When it comes to this crop of students in class as coach of the Abbotsford Heat, The Calgary Herald believes head coach and teacher Troy Ward has one in particular who stands out as ridiculously gifted but challenging to handle all in the same breath.
His name: Thomas James Brodie.
"T.J. is just a freelance painter," Ward says over the phone before the sun rises in the Fraser Valley. "He wants to do his own thing. He's a freelance guy, and he has a lot of colours to the paintbrush.
"I'd rather have a little less colours and a more simple painting."
Welcome to life with a gifted kid in the classroom. Some days are magical. Some days are maddening.
Rarely are things dull.
"The freelance painting — that's just in T.J.'s DNA," Ward says. "But sometimes to get all those colours right, it takes some time.
And Brodie — clearly the most offensively-gifted defenceman in the developmental system — is not exactly one to stay within the lines.
Dispatched to Abbotsford this season due to the NHL lockout, Brodie realizes this unscheduled stint in the minors can serve as finishing school to polish the finer points of his game.
Priority No. 1: learning to decide on the fly when to pinch and when to play it safe.
"I don't want to take that out of T.J., because who is to say T.J. isn't going to be special some day," Ward says. "Even from a year ago when he left here, I find him way more special. I find his confidence — I find his creativity and I find his guts to try things — as high right now as they ever have been in his life. And I think he's earned it . . .
"Now our staff here has to learn how to harness it."
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