With a junior A scoring championship — as a defenceman, no less — and four years at Acadia University, where he was three times a first-team Atlantic conference all-star, Owens carved out quite a little niche on the ice with scant fanfare back home.
Put it this way: his name — perhaps unfairly — rarely came up when discussing St. John’s athlete of the year honours.
Despite the achievements, his career hasn’t come without a few bumps along the way.
As a midget-aged player, Owens was cut twice by the St. John’s Maple Leafs, then the only AAA midget operation in town. His major junior career lasted exactly one game with the P.E.I. Rocket in 2006.
Which makes his tryout offer with the St. John’s IceCaps just a little bit sweeter.
After four years of university hockey, Owens is in the IceCaps’ camp as a free agent invite, a 25-year-old defenceman with superior offensive skills, a pretty good skater, but a little on the smallish side compared to professional hockey defencemen.
Yet in St. John’s, where at least two other rookies — Ralfs Freibergs and Zach Bell — and third-year pro Mike Cornell are vying for a spot on the IceCaps’ defence, Owens may as well be a grizzled veteran.
Many in the IceCaps’ dressing room this week were only 20 or 21 years old.
Owens played this past weekend for the IceCaps in their three-game exhibition series with the Hamilton Bulldogs: the Mary’s Cup. He knows all too well this will be his one and only shot at impressing the St. John’s coaching staff, although Keith MacCambridge said he likes the way Owens skates and moves the puck, and was particularly keen on the player’s hockey sense.
Still, the chances of the kid from east end St. John’s playing with the hometown team — or at least starting the season with the IceCaps — are slim. Rather, he might well be playing for a spot on the Ontario Reign, the California-based ECHL team with which the Winnipeg Jets have a relationship.
And while it’s another rung down the pro hockey ladder, it’s not like it’s the Polish second division.
Michael Hutchinson started in Ontario last year, and this season will be an NHL backup. Zach O’Brien, another St. John’s native, started the 2013-14 season in Ontario, signed with Manchester and finished the season with 29 points in 49 games for the American league’s Monarchs. This after attending the IceCaps’ training camp.
“I wouldn’t say I’m looking towards the ECHL, but I know it’s a possibility,” Owens said. “If it comes to that, yeah, I’ll be ready. Obviously, I would rather not. I’d rather be here.”
No doubt, if you’d asked Owens 10 years ago if he’d take a job anywhere in pro hockey, he’d have answered: “Where do I sign?”
Cut by the midget Leafs, he played for two seasons with the Conception Bay North-based Tri-Pen entry in the Newfoundland AAA midget league, humping over the highway every week for games and practices.
Overlooked or unwanted — take your pick — in major junior hockey, Owens played four years in the Maritime junior A league in Miramichi, N.B.
He won a scoring title from the blueline — 92 points in 49 games, impressive no matter which way you look at it — and once registered 10 points in a single game.
His junior days behind him, Owens headed for Acadia where a highlight, no doubt, came about last Christmas when he along with fellow Newfoundlanders Alex Wall , Josh Day and Robert Slaney - as well as Axemen teammates Liam Heelis and Mike Cazzola - helped Canada win a gold medal at the 2013 World University Games in Italy.
Oh, there was one other noteworthy moment, and it happened last spring as he was driving home from Nova Scotia following graduation. Owens was near Whitbourne when the phone rang. It was his coach, Darren Burns.
“Darren had been talking to Zinger (Winnipeg assistant GM, and IceCaps GM Craig Heisinger), and he told me to give him a call.”
Owens and the hockey executive met at a Tim Hortons in downtown St. John’s — the IceCaps were in the midst of their Calder Cup run, playing the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the third round — where an offer to try out for the IceCaps was tabled.
“I was happy, of course ... kind of relieved,” he recalls. “Probably not so much a relief, but for me, I never really had much of an opportunity before. Unlike a lot of guys, who go to pro camps when they’re 18, 19 or 20, I never got that chance, so getting this was kind of nice.
“I’d just graduated so getting this offer so soon was great, as opposed to sitting by the phone waiting for a call.”
While it’s still a stretch to suggest the Canadian college ranks are a breeding group for future pros, fact is more NHL teams are paying a bit more attention to the CIS, hoping to uncover another Joel Ward, the former UPEI Panther who netted 24 goals for the Washington Capitals last season.
The IceCaps have dipped into the CIS pool. Hunter Tremblay, whose pro career was derailed by a concussion, spent a year in St. John’s after toiling for four seasons at the University of New Brunswick. And Brandon MacLean, like Owens, is currently vying for a berth on the IceCaps. MacLean played four years at Carleton.
“The AUS is a battle, a real good, tough league,” Owens said. “Ideally, I suppose, I would rather it have been a little smoother, maybe played major junior and gotten drafted or whatever.
“But I don’t have any regrets. I have a degree (in business) and I had four great years at Acadia. I’ll take hockey as far as I can, but for now things are going day by day. I don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow, and I’m not thinking about it too much.
“I’d like to have a successful career in hockey, but if not, I’ll move on.”
