Pursuing Ice Time After Harvard

For former Crimson forward Mike Taylor ’08, the decision to pursue professional hockey after graduation came abruptly. After NHL teams passed on him through his final year of draft eligibility, Taylor did not plan on continuing his career after Harvard until late in his senior year.

But after encouragement from Harvard coach Ted Donato ’91, Taylor signed during his senior spring with the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League, where he would play for two years with affiliates of the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes.

“For some it’s pure love of the game, for others it’s the fear of not having hockey in their life,” Taylor says. “You either have to have the complete mindset that this is what I want to do, and completely commit yourself to it, or just love it and [not] want to do anything else.”

The world of professional sports is one not uncommon to those who have played under the lights at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center.

Twenty-seven Harvard men’s hockey alumni have played in the NHL. However, many more Crimson graduates, like Taylor, have continued their careers elsewhere with minor league affiliates and other professional teams.

For Taylor, the decision to pursue a professional career didn’t come easy.

“Playing professionally wasn’t necessarily something I had set my hopes and dreams on,” Taylor says. “I had realistic expectations, and if the opportunity came, I was probably going to see where it would lead me, but that didn’t really come until my senior year when the season ended.”

The transition to college hockey was a smooth one for Taylor, who won a conference tournament and appeared in two NCAA tournaments during his freshman and sophomore years in Cambridge. The path to professional hockey was a more difficult one—particularly for an undrafted prospect.

“People tell you that it doesn’t matter if you’re drafted, [that] you still have the opportunity,” Taylor says. “But after going through it, there’s definitely more of an emphasis placed on the players who are drafted.”

For undrafted players, just earning a tryout with an NHL affiliate can be a demanding process. For Taylor, there were no inscribed invitations.

“I went undrafted, [and] then I was just going to basically see how the rest of my career played out,” Taylor says. “I was open to the opportunity [of minor league hockey], but it wasn’t at the top of my list.”

After a few teams showed interest in Taylor during a standout senior season, the opportunity seemed to be a bit more reachable. Following an overtime loss to Boston College in the Beanpot final, Taylor took the first step to play in the minors. He called a scout from the New York Rangers on the recommendation of Donato, who had played with the Rangers for a season.

“[Donato] thought that would be a good fit for me from an organizational standpoint,” Taylor says. “It ended up working out when I got an amateur tryout with the Hartford Wolf Pack.”

Taylor cites his tryout with the Wolf Pack as one of the tougher steps in making it into the minor leagues. The process did not end at the tryout, however, as he continued to compete for major roster spots with players in whom NHL teams had already invested scouting resources.

Drafted players have the added benefit of attending NHL summer development camps, where prospects can become more familiar with the organizations that selected them.

“Unless you really dazzle them with a performance, you’re not going to get the same look as one of their guys that was drafted and has been in the system,” Taylor says.

While being drafted is an important factor in the decision to play after college, for many players post-grad hockey is simply the pursuit of a dream. Despite being drafted in the third round, former Crimson defenseman Kenny Smith ’04 understood that his chances of making the NHL were slim when he signed with the Edmonton Oilers’ ECHL affiliate in 2004.

“Pretty much [for] everyone that gets drafted and even the guys who pursue a career after going undrafted, the goal is to try and make the NHL,” Smith says. “But I think we all appreciate early on that it’s a pretty difficult goal to obtain and only a small portion of the people who get drafted even get there.”

NHL teams have drafted 10 players on Harvard’s current roster. At the end of March, star junior forward Jimmy Vesey turned down an opportunity to sign with the Nashville Predators in order to return for his senior year. Smith took comfort in the fact that he could approach a professional career with a Harvard diploma in his back pocket.

“For myself, I knew I wanted to try and make a career out of hockey even before I committed to Harvard, so committing to Harvard was a way to sort of create that safety net and know that there’s going to be really good opportunities after my playing career,” Smith says.

While neither Taylor nor Smith got the call up to the NHL before retiring, they both enjoyed their post-grad hockey experiences. For Taylor and Smith, minor league hockey was more than a shot at the NHL—it was a means of continuing to play the game they love.

“You get to have the professional experience and [play at] really nice rinks and play in front of big crowds and do all the things that we love doing as hockey players,” Smith says. “Part of it is just continuing a lifestyle you’ve always had as a hockey player and not really wanting to let that go.”

Taylor echoes the thought.

“When else in life would you have that opportunity?” Taylor says. “I hadn’t necessarily planned on it, but I had played myself into an opportunity that was a once in a lifetime chance, and I’m definitely glad that I did it for a couple years.”