Ottawa 67’s left winger Jack Beck is only 19, but he has already fully absorbed one of his sport’s central truths.
“Being a hockey player, you’re never really going to play at 100 percent,” said the Calgary Flames prospect in September at his first Young Stars Classic, coming off a slew of injuries that he hopes are now behind him.
Beck also missed out on playing his entire draft year while the OHL was shut down for the 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was kind of up in the air,” he said. “Even if you would get drafted, you kind of had to rely on your 16-year-old year.”
As an OHL rookie, Beck tallied seven goals and 19 points in 56 games with the 67’s — good enough to earn a sixth-round selection by the Flames with the 168th pick in 2021.
Now in his fourth year at the major-junior level, he’s determined to make the most of this season. And he has one goal in mind.
“I want to win the OHL,” he said. “I think we have a good team, a young team. From what I’ve seen, we work hard. We have really good pieces and obviously our coaching staff (coach David Cameron, GM James Boyd and equipment manager Chris Hamilton), they won the world juniors. So they know what it takes.
“I think we’ve got all the pieces right. We’ve just got to work on a couple things.”
So far, so good. The 67’s have started their season with four straight wins. With a goal and seven assists so far, Beck is showing off his good hands and solid hockey sense and is tied for the team lead in points.
It’s an early affirmation that the skilled 19-year-old is back on track after injuries limited him to 36 games last season.
First, there was a knee contusion at Ottawa’s 2021 training camp, which caused him to miss out on his first camp opportunity with the Flames.
Back in action for Game 1 with the 67’s, he put up 17 points in his first 12 games before suffering a lacerated and bruised kidney after taking a hard hit along the boards. It was a serious issue, which kept him out for 33 games.
“It’s kind of just a weird injury,” he said. “I wasn’t allowed to get it worked on because it’s an organ.
“For the first two months, I wasn’t really allowed to leave my bed. And if I did five-minute walks, my legs would start shaking. It felt like I’d just worked out, I’d be out of breath and everything. So it was definitely really scary.”
Beck performed well after his mid-February return, adding another 24 points in 17 games and helping the 67’s grab seventh place in the OHL’s Eastern Conference.
“I feel like I came back and I did pretty well,” he said. “While I was out, I tried to find ways to stay positive and not beat myself up, although it’s super tough. I think you’ve got to stay positive and go with the confidence you had before. If you get rid of it, it’s not going to make you the same player you were before.”
Despite playing through yet another injury during a first-round sweep at the hands of the North Bay Battalion, Beck tied for Ottawa’s team lead with four points in four games.
“I had a hairline fracture in my thumb,” he said. “I just played with a cast on all playoffs, a little splint to cover it. I couldn’t really stickhandle or shoot the puck.”
Over the summer, the native of Richmond Hill, Ont. moved west. He lived and trained in Calgary as part of a group of six Flames prospects: towering Czech winger Adam Klapka, center Cole Huckins and defensemen Rhett Rhinehart, Cole Jordan and Cameron Whynot.
“We’ve gained a pretty close bond,” he said.
Without having gone through the experience of an in-person draft, the Young Stars tournament was Beck’s first opportunity to don the Flames jersey, which he called “the best feeling in the world.”
The highlight of his tournament was this seeing-eye goal against the Edmonton Oilers.
“In the Battle of Alberta, it doesn’t matter if it’s just prospects or if it’s the real deal,” he said. “You’re always going to want to beat that other team.”
Healthy at last and back on track in Ottawa, Beck is ready to make this season count.
“Training under the Flames guys all summer, working out with them and skating with NHL guys and all the prospects — I think this is the most confident and the best I’ve felt, on and off the ice,” he said. “I’m really happy. Really excited.”
With coach Dave Cameron at the helm for a second season, the 67’s are back in action this weekend. They visit the Oshawa Generals on Friday, then host the Guelph Storm on Sunday.
