Painter Can't Resist Lure To Return
Published on November 7, 2006 under SPHL (SPHL)
Florida Seals News Release
CELEBRATION, Fla. - Hockey players from Canada, it can be said, are born to be on the ice. It is in their blood. It is a part of their being.
Try as they might, it is hard to resist the lure of the frozen pond. Even when they leave, the game always calls to them to come home.
For Florida Seals defenseman Glenn Painter, it took ten years for the siren's song to reel him back in. Now he is looking to help the Seals win the SPHL President's Cup.
"I always had in the back of my mind that I really wanted to give hockey another try at some level, either coaching or getting into the management aspect of it - the business side," Painter said in a recent interview. "I just thought after time that I'm getting older. I'm obviously up there in years for a hockey player. I thought maybe playing would be a good way to get my foot back in the door."
Painter, a native of Montreal, tasted his first success as a 15 year old in midget hockey. He played for the Lac St-Louis Lions, an all-star team from Quebec province that participated in the Air Canada Cup. The Lions, which had several future NHL players such as Beniot Brunet, Peter White and Claude Lapointe, won the cup that year at the tournament in Regina, Saskatchewan.
"It was a really good team. It was a really good experience because you really learn a lot being around that type of structure," Painter said. "We had an owner who paid for everything. He paid for all the equipment, which at that level is a big thing. We had a chartered bus for away games. We'd wear suits and ties and stuff like that. He paid for the blazers. It was pretty professional."
The very next year, Painter participated in the Quebec Esso Cup - the world cup for players under the age of 18. He played with Pierre Turgeon, Jimmy Waite, Stephane Matteau, Yves Racine and Eric Desjardins and faced the likes of Joe Sakic, Sergi Federov and Alexander Mogilny.
His play earned him an opportunity to play Tier Two junior hockey in Pembroke, Ontario where he broke pretty much every record for scoring by a defenseman, posting 136 points in just 56 games. From there, he received offers from Ohio State, Maine and Clarkson to play college hockey in the U.S.
He chose to join the Buckeyes' program and it paid dividends immediately. In his first season, he was named "Rookie of the Year" for the CCHA, scoring 12 goals and 40 points to lead all defensemen in the conference. His sophomore season was a disaster as he broke his radius and ulna bones in his arm, dislocated the wrist and tore ligaments.
After losing most of that 1990-1991 season, he returned to the line-up. Although he did not post big numbers as he had done as a freshman, Painter completed his junior and senior seasons averaging just under a point per game.
Painter's pro career started in 1993 when he joined the Memphis Riverkings in the Central Hockey League. In 53 games, he tallied 13 goals and 34 assists. He then moved on to the Madison Monsters in the Colonial Hockey League (now the UHL) where he played with Seals' teammate Brett Larson.
In 1996 he hooked on with the Fort Worth Fire in the CHL, posting 41 points in 64 games. In the post season that year, he contributed six points as the Fire won the CHL title.
"Everyone just got along really well. We stuck together. We did things together as a team," Painter said about his time in Fort Worth. "It was a lot of fun because when you're winning, it brings you closer as a team."
When the cheering from winning the title died down, Painter faced a decision.
"I was 28 and I thought that maybe it was time to move on and do something else," he said. "I definitely wanted to finish up my degree. That was a priority in my life at the time. I felt like there was some unfinished business with going to school for four years and not completing what I started out to do."
So back to Columbus, Ohio Painter went. He finished his studies, getting a degree in sociology. The city had grown on him so he decided to stay and set out into the business world.
"I stayed in Columbus because I liked the city. I had a lot of friends still there," he explained. "I got right into real estate sales so I did that for six years. I didn't know what I wanted to do after I graduated. I just fell into sales and did pretty good at it."
He left the real estate business and went to work for Time Warner Cable for a year. It was about this time that he began thinking more about returning to the ice.
One of the first considerations was how many games did Painter think his body could withstand. He looked around and saw the 56 game SPHL schedule and knew that was where he wanted to go.
"I wanted to get back in but I didn't want to play a whole bunch of games. I didn't want to go to the CHL and play 64 or the ECHL where they play over 70 games," he said. "The SPHL kind of fit perfectly. I didn't know how my body would handle the schedule of let's say a 70 game schedule with traveling so much. 56 is pretty realistic."
Painter was familiar with Seals' Head Coach Tommy Stewart, having played against Stewart in the CHL. Seeing that Stewart was coaching in a warm climate and in a location with plenty to do, that was all the incentive to make a phone call.
"I was hoping that it would fit and so far everything has worked out pretty good. I struck it off pretty good with Tommy right from the start," Painter said. "We had a couple of conversations. He looked up my stats and liked what he saw. It worked out good for him and it worked out good for me."
Painter knows that it will take a little time to get into perfect shape but feels the fundamentals will still be there.
"The game's pretty much the same. What's great about hockey and athletics is that it is pure," he said. "If somebody's out there and they are loafing or not working hard, you're going to see that pretty clearly.
In a regular job, sometimes you can float through and you have the next day to do something. In hockey, you just have to work all the time you're out on the ice."
Having been in the business world and also being a little older than most of his teammates, Painter has gained a new perspective on being able to play what is essentially a kids game.
"You don't really appreciate it so much when you're younger. We've all grown up playing the game from a very young age and a lot of these guys have played every single year," he said. "A lot of them really haven't been in the real world. They haven't worked.
You can get complacent here and there. You think all the traveling stinks or my body's sore, different things like that or maybe I didn't play enough tonight. When you really look at it, lets say you're working a 9-5 job and you really don't like it, that's a lot harder. Even though you're playing a game here, your worst day is probably somebody else's best day."
SPHL Stories from November 7, 2006
- Painter Can't Resist Lure To Return - Florida Seals
- Mike Tuomi named Player of the Week - SPHL
- Cyclones Add Defenseman McCoy - Twin City Cyclones
- Week Two in Review - Huntsville Havoc
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