Darrell Hay is our new signing, Hailing from Kamloops, British Columbia, the 34 year old Canadian joins us from the Tohoku Free Blades in the Asian League.
Funnily enough, it isn't the first time we’ve heard of the Free Blades - our very own Steve Munn also played there. Whilst in the Asian League, Hay stacked 30 points and a plus/minus of 23, in 42 games. Those stats don’t echo around his career however - don’t forget the Asian League is still developing, just like ourselves here in the Elite League.
Hay was drafted in 1999 by the Vancouver Canucks (271st), starting his so far, 19 year career. His career worst was his second year, the 97-98 season in which he had a plus/minus of -20. On average though, Hay has a plus/minus of 1 spanning over his 19 year career (Yes I attempted maths). This 1 doesn’t sound like much, but to think it spans over 19 years, it’s quite impressive.
After listening to the interview from Hay with Peter Spencer, he sounds like a guy who can bring us leadership and play a smart game. He doesn’t sound like someone who will over commit, even if he does enjoy going forward and getting the puck into the offensive zone. He seems like a calm and steady individual who can also play the special teams. He plays the power-play, which is something a lot of us have said that Sheffield need to work at.
G also spoke his praise on sheffieldsteelersihc.co.uk where he states:
“He ticks all the boxes for me. He will be key on the power-play and I think one of the better D men in the Elite League next year.”You can also bet that Hay has done his research on us too. He has played with a few familiar names to our league in his time. In 06-07 he played with both Colin Shields and Matt Nickerson at the Idaho Steelheads, in 08-09 he played alongside Matt Stephenson - again in Idaho. Most familiarly however, in 11-12 he played with his good friend Gord Baldwin, at Mlada Boleslav BK in the Czech League.
Gord played a huge part in Hay signing for us, as they trust each other with a lot of things, so Gord obviously gave the right answers to Darrell in the conversations they must have had about Sheffield.
As a background, that’s pretty much all I have on Darrell Hay, but one thing is for sure, I am happy he is wearing orange next season. The type of player that will give his all, his work ethic shone through to me throughout reading about him. So welcome Darrell, I hope you enjoy Sheffield.
What are your feelings about the new signing of Darrell Hay? Don’t forget to tell us on Twitter @FrozenSteelBlog and @RatedRDG, you can also visit the Frozen Steel Forum to talk about the signing too at http://frozensteel.proboards.com/.
Once more, thank you for reading!
Ryan Gleeson
@RatedRDG
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