WORCESTER—With a last name like his, could Railers forward Ashton Calder have grown up to be anything but a pro hockey player?
The sport has a cup named after Lord Stanley and another named after Pat Kelly. It has two pieces of silver named Calder, though. The American Hockey League champion gets the Calder Cup and the National Hockey League Rookie of the Year wins the Calder Trophy.
What a great story. A descendant of hockey legend Frank Calder, man whose last name is engraved on two pieces of hardware, is a rookie with the Worcester Railers.
A great story, indeed. If only it were true.
“I don’t have any family who played hockey, no Calder that I know of, none at all,” is how Ashton Calder described his family tree.
For one thing, Calder’s family is from the United States. He grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. but Canada is not far away. An adventurous person who enjoys hypothermia could swim across the St. Mary’s River into Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.
“It’s not a very big river,” Calder said. “You can see across to the other side.”
In the matter of cups, Calder may be a rookie but he already has one. After he finished his college career at Penn State last year he was signed by the Florida Everblades. They went on to win the ECHL Kelly Cup and Calder was a big part of that championship run.
His potential was not a secret. Calder had been in contact with a few AHL teams, one of them being the Charlotte Checkers. The Everblades are the Checkers’ ECHL affiliate and Calder got an offer he could not refuse.
“Florida was looking to stack up for the playoff run,” he said, “and were on the bubble at the time about whether they’d get in or not. They were playing for a playoff spot and the weather is warm.
“I’d been cold all the way through college, and you can’t really complain if you’re making a little money and playing in Florida.”
Having been raised on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Calder knows all about cold. He stayed home and went to Lake Superior State — just saying that name drops the temperature in a room by 10 degrees — then transferred to North Dakota for a season.
UND hockey is the equivalent of major league sports in North Dakota, so there is something to be said for it.
“It is known as the mecca of college hockey,” Calder said, “but it’s cold. It’s colder than back home. It’s the coldest place in the United States other than Alaska. It’s cold.”
Calder has a degree in finance and investments and got his MBA at Penn State. Eventually, he’d like to combine his practical knowledge of sports with the money part of the business. He could be a financial advisor to athletes or become an agent.
That could be a path into the executive side of pro hockey, at least down the road.
The playing side of the game has turned into a good road so far for Calder. He jumped right from college hockey into a playoff race and won a championship. After signing a two-way deal with the Islanders, he joined the Railers just before their season started and has been one of their best players.
Heading into Worcester’s weekend series against Norfolk, Calder was ninth in ECHL rookie scoring at 8-7-15, the eight goals being tied for fourth-best among rookies. Six of his eight goals have either tied the score or put the Railers ahead and they are 6-0-2 for 14 out of a possible 16 points when Calder scores.
It’s not that the reasons for his early success are simple, but they are pretty traditional.
“Obviously,” he said, “it helps when you have good players making good plays around you and that’s helped me. It’s not a one-man game.”
Calder also seems to have that goal-scorer instinct —is it genetic, or can it be coached — that has him putting the puck in just the right place at just the right time.
“First off,” he said, “you’ve gotta hit the net and that can be the hardest thing. It’s a mixture. You try to pick your spots, but it’s also timing. If you take too long the goalie can get set. You have to feel it out while it’s happening, but it happens quickly.”
Now, about that last name.
There has been at least one Stanley engraved on the Stanley Cup: defenseman Allan Stanley. He won four Stanley Cups with the Maple Leafs in the 1960s. However, according to the AHL’s walking encyclopedia, vice president of communications Jason Chaimovitch, no one named Calder has ever played on a Calder Cup winner.
Eventually, the Railers’ Calder seems bound for Bridgeport, so there’s something to shoot for, if not at.
As for the Kelly Cup, which Calder has already sipped from, there are just too many Kellys in the pro game to do the research. That includes this writer’s personal favorite, Battleship Bob Kelly, whose career pre-dates the ECHL.
Ashton Calder already has one cup on his resume. The way he has played so far this season, he is liable to get a shot at another. The Railers just hope that shot comes all in good time.
Bill Ballou covered the Red Sox for the Worcester Telegram from 1997 through 2018. He has covered pro hockey in Worcester since 1994 and currently does a weekly column for the Worcester Red Sox. Ballou can be reached at vetgoalie@aol.com
