The Captains: Kelly continues to overcome the odds

What Kelly has been able to accomplish is remarkable, but as it turns out, the adversity he’s faced in his lifetime pales in comparison to events that affected his family over a half century ago.

“My Opa was actually born during World War II in the Netherlands and was born prematurely because there was a raid and my great-Oma was pregnant with him at the time. The shock of the air raid caused her to go into labour,” Kelly explained.

“All my Opa’s siblings are like 6’6”, but he’s 5’11” because he was born prematurely. His bum could actually fit in a teacup when he was born.”

Despite the difficulties faced early in life, Kelly’s Opa Nicolaas Keyzer would become the first of his family to move across the Atlantic as he sought opportunity in Canada.

Several years after moving over, Nicolaas met his future wife June in Leamington, Ont., on the northern shores of Lake Erie to the southeast of Windsor. From there, the couple moved to Montreal where they spent a couple years before ultimately settling in Camrose, the city where they would raise their family including Parker’s mother Joanne and her brother Gerry. Nicolaas carved out a career as a sheet metal worker and June spent most of her working days at The Bay.

All these years later, the challenges faced by Parker seem less significant by comparison, but it remains impressive what he’s been able to accomplish.

At the age of 13, Kelly made the jump to Bantam AAA as a first year with his hometown Camrose Vikings. If you learn lessons with every loss, Parker could have received his undergraduate degree by the end of that year according to his father Kevin.

“They won one game,” said the elder Kelly. “But every game he came out smiling and he was happy to be there. For the second years and their parents, it was a different story because it’s your draft year and you’re on a team that won a single game, and I think they had six ties.”

As much as Kelly enjoyed the opportunity to play at an elite level, the losses piled up and the physical toll did too as the then 105-pound forward learned what it was like to play against bigger and older competition.

“He got hit pretty hard a few times. There were a couple games where he came home and said he thought his hips were turned sideways,” said Kevin Kelly. “He realized he had to get stronger and faster and he worked out hard.”

As a second year, Parker and his teammates were suddenly an experienced team and made it into the playoffs before losing in a hard-fought series to the higher-ranked PAC Saints out of Spruce Grove. Leading that team in scoring with 58 points in 31 games, he was then selected in the seventh round, 141st overall by the Raiders in the bantam draft.

At training camp, Kevin Kelly remembers meeting Dale Derkatch, then the Raiders’ director of player personnel and now an amateur scout with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“He said to Parker ‘if I can do it, you can do it.’ I looked at him and said, ‘you played in the Western Hockey League?’ He said he did, and after I left, I looked at his stats and said ‘holy Parker, look at this guy! He put up huge numbers!’”

Listed at just 5’6”, Derkatch produced 491 points in 204 games with the Regina Pats.

It is now well-documented that Kelly earned himself a spot on the Raiders as a 16-year-old despite being selected in the later rounds of the bantam draft. In his rookie season, he picked up the moniker of “Pesky Parker Kelly” thanks to his scrappy style that continues to make him a fan favourite in Prince Albert.

A trip to the playoffs in his first year was followed by a difficult sophomore season on the ice as the Raiders finished at the bottom of the East Division and third-last leaguewide.

Kevin Kelly believes his son’s experience in bantam helped him handle that disappointing season, compounded by the fact he went through the NHL entry draft that June without being selected despite a breakout 43-point season, good enough for second on the team.

Staying true to the pattern of overcoming setbacks, Kelly went to Ottawa on an invite and earned a deal before returning to the Raiders for his third season.

“When he came home, I said to him ‘you just created a job for yourself,’” said Kevin Kelly. “That’s how you’ve got to look at it, it’s a job and you’ve got to keep extending it.”

Now an alternate captain of the top-ranked team in the nation, Parker knows that the current leadership group has learned the hard way what it takes to win. Kelly, Brayden Pachal, Sean Montgomery, and Zack Hayes were all a part of that team two years ago that by all accounts remained a close-knit unit despite the lack of success. Today, each one of them now wears a letter.

“We have a sign in our room that says, ‘on good teams coaches hold players accountable, but on great teams players hold players accountable’ and that’s been a big thing that [Head Coach Marc Habscheid] has let grow in our minds a bit and we’ve learned a lot of that ourselves,” said Kelly.

“Whether it’s being on time or following the structure, it has to come from us first and I think that’s been a big part of our success is how we’ve been able to grow. It’s not just about holding some of the younger guys accountable but, for example, me holding Brayden Pachal accountable too. That’s been a big step for us and I think that’s helped us come a long way.”

While the players have learned a lot at the rink, Habscheid knows it started well before their time in Prince Albert.

“To be coaching these guys, I feel really fortunate because of the types of people they are and the types of people their parents are,” said Habscheid. “It makes coaching that much easier. They’re the ones that take the message into the room and they’re the ones that run the room.”

Kelly echoed his coach’s comments, saying his success wouldn’t have come without his family.

“I was raised in a great home, both my mom and dad didn’t come from much and they were raised the right way,” said Kelly.

“They’ve been raising me and my brother the right way with hard work and being disciplined and being conservative with partying and stuff like that. They’ve been in my corner the whole way and I wouldn’t be anywhere without them and all the support I’ve received. I’ve also got good billets in Prince Albert who act as my second parents, so it’s been a great atmosphere my whole life.”

While hockey has provided a tremendous opportunity for Kelly to earn a living doing what he loves, his parents have worked to instill a broader worldview beyond the sport.

“They’re very big with the hockey aspect of it, but also a main focus for them is becoming a good person in life, and they’ve helped me the whole way.”

trevor.redden@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @Trevor_Redden

by Trevor Redden

The Captains: Kelly continues to overcome the odds

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