NHL draft dream awaits Australian prospect Nathan Walker

By Brad Walter
Updated June 27 2014 - 12:18pm, first published 12:06pm
Nathan Walker on the attack for the Hershey Bears. Photo: Bill Duh & Nancy Attrill, JustSports Photography.
Nathan Walker on the attack for the Hershey Bears. Photo: Bill Duh & Nancy Attrill, JustSports Photography.

Sydney-raised Nathan Walker is set to fulfil an ambition inspired by the Disney movie The Mighty Ducks when he enters the National Hockey League draft this weekend.

Walker, who is so driven to achieve his goal that he moved to the Czech Republic at the age of 13 to improve his ice hockey skills, will become the first Australian to play in the NHL if he is selected. His coach at Hershey Bears, Mike Haviland, predicted he could be a "fourth, fifth, sixth round or seventh round" pick.

By playing for the Hershey Bears, the 20-year-old forward has already made history as the first Australian in the American Hockey League and he impressed officials at the Washington Capitals after spending the last northern hemisphere summer training with the NHL franchise.

Should he be selected at the two-day NHL draft at Philadelphia's Wells Fargo Center, it would cap a dream Walker has had since watching The Mighty Ducks with older brother Ryan at their family home in Grays Point, near Cronulla.

"You know the movie, The Mighty Ducks, that played a pretty big part in it," Walker said. "I saw that and I just wanted to play."

With less than 30 rinks in Australia, ice hockey is very much a minority sport and by the time Walker was 13 he was playing against 21-year-olds. It was at that point he moved to Czech Republic to join the junior program of HC Vitkovice Steel, a team in the country's top ice hockey league based in the industrial city of Ostrava.

"I was saying since I was about 10 years old that I wanted to see what I could do against kids my own age," he said. "But it was hard, my mum came over for the first two weeks and got me settled in with a billet family, and then she came back home because of work. There were plenty of times I would call up saying I wanted to come home but my family woudn't let me. They said if I came home I would regret it. I had to learn to speak Czech, otherwise you can't get by."

With a crackdown on violence in the NHL, the move may prove to Walker's benefit in the draft as there is a greater emphasis on skating in European ice hockey.

At 178cm tall, left-handed Walker is considered small but possesses speed and since moving from Czech Republic to the US last year he has earned the nickname "Stormy" because of his aggressive pursuit of the puck which has seen him become both the first Australian in the AHL to score a goal and get involved in a fight.

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