Game On Magazine - April 2017 Game on Preview Edition | Page 94

PROFILE michael s t. c r o i x B y S c o t t Tay l o r Photos courtesy ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits and University of Manitoba Back home and loving it The last thing Michael St. Croix wants anyone to think is that he’s bitter or angry with what happened to him as a professional hockey player. He’s not bitter because he gets it. He knows he is just one of thousands of players who have found themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time. One of thousands of players who saw that brief window of opportunity close. Unlike, so many others, however, he knew exactly where he was and what he had to do. He had no desire to give up playing hockey, but he knew that the road he was on was the wrong one and there had to be another opportunity. “In my second year as a pro, I thought I had a real good training camp, but you don’t have a lot of time to impress” he said thoughtfully. “I’d 9 4 | G AM E O N | S E P T EM BER 2 0 1 7 worked hard with (Winkler-based trainer) Chuck Williams to prepare and I really thought I’d start the season in the American Hockey League. But at the end of Hartford’s camp, I was sent to Greenville again even though the coaches said I was one of the best players in camp. At that point I kind of knew what was ahead for me and after a pretty good season with Greenville that year, I decided to give it one more shot, but after my 2015- 16 season, I knew I had to go in a different direction.” St. Croix won’t blame the Rangers, injuries, bad luck or “some coach that didn’t like me” for the fact he never made it to the NHL. He is not, in any way, angry about what might have been. Instead, he’s simply taken a different route and, as he says, it just might be the best one. He’s back home in Winnipeg, playing with the University of Manitoba Bisons – and they’re thrilled to have him – and he’s using his Rangers money to purchase rental properties in the city. He’s 24 and he’s already a big success. “I used my NHL signing bonus and I actually had an AHL contract every year in the ECHL so I was paid pretty well for an ECHL player, plus all my living expenses were paid for,” St. Croix explained. “So now and I have a couple of partners and we’ve purchased three homes. I have two on Kingston Row in St. Vital and one in Fort Richmond. Every house I purchased was a house I would live in. I’ve had a lot of doors open for me in Winnipeg and I still know a lot of people in hockey so we’ll see where all this takes me.” St. Croix came home last year and redshirted for the Bisons (U Sports rules state that he has to sit out a year before playing on a university team), while busting his butt to get a 4.15 Grade Point Average and entrance to the Asper School of Business. School has been solid and now he’ll get to play competitive hockey again.