After the University of Denver finished its two-game sweep of Wisconsin on Saturday at Magness Arena with a 7-4 victory, the teams went through the traditional handshake lines.
Pioneer freshman defenseman Patrick Wiercioch approached Badgers coach Mike Eaves.
From afar, the handshake had every appearance of cordiality, something you would expect from Eaves, one of the nicest guys in the coaching business.
But was anything said?
“I don’t think so,” Wiercioch said later. “It was kind of loud as we were going through the lineup, so I don’t know if he said anything or not.”
How the Ottawa Senators’ 2008 second-round draft choice ended up at DU this season, and not at Wisconsin as a freshman in 2009-10, highlights the unique nature of NCAA hockey recruiting.
Wiercioch also is on the Hilltop largely because another NHL prospect who had become a close friend of his, David Carle, was diagnosed with a heart condition that ended his DU career before it started.
Raised in the Vancouver suburb of Maple Ridge, as were Hall of Fame winger Cam Neely and former Rockies star Larry Walker, Wiercioch a year ago took what for a Canadian is an exceptional step. He went to play Junior A hockey with Omaha in the United States Hockey League. That’s significant because playing Canadian major junior would have made him ineligible for an NCAA scholarship.
A year ago during the recruiting process, Wisconsin and DU wanted him for 2009-10. The thinking was he would turn only 18 in mid-September, so if he played this season, he wouldn’t just be a freshman, but a young one, and that he needed one more year in the USHL. He committed to Wisconsin but wasn’t thrilled when the Badgers didn’t budge off that plan, not even after he improved exponentially last season as Omaha won the league championship and the Senators claimed him with the 42nd choice of the draft in June.
By then, Carle — who, like Wiercioch, had respected Denver-based agent Kurt Overhardt as his unpaid “family adviser” — had been diagnosed in predraft physicals and retired from competitive hockey.
“Patrick calls me and says: ‘Hey, I’ve already told Wisconsin I’m not going there. I’m either going to another college in the fall of ’08 or I’m going to play major junior,’ ” DU coach George Gwozdecky said. “He did not want to play (in the USHL) again.”
Gwozdecky not only is a former Badgers player himself, he roomed in Madison with Wisconsin’s star — one Mike Eaves. If he didn’t play his cards right, Gwozdecky might have been banned from State Street Brats for life and never again allowed to join in the song, “Varsity.” Regardless, he took on Wiercioch, who at 6-feet-4 and 185 pounds looks more like a point guard than a point man on the power play, essentially as Carle’s replacement.
“Wisconsin was really upfront and honest with me, and I want to thank them for that,” Wiercioch said. “Had they not been honest with me, we would have been playing a cat-and-mouse game, not knowing where I was going to be. For them to step up and say they wouldn’t have the availability on their roster, that helped me.”
Eaves knew his roster this season already was going to include five defensemen taken in the first or second round of the NHL’s pick-and-wait draft. One comparison: The Avalanche has only four defensemen taken that high. What seems obvious now is that Wiercioch’s improvement came faster than anyone — Gwozdecky included — expected.
In hockey, like other sports, marquee prospects rarely play full college careers, at DU or anywhere else. Another Overhardt advisee, Wisconsin’s Kyle Turris, left the Badgers last spring, after his freshman season, to join the Phoenix Coyotes. But Turris was the No. 3 overall NHL choice and is a center, and defensemen usually take longer to develop. All in all, it’s a safe assumption Wiercioch will be at DU at least two seasons — and perhaps longer.
“Right now, I’m just trying to get bigger and stronger and contribute to the team as much as I can,” he said.
In the first three games, especially because junior defenseman Cody Brookwell was serving a suspension for violating team rules, Wiercioch logged marathon minutes in the defensive pairing with senior Patrick Mullen.
Gwozdecky called his young defenseman “a special player, no question about it.”
Wiercioch already has three goals and two assists, and he has made one point very clear.
He was ready for this level.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
