Islanders' Prospect Travis Hamonic

By Adam

Travis Hamonic is a just turned 18 kid from the Winnipeg area who grew up on a farm in a small town of about 300-400. Travis started skating real young like all good Canadian boys around the age of 2. "Ever since I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was play in the NHL," he said. Around the age of 12 or 13 is when he started thinking about going into the Canadian Junior program. He considered all his options, including coming to the US to pursue a college hockey career, but ultimately decided to stick with the Junior route after discussing it with his family.

The Moose Jaw Warriors of the WHL came calling and thus he picked up and moved away. Fortunately for Hamonic, Moose Jaw is a mere 6 hours away from his hometown unlike some of the towns in the WHL which can be more than 30 hours away. Also, Moose Jaw is a farming community much like his hometown which allowed for a smoother transition for Hamonic.

After compiling 25 points (5 goals, 20 assists) and a plus-3 rating over 83 games, the Islanders selected the (at the time) 17 year old defenseman in the second round. Islanders scout Eric Cairns had this to say about Travis at the draft, "Travis is your prototypical shutdown defenseman. He keeps it simple makes it hard on the other team's forwards. He's the type of guy you don't notice and that's a good thing."

On his first pro camp experience, Hamonic said camp was everything he expected and more. It is nice to have an opportunity to get familiar with the organization that drafted him. Seeing what the guys who are already in the pro leagues work on and how they practice was what he consider most beneficial about the camp in July. By talking with them and seeing what they do, he learned what he can do when he goes back to Moose Jaw to continue to improve for the future.

I asked Hamonic what he thinks he needs to work on during the next season. He said, "You can always improve on everything; there's always a lot of work you can do." But specifically he wants to try to become a more offensive presence on the blueline by jumping to the rush more often. He wants to do this because, "I am pretty solid defensively."

After getting to meet Bryan Trottier and Ken Morrow, he a tremendous amount of respect for what they accomplished in their hockey careers. It inspired him to hope that he could help the Islanders create something similar in the future.

For the upcoming season in Moose Jaw, Hamonic expects to be one of the leaders on the team. They have a lot of young guys coming up, and he hopes they will follow the examples he sets out for them.This was Travis' first trip to New York, and he was very surprised by the amount of beach area there was here. He it would be a change he could get used to being from a farming community. I let him know that if he went out East, he could find a lot agriculture there. He was very interested in that. His favorite thing they got to do was going to the Yankees game. Much to my surprise Travis listed the Yankees as his favorite baseball team.
(Interview done on 9/10/2008)