the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers rookies play for jobs in Penticton. Checkered shirt, he looked like a guy at a livestock auction.
The hockey man in him liked the best kids down on that sheet of ice. The ones who’ll help you win.
But the Sutter in him always cheered for the farm kids from flyover towns like Viking, Shaunavon or Lacombe, Alberta, a disappearing breed at those rookie tournaments as the price of minor hockey and the advent of expensive academies slowly limit families like Lou and Grace Sutter’s from NHL participation.
“Those are the kids you pull for,” Sutter said that day. “The smalltown kids, and the guys who weren’t drafted.”
Meet Daxon Rudolph, from Lacombe, Alta. He’s a little bit of both — a dandy young right-shot defenceman, who at six-foot-three and 206 pounds will surely help you win, and a kid who comes from the same Central Alberta roots that Sutter did.
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Rudolph grew up in the city of 14,000 just north of Red Deer off of Highway 2 — about 200 km from the Sutter farm in Viking — and will arrive in Buffalo this Friday as a probable top 10 pick.
“Family of four, teacher as a Mom, an electrician as a Dad,” Rudoph said this week. “My mom grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and my dad was from Kelowna, so no one is above anyone. We’re a very down-to-earth family who's just super competitive, a lot of fun to be a part of.
“My sister (Jordyn) played sports, and just going to watch each other is a big part of our family. Just supporting each other.”
It’s a long road from Gary Moe Auto Group Sportsplex in Lacombe to the KeyBank Center in Buffalo, but you have to love being in the first rink to get your invite to the next one. Rudolph — whose nickname is, of course, “Rudy” — fell in love with being at the rink going to Jordyn’s ringette games.
“He just wanted to play, and he was competitive from Day 1. He'd watch his sister play, and he couldn't wait to get out on the ice and have his turn,” said father Nathan, who knew he had a hockey player on his hands right away.
“You know, some kids just try to figure it out. Right away he knew how to play the game,” Nathan said. “He knew that he wasn't going to allow people to score, and he knew that he wanted to score. So at a young age, he had a tendency to always be the first guy back.”
That defensive-minded kid turned into the No. 1 overall choice (by Prince Albert) in the 2023 Western Hockey League bantam draft. Three years later, he finished third among WHL defencemen with 78 points (50 assists) this past season.
“He really liked having the play in front of him,” recalled Nathan. “At an early age, he could defend and prevent goals, but once he got the puck, he knew where everybody was on the ice. He could kind of just manipulate the game that way.”
Kids never really realize what the family goes through to get them to a level like this. The travelling teams out of Edmonton, the Brick Tournament summer hockey teams. The training in Calgary, the camps…
It adds up, both in hours and finances.
“You put in a lot of hours, a lot of early morning stuff to do that extra work,” said Nathan. “Early morning practices before school starts. My wife (Renee) and I both work — she’s a teacher. There are lots of sacrifices, line of credit, all that stuff.
“But when you see a kid that's got a genuine passion for something, and then accompanied with the ability, we just did whatever we could do to facilitate that as much as possible. Try and make it happen for him, right?”
The Rudolphs did their part. Now it’s up to 'Rudy,' who is going through the chaotic, exciting window in his life with some old WHL buddies: Markus and Liam Ruck, the twin brothers who went one-two in Western Hockey League scoring for the Medicine Hat Tigers this season; Prince Albert teammate Riley Boychuk; and Ben Macbeath, a buddy on the Calgary Hitmen who Rudolph stays with while training during the summer in Calgary.
He’ll head to the University of Denver this fall, after finding out which NHL team picks him in Buffalo.
“A lot of decisions to be made. Definitely really busy,” Rudolph said. “A lot of external pressures with the draft, but it's stuff you look forward to your whole life, so I'm really enjoying it all. I'm sharing it with a few of my best friends at the combine, and I mean, the draft's already next week!
“The decision to go to Denver is obviously a big step, but I'm really excited for it, and looking forward to getting there.”
It’s a long way from Lacombe, that’s for certain.
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