Last night was the first time that Geoff Hum had seen Kevin MacLean in about two years, but he still remembers the day he met him at the Weeks Jr. A Crushers training camp.
"He's a very intimidating guy," Hum said of the 6'2" 190 lbs captain he saw that day. "He looks like he's about 25 years old. I'm just a young kid coming from midget."
But once he got to know MacLean he says he was more of a friendly giant - to his teammates that is.
"On the ice he's intimidating and I wouldn't want to fight him that's for sure," Hum said. "But he's such a great captain, probably the best captain I ever had, just the way he led on and off the ice."
When it came time for MacLean to retire from junior hockey, Hum was chosen to replace him as captain. As much as he could, he tried to imitate MacLean's leadership.
"He wasn't a real big talking guy, but his actions spoke pretty loud and he'd be the first one to stand up for you if you as a teammate were in trouble. He'd always step in. He's a fighter."
MacLean, now 23, proved that this winter when he battled back from severe injuries he sustained in a snowmobile accident.
As shocked as he and the other teammates were when they heard what happened to MacLean, Hum says they always knew he'd survive it.
"I think everyone expected him to come out of it and he did."
Hum knew because MacLean was the kind of guy who played with injuries. He never whined and he never took a game off because he was feeling a bit hurt.
"He was just such a fighter. He's so tough. He just never gives up. If something's hurting him you just expect him to be OK."
The Crushers honoured that courage which MacLean showed and his contributions to the team prior to the opening of last night's game by retiring his no. 27 jersey. Along with former teammates, former coach Troy Ryan was also there to watch the ceremony.
"I've been coaching 14 years and there's not even a close second for the favourite player I've ever coached," he said.
It was MacLean and MacLean only who has first spot.
"To be honest he brought everything," Ryan says. "A lot of times I get mixed emotions when I come to something like this. That's a guy whose jersey should have been retired. Hopefully it would have whether he'd been in an accident or not. He's a guy that put everything he could into this program and it probably wouldn't be where it is if it wasn't for guys like him both on and off the ice."
From the day he met MacLean, Ryan says he proved his character.
"He's got an interesting story," Ryan says. "He got cut from the midget team and made the junior A team and ended up being captain. It's incredible really. His family is the reason why he's the type of person he is. He's a real good guy."
Ryan was coaching for the Metro Marauders when MacLean was in his accident.
"It's shocking. It's not one of those times when you can bother trying to understand it," he says. "You just jump to support either him or his family."
He had the opportunity to see MacLean as he worked through rehab and saw that as beat up as his body was, in his heart he was still the old MacLean.
"Everybody always says you can take away the body and the mind, but the will that he has is the same," he says. "I was with him a lot during his rehab and he just worked so hard. And his family shows a lot of love for him but they also push him and know it's for best."
As a father, Peter MacLean says it's hard to put into words what the support from the community and particularly the Weeks organization meant to him and his family during the difficult days and weeks that followed Kevin's accident.
"It's unreal," he said. "It's kind of hard to explain."
While Kevin still struggles with short-term memory problems, his father is happy to see how far he's come.
"He's way ahead of where they told us he'd be," he said. "It's a slow process."
But it's one he knows his son will continue to fight.
