When They Were Young(er): Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, and Tyler Brown

[rsadelle]

I was doing research one day, and ended up in a delightful sinkhole of draft-era Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin articles, and then I distracted myself looking for things about the time Tyler Seguin and Tyler Brown played together, and then I had so many feelings I had to stop and leave the house. This post is so that you, too, can share in that feelings bomb.

Part 1: Articles Worth Reading

From sons to stars
I don't even know how to describe this article. It includes stories about how they got their names, their relationships to their families as measured by hockey, how each set of parents met, and Tyler's dad's advice to him on avoiding distractions. It's amazing all the way around. A few select quotes:Off the ice, Seguin and Hall are cordial, but not quite close friends. And despite the competitive fire that's been no doubt fueled by playing for two teams that are geographically close - the Plymouth Whalers and Windsor Spitfires - the two teenagers haven't displayed the type of animosity that would help the NHL media mob sell papers, start a battle royale over the blogosphere and pump up television ratings. But the whole "Taylor vs. Tyler" media madness might never have taken root, had their fathers had a little more say in naming their sons after they were first born.
Then, there was the time Kim failed to secure Tyler's hockey pants only to have them fall down by game's end, exposing to a bemused crowd her son's favourite pair of Batman underwear.

"They stayed up the whole game and then just as he was skating off the ice I realized, 'Ahhhhhhh! Oh, my goodness his pants are falling off!' "
In fact, he loved hockey and skating so much that no other toy outside of his favourite mini-hockey stick could hold his attention. Jackie says she tried to tempt him with other toys, but Tyler wouldn't budge.

"I would buy him Tonka trucks so he could play in the sand, but all he wanted was a mini-stick, that's it," says Jackie. "I always used to say, 'This kid's not normal.' That's all he would do all day is shoot with the mini-stick."

By the age of three, Tyler had developed a passion for wearing inline roller skates and was constantly whipping around the house or driveway.

Seguin family humble about NHL dream
This is an article about Tyler's parents basically telling him not to count his chickens before they hatch, and also has some good background on his mom.Said Tyler: "I got my hands from my mom. My dad was a goon. My mom was a finesse player. . . . They (both) keep me humble."

Jackie Seguin, a playmaking centre for the Brampton Canadettes Girls Hockey Association until she was a teenager, seconded her only son's assessment of his genetic inheritance (the Seguins also have two hockey-playing daughters, Candace, 15, and Cassidy, 11).

Tyler Seguin's game is far different than dad's
The Oilers had the number one pick, so this is an article from their site about how Tyler's style is not the same as his dad's.But before he was embarrassing junior goalies, he was doing the same thing to Paul and his friends.

"Over Christmas-time we rent the ice and all the boys come out and play," Paul said. "Tyler came out when he was 12 or 13 and he could skate like the wind. Tyler was a lot smaller, he didn't grow until he was 14 or 15, but regardless, he always played up with older kids and could always skate, even when he was that young. The guys' claim to fame was they played NCAA and they were great players, and then this 12-year-old comes out on the ice and he can skate around you."

Perseverence Nets NHL Contract for Tyler Brown
This is an article from the Whalers about Brown signing his contract."I had a couple teams looking at me at the start of the season, but I guess they just didn't follow through," noted Brown, hosted by a Canton billet family the past four years. "But during the season I've been playing for the points and stuff and Philly came out of nowhere and the deal I couldn't pass up.

"So I took it and I couldn't be any happier."

The fourth-year Whaler, who just turned 21, smiled when asked what he thought about joining the tradition-rich Flyers.

Part 2: Video Review

First up, a TSN feature on Seguin from when he was still in the OHL. The commentators gush about him as a playmaker, and then one of his teammates talks about telling him that he has to catch up to Taylor Hall:

Click to view

That sent me looking for Whalers highlights, and there are two sets of them that include tiny Tylers goal celebrations. They're not embeddable, but they're both games against the Saginaw Spirit, one from December 2009 and one from March 2010 Note: there were two Tyler Browns on the Whalers for three years; the one we're interested in is Tyler G. Brown.

There are also a couple of intermission interviews with Tyler Brown on the Whalers site, again not embeddable, one from October 2010 and one from November 2010.

Bonus Photo

While googling Tyler Brown's time with the Whalers, I ended up on a Whalers MySpace (this is about where I decided it was time to stop and leave the house), which brings us this gem from the 2007-2008 season:



You're welcome and/or I'm sorry.