article on Devins to Nanaimo

[www.canada.com]

There will be different sounding chatter inside the Nanaimo Clippers dressing room next season with the addition of brothers Mike and Joe Devin.

The Devins are prized recruits from Boston and were introduced to the Nanaimo media on Thursday by Clippers GM and coach Bill Bestwick.

They come to Nanaimo with scholarships in waiting at Cornell University and wicked awesome Boston accents that could easily earn them supporting roles in any sequel to Good Will Hunting.

Mike, a defenceman, doesn't hear the accent and neither does his forward Joe.

"What accent?" Mike said.

"I don't think we have an accent," Joe offered.

But their Boston brogue, thicker than New England clam chowder, is so prominent that it actually diverts your attention from another unique characteristic about the two -- they're identical twins. Big six-foot-two, 210-pound, 18-year-old identical twins with vice-like handshakes.

Nanaimo is a continent away from Boston and the B.C. Hockey League is a world away from the high school league they played in while attending Catholic Memorial in Boston.

They were lured to Nanaimo by two things: the Clippers reputation for preparing players for the next level; and an opportunity to play hockey in Canada.

"We love playing with and against Canadian players," said Joe. "We play summer hockey against Canadian teams and every year teams will come to Boston and Canadian players will stay with us."

"We love Canadians," said Mike. "They're great people."

They had an opportunity to play junior hockey in the United States, but Mike says they ruled that out because "we were risking being put on different teams."

The Devins, instead, took advantage of the pipeline that exists between Cornell and Nanaimo. Over the years, the Clippers have sent Ray Sawada, Byron Bitz, Tyler Mugford, Greg Hornby, Shane Hynes and Ryan O'Byrne to the Big Red. While Cornell, in turn, directed Colin Greening to Nanaimo last year to play his final year of junior before starting university.

Cornell assistant coach Scott Garrow felt the Devins would benefit from a little seasoning in the Harbour City before joining the Big Red.

Bestwick says the Clippers will benefit from the brothers' physical gifts.

"They are hard-nosed, tough hockey players who loved to compete," said the Clippers coach.

The Devins grew up in the hockey-mad Boston suburb of Scituate. The community, located 30 minutes south of downtown Boston, also produced former Bruin Ted Donato and ex-Pittsburgh Penguin Billy Tibbetts.

Joe Devin, who NHL Central Scouting ranks 83rd by among North American skaters for the upcoming amateur draft, and Mike, ranked 154, are the next great NHL hopes from Scituate.

One Boston-area NHL scout, Chris McCarthy of the Edmonton Oilers, says the Nanaimo move will be highly beneficial to the twins.

"The defenceman (Mike) is very physical and the forward (Joe) uses his body well to protect the puck. They have the basics but they need to fine tune their skills a little bit," McCarthy said. "A year in a highly-competitive league like the B.C. Hockey League with some great coaching will do them wonders."

Bestwick is hoping his new wonder twins can spark a return to the kind of "lunchbucket hockey" that made the Clippers successful in the past.

"I think we got away from that last year," said Bestwick.

pfibiger
They come to Nanaimo with scholarships in waiting at Cornell University

To head off a discussion we've had about 30 times, this seems like a good time to post this link to the FAQ:

[www.elynah.com]

"They are hard-nosed, tough hockey players who loved to compete," said the Clippers coach.

...

"The defenceman (Mike) is very physical and the forward (Joe) uses his body well to protect the puck.

(salivates)

What's the over/under on the number of games until somebody complains about our "identical goons"?

BCHL Message board thread: [www.network54.com]

[Q]"We love Canadians," said Mike. "They're great people." [/Q]

Then they ought to love playing at Cornell.

Here's another, some of the same stuff but a little more on how they were recruited, who else is headed to Nanaimo next year (it seems like every new Nanaimo recruit is at least a potential Cornell recruit). Bestwick names both Tyler Mugford and Colin Greening as players in the mold they want to return to, a mold that the Devins fit:

[www.nanaimobulletin.com]

The Nanaimo Clippers will double their pleasure next season.

The B.C. Hockey League club introduced its two newest recruits Thursday – twins Joe and Mike Devin from Massachusetts.

Joe, a forward, and Mike, a defenceman, both stand 6-foot-2 and weigh over 200 pounds. They have both secured scholarships to play for the Cornell Big Red in 2007/08, and had originally expected to play in the U.S. Hockey League in the meantime. The USHL wasn’t an appealing prospect for the Devins, however, as the league’s draft would have likely put them on separate teams.

So, when the Cornell coaching staff suggested the BCHL, specifically Nanaimo, it was an easy sell.

“We’d never heard of this place, we couldn’t even pronounce it, but we looked into it and we love it,” said Joe. “It’s where we really want to be.”

And of course, they get to remain teammates, which they have been since they first had their skates laced up for them as three-year-olds.
Growing up in a small fishing village called Scituate just south of Boston, the two played all their minor hockey together and were even linemates up until peewee.

“Then I moved to ‘D’ because I couldn’t score,” joked Mike.

Now, playing different positions, the Devins still share a chemistry that probably only twins could understand.

“We love playing with each other…” said Mike. “We love being on the ice together.”

The twins played their high school hockey with Catholic Memorial, where they were part of a powerhouse that won three state championships and was ranked No. 1 in the nation this season before being upset in the playoffs.

Clippers coach Bill Bestwick didn’t get a chance to see the Devins play, which is unusual in the recruiting process, but said they came very highly recommended. He suggested that after a brief adjustment period the twins will be as good as any Clipper.

“They play their size; they’re competitive,” Bestwick said. “They play a little bit of a nasty side and they’re both very good skaters.”

Joe described Mike as a rugged stay-at-home defenceman who is aggressive and familiar with the penalty box. Mike called Joe an excellent forechecker and a punishing power forward who gets the puck – and himself – to the front of the net.

Though the twins will be playing junior A for just the one season, they stressed that Nanaimo means much more to them than just a stepping stone to the NCAA.
“We’re not looking at it like that,” said Joe. “We’re thinking about playing for this team and this city and…”

Mike completed his brother’s sentence: “…We want to come here and win. We want to contribute to the team and we want to win a championship, just like every other kid on the team does.”

Bestwick said the Devins are just the type of players Nanaimo needs to realize its playoff potential.

“We felt that we didn’t have enough Colin Greenings, Michael Olsons, Brandan Kushniruks, Tyler Mugfords in our uniform last year,” said the coach. “As we were doing our own personal assessment of our shortcomings, those names and that style kept coming back to us … That is Clipper hockey and from what we know, these guys (the Devins) are Clippers.”

ICE CHIPS … Bestwick also met with other recruits during a recent trip east. Other new Clippers in 2006/07 will be forward David Chubb, who played at Upper Canada College with Greening, defenceman Justin Favreau from Tisdale, Sask. and defenceman Jeremy Houde and forward Russell Goodman, both former teammates of Cody Danberg on the Saskatoon Contacts.

I love the description of Scituate as a "small fishing village"

Ah! No line breaks! My eyes!!!!

Trotsky
Ah! No line breaks! My eyes!!!!

Well, line breaks, just not paragraph breaks.

sorry about that, it looks a little better now

Geez, I hope one of these chowdaheads doesn't end up getting the GWG against BU in the future.

They certainly sound like prototypical Big Red players.