When the Wolf Pack franchise was new, it found its first hero in an unheralded, undrafted scrapper named P.J. Stock. Generously listed at 5-10 and 190 pounds, Stock quickly endeared himself to the fans of Hartford with his penchant for going after the biggest players on the opposing teams, entertaining on-ice antics, and happy-go-lucky outlook.“I never thought I'd make the American Hockey League,” recalls Stock about joining the Wolf Pack that first year (1997-98). “I thought I was going to start off in the East Coast Hockey League and end up having to work my time in. “I remember I stuck with the American Hockey League team, which was Hartford, and I was so excited because it was an American League team playing in an NHL facility. So this was it, this was the closest I thought I'd ever get (to the NHL). And on top of that, things started rolling, our first game, how much the fans got into it, playing in front of that many people (nearly 13,000). I scored a goal against Portland and the goaltender was Mike O'Neill and he was a guy that I knew from Montreal, and I've never let him live it down. There are two pictures in my basement, the shot and the actual post-goal celebration. It's one of the great memories I have in hockey. I don't know where it ranks, but it's definitely one of the things I can remember vividly, as if it was yesterday.” Stock not only grabbed a niche with the Wolf Pack, he went on to play 235 NHL games in a seven-year pro career. All the way through that time he enjoyed a tremendous rapport with the fans, and that all began with the Pack. “The people were great,” Stock says of the Pack fans. “I always think that the biggest thing a hockey fan hopes for is a team that will compete, and I tried to do that every night. “I was so happy to be in a situation where I never thought I'd be, which was the American Hockey League and playing professional hockey. And I was always amazed, hanging out with groups of fans, how happy you could make them and how appreciative they could be. So I tried to force myself to be the best possible player and work as hard as I possibly could, to give them hopefully that something that they were looking for and wanting to come see. And we ended up having a pretty good relationship out of it. “The fans in the Northeast, the Hartford and the Boston area, I had a great relationship with all of them. I understand a lot of where they're coming from and hopefully they understood where I was coming from, and we had a great relationship.” Whether it was a toe-to-toe battle in a fight or an exuberant goal celebration, Stock had a great feel for walking that fine line between bringing some extra entertainment value into the game and going overboard into becoming a clown act. “That was the hardest thing,” he says. “You want to make it exciting, you want to make it entertaining, but you never want to disrespect anyone in doing so. I remember I've done a couple things throughout my career that I've learned that maybe I shouldn't have done, but you do learn. And the people that I learned with were the fans in Hartford. I learned a lot about myself when I was there, and I learned a lot about being a professional athlete, and a professional person, during my time there. I was up and down from New York, it was an emotional rollercoaster for me, and I shared it with a lot of people while I was playing hockey. The people in Hartford were the people I shared it with, and I want to thank them very much for helping me go through the highs of being a professional athlete and the lows at the same time.” Stock's Wolf Pack career finished on a high, as he was a key player on the Calder Cup-winning squad of 1999-2000. Not surprisingly, he has great memories of that year. “For me, it was one of my greatest hockey years because I was always used as that fourth-line guy, getting just the odd shift, and we had an opportunity to do well that year in the playoffs, and I was taken out of my role,” Stock says. “I was given an opportunity to play with Brad Smyth and Jason Dawe. I remember that playoff exactly. We were losing to Providence 3-1 and we got back in it, and personally, when you play with good players you learn things, and I learned a lot playing with those guys. And to see how excited the fans got every game that we won, you just wanted to keep on winning. And I carried that throughout my career. “It was the only time I really won a championship in my career. It was a great time, I remember when we won the championship having fans down in the locker room and down near the ice, and we had the celebration at the Civic Center there. I think when a player gets a taste of that, that's what drives him for the rest of his career. I'll always remember how cool it was, when we got introduced up on stage, to be the guys that had won the championship, to be the best of the best. I wanted to take that to the next level, and it was something that I always had with me that I learned from. “No matter who you are, you get that one taste of what you want and you want more of it, and mine was winning. That's exactly what I wanted to do, and the first time I had a chance to do it was with the Calder Cup in 2000.” Following that triumph, Stock moved on to Boston, where he got his first opportunity to stick full-time in the NHL. He played two full seasons wearing the Bruins' spoked “B”, and like he did in Hartford, became a particular favorite of the rabid Bruin fan base. “Another great hockey city, very similar to Hartford, same type of people, lunch-bucket people,” Stock says of Beantown. “They work hard and they come out and watch a hockey game and they want winning, but they want their team to work hard. If you're not going to win, at least give 100% effort, and that's what I carried with me to Boston. “I was on a great hockey team, I had Joe Thornton, Sergei Samsonov, Glen Murray, Bill Guerin, Marty Lapointe, Don Sweeney, and the fact that I still got recognized among that group of players was something that I will never forget. That's why I guess I really enjoyed my time in Boston, like Hartford. I really think the New England area as a whole has great hockey fans.” Stock achieved something of a cult status off the ice in Boston as well, branching out into the world of cyber-journalism. “It goes back to the fact that I was a fan growing up, and here I am getting paid more than enough money to play a game for a living,” he says. “And I wanted to figure out ways to give back to the people that were coming to watch us play. People asked me to get involved in a couple of things and I did. I ended up writing journals on the internet, just to tell everyone, 'hey, I'm just like everybody else, this is my life that I'm living. I'm living a kid's dream.' I was sharing it with everybody, and being recognized on a team that had so many superstars made me want to do more just to give them thanks for recognizing me. It fueled me for a couple of years in Boston and it still fuels me today. I really miss the New England area.” These days, Stock is living back in his native Montreal. His hockey career ended after the 2003-04 season due to the effects of an eye injury, and now he spends his working time making further inroads into the media profession “My life's changed,” Stock says. “I remember playing hockey, going to the rink every day, and I was one of those guys who was really happy to do what I did. I did hockey for 25 years, and then you get an injury that stops that instantly, and I can no longer do it. Now I'm starting a new career, and it's like somebody else starting out hockey when they're four, five, six years old, but I'm 31, that's the only difference. I have to learn a whole new career in as short a time as possible. I'm dealing with the ups and downs, same thing as a hockey player deals with. “I'm doing a little bit of radio, a little bit of t.v., and now instead of having 5,000, 10,000 people in Hartford watching my mistakes as I grow, I've got everyone on t.v. and on radio listening and laughing at me. But at the end of the day, as long as everyone understands where I'm coming from and where we're trying to go with this, that's all that matters.” Stock does a radio sports talk show on Team 990 AM in Montreal (also webcast at team990.com) Monday through Friday from 10 AM to noon, and also works as a hockey analyst on television for The Score, as well as on Wolf Pack telecasts on Fox Sports New England. Otherwise, he spends his time being a dad to his three young children. He and his wife Jean Marie have a son, Tyson (four years old) and two daughters, Peyton (two) and Madigan (four months). Stock says that watching them grow helps him keep alive the joy that playing hockey always brought him. “You see what's going on in the rest of the world,” he says, “and we are so lucky to do what we all do for a living and what we did for a living and the situation we are in, why can't you be happy? And to see how kids are, how happy and innocent they are at a young age, you always wish you could always be one to a certain extent. So I am one always at heart. “I'm on the same level as my kids. Physically I'm a little taller than them, that's not going to last for much longer, but mentally I'm on the same level as them.” |
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