Dan Falloon
Mitch Cain was downright dastardly to opponents of the Des Moines Buccaneers in 2009-10.
The former SIJHL Defensive Player of the Year kept up his swashbuckling ways with the Buccaneers, finishing tied for first on the team with a -2 in the plus/minus category.
Cain, 18, acknowledged there was an adjustment period early on, but found his game as the season progressed.
“Initially, it took me some time to get used to the speed, but gradually I began to feel more comfortable out there,” he explained.
“I felt that I could keep playing strong defensive hockey, but also contribute offensively.”
Cain admitted his confidence took a while to develop, but when it did, he figured out how to apply his strengths in the USHL—the top tier of American junior hockey.
“I was a little taken back by the skill and speed of some of the guys down there, but eventually I began to feel more comfortable and things slowed down a bit,” he remarked.
“You realize what you need to do out there and you start to feel, ‘Now I belong in that league,’ and I can play with the best of them out there.”
Buccaneer coach Mike Guentzel noted Cain showed flashes of brilliance this past season, and expects him to be even more of a force in the coming one.
“Mitch is a strong kid and he works hard off the ice,” Guentzel said. “I’m assuming that if he has that keen work ethic in the next three and four months, that he’ll come back a bigger, better, and stronger player.
“I think Mitch will go home and work on his hand skills, his shooting skills, just his offensive confidence,” Guentzel added. “He’s big enough, strong enough, skates well enough, has the physical size.
“I think now he just needs to take that step into an offensive player, as most guys do.”
Overall, Cain finished with nine goals and 12 assists in 58 games. And his tallies were timely as three of them stood up to be game-winners, second only to leading goal-scorer Connor Brickley’s four.
“You always want to be out there when the games really matter, so when you get your chance, you really want to prove yourself and know that you can be counted on,” Cain stressed.
He said the highlight of his season was his final game-winner, which came back on March 27 against Chicago during the Buccaneers’ final home game of the campaign.
He roofed a shot with 2:35 left in the third period, and it stood up in a 4-3 win.
“We had probably close to 4,000 fans there, and it was parents’ weekend so I had my whole family down there, so that was nice,” Cain enthused.
“We were up 3-2, and I got the puck in the slot and I put it in the top corner,” he recalled.
“It was the loudest that I’ve ever heard those fans, and just to do that in front of my parents was something special.”
That goal also caught Guentzel’s eye, citing it as evidence of Cain’s improvement over the season.
“He came down the slot and ripped one in, and it was really a hard shot,” he remembered.
“That’s an area that he kept working on.”
Guentzel, who took over the team in September, hopes goals like that will be more common for Cain in the coming season.
“If you want to be a top two-to-three-line guy when you go to a college program, you have to score well at our level,” he stressed.
“Hopefully, getting the nine [that] he did this year will translate into 20, 25 next year.”
Cain knew he had to be a jack-of-all-trades this past season in order to make an impression on the Buccaneers’ coaching staff, rounding out his game with some offensive flair.
“I knew that I had to keep playing my certain [defensive] role. I wasn’t going to change my style of play, but I knew that if I wanted to have a prominent role on the team that I had to put points up, too,” he acknowledged.
“Although [I was] playing defensively and not getting scored on, I knew that I had to keep scoring goals, too.”
The Buccaneers struggled for much of the season, though, finishing sixth in the USHL’s West Division at 20-34-6—18 points out of the playoffs.
However, 17 of the 22 players on the roster were rookies, and Cain thinks the squad will be better prepared heading into the 2010-11 season.
“We had a fairly young team, and we had a bit of a problem with injuries at the start of the year, and that was hurting us for a bit,” he noted.
“It was frustrating to know, at the end of the year, we knew that [the] playoffs was a bit out of reach for us, but every night, you’ve just got to go out there and work as hard as you can, and just keep trying to get better every game and prepare yourself for next season,” he reasoned.
Guentzel felt the season was a learning experience for his troops, and hopes the newfound knowledge will help his team challenge next time.
“We will have a few more veterans next year, although we will still have a young flavour of our team,” he said.
“We made some improvements as a team this year,” he added. “Some pieces were put in place, and the groundwork was laid that if we draft well and have a good tryout camp to have a stronger team next year.”
Cain said he enjoys playing in Des Moines, not exactly known as a hockey hotbed after struggling to sustain AHL franchises in recent years.
“Des Moines was a really great city to play in,” he lauded. “Personally, I think they have some of the greatest fans in the league.
“When you get crowds like that, it makes it even more exciting to play at the Buccaneer Arena.
“With 4,000 fans a night, you can’t even hear yourself think out there. It’s something else, really,” he enthused.
Cain’s hockey future appears mapped out for the next several years as he’s planning to return to Des Moines for another season, then has committed to Bemidji State University for 2011.
“I’ll be back in Des Moines next year, at least that’s the plan,” he noted. “I’ll be there for another year.
“The plan right now is to go to Bemidji the year after.
“I’m going to take this next year to really prepare myself, and I know that next year will be my most important year to get myself ready for BSU and be playing in the WCHA,” Cain stressed.
Fort Frances product Bob Peters was the coach at Bemidji State for 35 years but it was another Ontario connection, Nipigon native and Beavers’ assistant Ted Belisle, that convinced Cain to sign on.
“They first saw me when I was trying out for the Ontario under-17 team,” he recalled.
“We just kept in contact over the years and he watched me progress, and he thinks that I’ll be able to play that style of hockey in 2011.”
