Second Generation

Passing the puck... to a new generation

STORY AND PHOTOS BY BRITTON LEDINGHAM

Darcy Campbell’s love of hockey has him at the rink more than ever. Airdrie’s first hockey player to hit the ice in an NHL arena finished his globe-trotting pro career in 2014. He’s since settled in Airdrie with his wife, Kristina, and two kids, Gavyn, 8, and Rylum, 7.

Now 35 years old, Campbell’s at the rink as an assistant coach for his sons whenever he can.

“I could live at the rink if I had a bed there,” he says while sitting on a bench at Explosive Edge, his kids nearby in a training session. “This is like a second home to us.”

Raised in Airdrie, Campbell played his minor hockey years here before moving to Strathmore for AAA play with the Bisons in 2000-2002.

His Junior A seasons were played with the Canmore Eagles and the Olds Grizzlys. Campbell accepted a scholarship to Fairbanks, Alaska, for three years and signed with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2007, playing one game with the NHL team.

He spent the next seven seasons with the Syracuse Crunch (AHL), Lake Erie Monsters (AHL), teams in Finland and the Czech Republic, back to the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees (Texas, CHL), the Chicago Express (ECHL), and wrapped up his pro career in Germany and Italy in 2012-2014.

Gavyn was born in Calgary right before the family moved to Chicago; they then moved to Germany where Rylum was born, and spent the next year in Italy. Campbell met Kristina in high school and they were married in 2009. “Everywhere we went to play hockey, she was there,” says Campbell, who retired from professional play at 30 and moved back to Airdrie. “I can’t really picture myself living somewhere else.”

He’s pleased with the experiences he’s had, and how they aided him in achieving his career of four years with the Calgary Police Service (CPS).

“They really look for life experience.... Without hockey I wouldn’t have even gotten this job,” says Campbell, a constable with CPS.

He and his wife didn’t lace up skates on their boys at three or four years old for the sake of tradition.

“You surround your kids with good people, and for me, good people come from the hockey community,” says Campbell.

They have the upstairs bonus room of their home devoted to being the “hockey spot” where the boys can “work on their shooting or snipe goals on one another.”

“They love it,” says Campbell with a smile, noting they don’t live at the arena; the family enjoys other sports and recreation during the hockey off season.

He still gets on the ice himself, playing weekly games in the Airdrie Recreational Hockey League’s A division with the Beavers, and with CPS teams.

“It’s good fun, I enjoy it still,” says Campbell. “We’re in a good place now with our family and I don’t know if there’s a whole lot I would change at this point.”