Liam Kirk sat and answered questions in front of the bright blue backdrop at Harborcenter, as surprised as anyone to be there. The 18-year-old had just finished his fitness testing at the NHL Scouting Combine, concluding a week that once seemed like a pipe dream for a native of Rotherham, England.
Sure, Kirk always thought he couldplay in the NHL. But opportunity is rare for those who come up through the ranks in England, too rare to consider a real possibility. Only once has a player been trained in the U.K. and drafted into the NHL, when Tony Hand was selected by Edmonton with the last pick in 1986.
Draft notebook: Kirk can make history for U.K. hockey
But even Hand, an icon of U.K. hockey, never played a game for Edmonton. It was only natural, then, for Kirk to consider himself a longshot for the NHL, a belief that was evident when the question was posed to him at the combine: When did you begin to consider the league a possibility?
"Never, really, to be honest with you," Kirk said. "I always believed I could play in the NHL, but as a kid from Britain you don't expect this. It's been nice to be out here and show what I can do."
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If the dream never truly seemed realistic, it's feasibility can be traced back to last October. That's when scouts began showing up to Kirk's games with the Sheffield Steelers of the Elite Ice Hockey League, where Kirk was a 17-year-old playing amongst men, some of whom were veterans of the AHL.
Kirk was left off NHL Central Scouting's preseason watch list, and he was absent from the service's midterms rankings in January. It was around that time, coincidentally, that Kirk received the phone call informing him of his invite to the combine.
Kirk joined Great Britain's men's team for IIHF World Championship in Hungary shortly after, where the Brits upset their way through the tournament's second tier and earned a promotion to play alongside hockey superpowers like Canada, Russia, Sweden and the U.S. at next year's tournament in Slovakia.
By the end of his EPIHL season, Kirk had amassed 16 points in 52 games and was the 65th-ranked international skater on Central Scouting's final list. He adjusted to the speed and physicality of the league as the season progressed.
Given the right opportunity, Hand likes Kirk's odds to take the next step. When Hand was drafted to the Oilers with the 252nd pick in 1986, he walked into the training camp of the best hockey team in the world, a Gretzky-led squad with two Stanley Cups already on its mantle.
Hand held his own in two training camps - he was one of the Oilers' final cuts in 1987 - but the gap between the North American game and his own development in Great Britain proved too much to overcome.
"It was like night and day," Hand said. "I wasn't ready to come across to North America. I think I had the desire to do well and I dreamed about doing well, but physically and mentally, you're not ready."
At that time, Hand had no exposure to the North American game. In the age of the internet, Kirk and other players his age can watch the NHL whenever they want (Kirk watches highlights on his phone during breakfast).
Hand believes that familiarity, along with the progress of Britain's development program, will serve Kirk well in North America. Hand coached Kirk on Great Britain's Under-18 team and said the young forward is further along skill-wise than he was during his run at the NHL.
"I think this is where Liam should do well," said Hand, now the head of development for Great Britain's national team. "When I was younger, I had it in my brain to do well and I had the desire to do well, but obviously the skill development of playing in a country where we didn't develop players to go play in the NHL - we weren't like Russia or Sweden or Finland where it was our job to go and develop players."
Kirk spoke with 10 teams the combine, Buffalo included. He plans to transition to junior hockey in North America next season; the question of where will be answered during the CHL's Import Draft this summer.
He still has a long way to go before his NHL dream becomes a reality, and he knows it. Asked if he felt like a pioneer for U.K. hockey, Kirk answered modestly.
"Not really," he said. "I've always believed I could do it. It would be great if I'm not the only one who does it."
