North Vancouver’s Tristan Jones is a veteran beer league hockey goalie, so he knows the drill — someone is out sick or on vacation and the frantic call comes in late looking for someone, anyone, to get between the pipes.
“That’s pretty much the life of a beer league goalie,” says Jones. “You kind of jump from one team to another.”
Last week, however, Jones made a jump he never imagined he’d make.
“The boys need a goalie for the 11:30 skate at Britannia,” was the call that came out over Twitter on Sept. 8. Jones had a day off from work and saw the message instantly. It drew his attention because of the sender: @aburr14, known outside of the Twitterverse as longtime Vancouver Canucks forward Alex Burrows.
“First one that shows up will get a great workout and a free lunch from @zkassian9,” the tweet ended.
“I’ll strap up but I don’t wanna leave from North Van unless I know I’m gonna be playing,” Jones tweeted back, mostly joking. He didn’t think anything would materialize, but he was also showing his North Shore sensibilities.
“Anyone who lives in North Van knows — nobody wants to cross that bridge unless they have to,” he says.
The reply came quickly in the form of a direct message from @zkassian9, better known as Zack Kassian, one of Jones’s favourite players on the Canucks.
“The boys are waiting so come on over.”
That was all Jones needed to hear. He ran to his storage locker to retrieve his goalie equipment, zipped over the bridge to Britannia and threw on his gear.
“For a goalie it takes a while to get ready but I managed to speed that process up,” he says. Approximately 45 minutes after reading the first tweet from Burrows, Jones stepped onto the ice with the several members of the Vancouver Canucks. It all happened so fast that he didn’t have time to get nervous.
“The reality was I went in there as a nobody,” he says. “The worst case scenario was that I’d leave as a nobody.”
And it’s not like Jones had never faced a tough shooter before. The North Vancouver native got his start by playing inline hockey, switching to ice at the relatively ancient age of 14.
“It was difficult,” he says. “I had to learn to skate.” He fell in love with it right away though, and threw himself into the sport.
“After the first year when my parents realized that I loved it they just put me in as much training as I could handle. Whatever I wanted to do, I was in it. I was in goalie camps constantly. I just kind of worked my way up, one year after another.”
He moved up, year-by-year, through the house and rep leagues of North Vancouver Minor before going on to junior B and junior A, ultimately ending up at the University of Alberta – Augustana Campus to play college hockey. Two serious, early-season injuries suffered in two successive years put an end to that dream almost before it began, and Jones returned home to get a business degree at Capilano University. He stayed in the game through Behind the Mask — a goaltender training business he started while attending Capilano — and by playing in various men’s leagues around the Lower Mainland.
So how did he do when he jumped back out of the beer league and onto the ice with NHL stars?
“I did pretty well, had some fun out there,” he says with a laugh. “I made a few big saves, I had a couple of bad goals against. I think that’s the same for any goalie in practice.”
His opponent at the other end of the rink was six-foot-six Jacob Markstrom, one of the players who came back to the Canucks in the Roberto Luongo trade.
“It was really weird,” says Jones. “I’m six-one and I’ve never been dwarfed in net before. He’s enormous. It was kind of cool to stand next to him and be like, ‘Oh, OK. This is why you stop more pucks than me.’”
Jones soon learned that everyone else on the ice was awesome at hockey as well.
“Pretty much anywhere I’ve played you’ll see one or two guys kind of stand out. If you stand out in this crowd it’s probably not for the best reasons. They’re very, very, very good. It was very consistent amongst the entire team — they all have high-end talent.”
The biggest difference was in the pace of the play, he says.
“The speed is just that next level. Keeping up from a cardio perspective, you can understand why they are elite athletes. . . . In a practice I don’t think I’ve ever put out that much effort.”
Jones was also impressed by the players off the ice.
“They’re kind of like this one big, happy family,” he says. “Everyone was coming by and saying thanks for coming out. It was really cool. In the dressing room it was fun to see that the guys you watch on TV — their dressing room talk is just like locker room talk for any hockey team. . . . They were all planning on hanging out after the practice. They just wanted to be together. That’s a good sign for any team.”
Jones showed so well that Burrows asked him to come back the next day for another practice.
“That was a pretty easy decision,” says Jones. When he showed up the next day there was a camera crew from CTV Vancouver there to get in on the fun. As the story of the beer leaguer playing with the big leaguers gained speed, Jones found himself sitting down for interviews with TSN 1040 radio, Sonic radio and even CTV National.
The only problem stemmed from the original tweet — Jones had to leave quickly after the second practice so he never got that lunch with Kassian. Jones isn’t worried though — fuzzy future plans for potential meals and Canucks games have already been discussed, and Jones has made it clear that he’s ready any time that the boys need a body.
“I told them, any time you need a practice goalie, even if it’s just a couple of you guys, let me know — I’ll come out and you can shoot some pucks at me.”
