Captain Connor
Connor Clark has filled his role as captain of the Pelham Panthers to a tee.
Panthers coach Zac Rinaldo named Clark team captain before training camp last summer and has been thrilled with the way the hard working forward has handled the job.
“The captain is an extension of the coach so I thought Connor would be the best player and the best person to be that extension of me and he’s been doing a great job with it,” Rinaldo said. “Connor has done that exact thing from the start of summer development program all the way into training camp and the season and he’s still doing it on an everyday basis.”
Rinaldo feels it is vital for a captain to be genuine.
“I like my captains to be themselves all day, every day,” Rinaldo said. “They need to lead by example —they don’t need to be the most vocal person — but I think leading by example means the most and to have a true sense of who they are every day and come to work every day willing to better themselves, better their teammates.”
Clark, an 18-year-old native of Waterdown, had never worn the C at any level.
“It was a new experience and new opportunity for me,” Clark said. “I was ready to take it on. I’m learning along the way with Zac’s leadership, along with Emelie (general manager Emelie Ficht). It’s been a good learning experience. I feel like you can’t change the person you are. You have to be yourself.”
“I’m honoured to be captain of this organization.”
Clark, who played 22 games for the Panthers last season, pointed to former Pelham captain Jason Gee as a mentor.
“Jason was our captain and he taught me a lot. Every time we were feeling down he lifted us up and that was huge for us and motivated us to keep going,” Clark said.
Clark has put up solid numbers offensively with 12 goals and 24 points so far this season despite being mired in a five-game scoreless streak.
“It’s obviously not going to go your way every game and every week but you just have to keep working hard and keep doing what you’re doing and the points and stuff that goes along with it will come,” Clark said. “You can’t really focus on the points, just focus on helping your team win.”
Rinaldo feels it is essential to trust the process when things go wrong.
“He knows and I know he’s kind of struggling with the puck now but that’s something that everyone is going to go though in their career,” Rinaldo said. “How we work through it is the difference maker in how he’s going come out of it.”
Rinaldo loves Clark’s commitment to excellence.
“He plays a 200-foot game, great in the D zone, great in the O zone,” he said. “At the beginning of the year he was a dog on a bone, he was scoring, he was making plays. He’s on the penalty kill, on the power play.
“He’s a total player. I can trust him on the first line, on the fourth line. I would even trust him putting him in the net. That’s how much I trust him.”
The Panthers, who have lost four straight to drop to 13-27-1-1, are in Hamilton Thursday, in St. Catharines Friday and home to Fort Erie Sunday 2:45 p.m. and Hamilton Monday (Family Day) at 1:45 p.m.
Rinaldo has a full squad to work with heading down the stretch.
“We had an injury bug before Christmas. We had people sick, we had people injured. I’d rather take care of that early in the season,” Rinaldo said. “I have to manage their workloads right now. I don’t want them tired. We practise very hard, we work out almost every day and we do a lot of extra conditioning so my job is to manage their work loads so they’re are physically ready to go every night.”
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