WORCESTER—It is the simplest of advice, something your parents told you, your teachers told you, your tutors told you and your coaches told you.
Look in the mirror.
One day, Railers forward Lincoln Hatten was doing just that and discovered something profound about himself.
His eyes are different colors.
“I was just looking at myself in the mirror,” Hatten recalled, “and realized — hey, something’s not right here. One is green, one is brown. It’s my little fun fact about me, and I don’t think I’ve met anyone else with the same trait.”
That is not surprising. Of the about 330 million people in the United States, only some 200,000 have that particular trait. Its medical term is Heterochromia, and it does not affect how his eyes function.
“‘I’ve got pilot eyes,” Hatten said. “My vision is 20-20, no glasses or contacts.”
Think that’s unique? There is more. Out of the thousands of people who have played professional hockey at various levels, only three are natives of Mississippi. Hatten is one of them. He was born in Hattiesburg on March 1, 2000 and spent six months there before the family moved to Texas.
Mathieu Olivier of the Columbus Blue Jackets was born in Biloxi and was there for three months. Marvin Powell of Jackson spent five seasons playing in the Federal League and Southern Pro League.
One last thing, before we run out of unique traits — Hatten was a good baseball player as a kid. He threw left, batted right. Of all the position players in the Baseball Hall of Fame, only one was righty-lefty — Rickey Henderson.
Hatten arrived early in the season via Evansville of the SPHL. The Railers were not exactly sure what to expect, but Nick Tuzzolino knew what the team needed.
“I wanted to find a good size forward who could skate well, play on the fourth line with opportunity to move up,” he recalled. “There were a couple of guys on his team I wanted to watch and he stood out.”
The invitation was open-ended. Hatten was welcome to join the Railers but there was no guarantee how long he would stay. That was up to the way he played, which has turned out to be well.
“He’s been more than I expected,” is how Tuzzolino looks at the signing. “I can be honest and say that. The thing with him is to keep him growing in the way he’s growing, and not giving him too much, too fast.”
The coach compared Hatten to the pocket knives kids used to carry around before cell phones.
“You can put him in any situation,” Tuzzolino said, “and he’s got different tools. He has great size, he can fight if he has to and can put the puck in the net.”
Hatten could have gone on in baseball but found the game boring. He was a quarterback in football, but only flag football. His mother thought tackle football was too dangerous.
“So,” Hatten said, “I found the second-most dangerous sport with hockey.”
As much as loves the game, hockey was not Hatten’s only career choice. He was accepted at West Point where he played hockey for a year, but he had an alternate plan as well. It was to become an infantry officer and eventually join the Central Intelligence Agency.
West Point did not work out. Hatten was there during Covid and it was a difficult time.
“A couple of things happened,” he said. “I messed up my eligibility with an instructor and that caused me to fail a class. It was like the Wild West that year. It just an unfortunate turn of events that led me to leave there. I was sad to leave. I didn’t want to leave there.”
Hatten has taken some of things he learned at West Point into his hockey career.
“It put a lot of things in perspective,” he said. “I definitely think it’s made me a better teammate, a better person, a better hockey player as well. To get through there you just have to put your head down and grit it out.”
So far, the hockey side of things has worked out well for Hatten.
He spent last season with Evansville and scored five goals in 54 games. Hatten already has four goals in 38 games with the Railers. He is listed at 6-foot-3 and 185 pounds but looks and plays larger than that. Plus, he likes to fight.
“I’m happy with hockey,” Hatten said. “I can fight in hockey. If you have a bad day you can go and get that frustration out easily.”
He was born in Mississippi but grew up in Allen, Texas. What do you know? The Railers are playing three games there next weekend against the Americans, a team he used to root for growing up.
What are the odds of that?
Probably better than a lot of things that have happened in Hatten’s life so far.
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
