Walker hopes NHL can keep growing in Australia with Global Series

Nathan Walker became the first Australian to play in the NHL without being able to follow the League much as a kid, let alone see it with his own eyes in his own country.

So imagine how the St. Louis Blues forward feels about the NHL playing in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time. The Arizona Coyotes and Los Angeles Kings will face off in two preseason games at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday and Sunday in the 2023 NHL Global Series -- Melbourne.

“I mean, obviously, being Australian, I think it’s great for the game of hockey,” Walker said, “and hopefully it can just create more awareness for it.”

Walker made history when he debuted for the Washington Capitals on Oct. 7, 2017, scoring a goal in a 6-1 win against the Montreal Canadiens at Capital One Arena. The 29-year-old has 27 points (13 goals, 14 assists) in 111 NHL games for the Capitals, Edmonton Oilers and Blues and one assist in five Stanley Cup Playoff games.

The hope is there will be more players like Walker, kids in Australia who fall in love with hockey and chase their dream, whether they make the NHL or not. And the hope is they will be able to do it more easily than Walker did.

Born in Cardiff, Wales, Walker’s family moved to Sydney when he was 2. He and his older brother, Ryan, got hooked on hockey by seeing a game live, and let’s just say it wasn’t at the NHL level.

“We just went to a hockey rink and kind of watched, like, a beer league game, and we just kind of loved it and thought we’d give it a try,” Walker said. “And ever since then, we’ve both kind of loved the game and loved the sport.”

Walker played inline and ice hockey from age 5 or 6. He watched “The Mighty Ducks” movies and “Mystery, Alaska,” and he studied hockey highlight DVDs he got on a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame during a visit to Toronto for a tournament. But he couldn’t really watch the NHL. It wasn’t on television in Australia then. The Internet was in its infancy.

When he was 11, he played in three divisions at the same time -- U13, U15 and U18.

When he was 13, he had to make a decision.

“There just kind of wasn’t enough hockey for me back home, and I was only skating twice a week or so,” he said. “I had a Slovakian coach back home, and he pretty much said, ‘You know, if you want to try to make a career out of this, then you’ve got to get out of Australia and go somewhere.’”

The coach got Walker a tryout in Vitkovice, Czech Republic, about 10,000 miles away. Walker went for a week, tried out and made the team. He spent the next six years there developing against tougher competition and rising up the ranks.

The first year, he lived with a family that didn’t speak English. He didn’t speak Czech at the time, and Google Translate wasn’t what it is today, so he and the family would communicate with hand gestures.

“That first year was tough,” he said. “And then after that, I kind of just lived by myself in a dorm.”

Walker also played seven games for the Sydney Ice Dogs of the semi-pro Australian Ice Hockey League -- four in 2010, when he was 16, and three in 2011, when he was 17 -- and represented Australia in the lower levels of the IIHF World Championship in 2011 and 2012.

The 2011 Division II Group A tournament was at the same rink in Melbourne, now known as O’Brien Icehouse, where the Coyotes and Kings will practice this week. He had six points (four goals, two assists) in four games. Australia won gold.

Walker reached the top Czech league in 2011-12, becoming the first Australian to play pro hockey in Europe, and the Capitals invited him to development camp that summer.

Midway through the 2012-13 season, he played in North America for the first time and had 27 points (seven goals, 20 assists) in 29 games for Youngstown of the United States Hockey League. Washington invited him to development camp again and kept him for training camp on a tryout.

He played two preseason games with the Capitals, signed with Hershey of the American Hockey League and had 11 points (five goals, six assists) in 43 games in 2013-14. Washington made him the first Australian to be selected in the NHL Draft, taking him in the third round (No. 89) in 2014, his third and final year of eligibility.

That alone is an incredible story.

But Walker made it more incredible when he reached the NHL. His jersey is now on display in the Hockey Hall of Fame, where he got those hockey DVDs as a kid.

He played in one postseason game when the Capitals won the Cup in 2018 and had his first NHL hat trick when he scored three goals for the Blues in a 6-2 win against the Detroit Red Wings on Dec. 9, 2021. Last season, he played entirely in the NHL for the first time, with 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in 56 games for St. Louis.

The path from Australia to the NHL -- or simply from Australia to higher-level hockey -- isn’t necessarily easier today. Kale Costa, a 21-year-old forward from Sydney, is in his ninth season playing in the Czech Republic.

But at least it’s easier to follow the NHL in Australia now thanks to streaming services, social media and video games. And ESPN televises NHL games in the country.

“Oh, yeah,” Walker said. “Hundred percent. I mean, the Internet’s changed a lot, I think, since I was younger. You can pretty much have every game at your disposal, the highlights. You go into a hockey shop in Australia, and they’re playing some sort of hockey on the TV. I think there’s a lot more exposure to ice hockey in Australia now than there was when I was a kid.”

The NHL’s visit will bring more. Walker wants Australian hockey fans to see the NHL in person, Australian sports fans to realize the country has its own ice hockey league in the AIHL, and others to get hooked on hockey by seeing it live. After all, he did, and that was a beer league game.

“A lot of people are excited for the games,” he said. “A lot of my buddies have got tickets to go down to Melbourne and watch them, so I think the whole hockey community’s really excited for it. It’ll be good if people that didn’t really know much about hockey were going to it and getting excited about it as well.”

Walker goes home each offseason -- summer in the Northern Hemisphere, winter in the Southern. He works out by himself in a gym he built in his in-laws’ backyard and skates with the Ice Dogs at Macquarie Ice Rink in the Sydney suburbs. Now and then, he’ll get an hour of ice to himself there. It’s still a long way from the NHL, with no glass atop the boards.

One day, his journey might come full circle. He might go from the NHL back to the AIHL, serving as an inspiration to kids dreaming of becoming the next Nathan Walker.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve thought about it too much," he said, "but I think it’s definitely a possibility, I mean, whenever I do end up going home and calling it a career, I guess. I’d love to go down there and kind of help the game and see if I can grow it any more. Yeah, I wouldn’t mind lacing them up for a couple more times back home.”