Anth: Starting from the beginning of your career. The Carolina Hurricanes selected you in the fifth round in 2003, and as of your age-23 season, you were in the ECHL. Historically speaking, at that age, it’s very rare for an ECHL player to end up making it to the NHL.

So, Carolina doesn’t sign you to an ELC, but you end up getting a training camp invite with the St. Louis Blues the following offseason, and you end up making the team. You essentially went from ECHL to NHL within a year, which is even more rare.

What was your mindset as something of a longshot coming into that Blues camp, competing on a blue line that already had established NHL regulars like Eric Brewer, Alex Pietrangelo, Jay McKee, and Barret Jackman?

Strachan: “Well, you mentioned being drafted with Carolina and… those were the days we were going through the new CBA getting set up. In the time that I was in college, after my fourth year, Carolina had just cleaned house. All new management, scouts, everything.”

“The new GM called my agent and basically said, “we’re sorry, but we haven’t even really seen him play.” So, they let me go and I signed to try out with another team which… I’ll leave unmentioned because it turned into a legal disaster.”

“The league mistakenly gave my rights back to Carolina for a fifth year and ended up filing a tampering case against that other team I signed with. So, after a couple weeks of them going back-and-forth the kind of figure out what’s happening, you’re getting closer and closer to camp.”

“The solution ends up being – okay, we’ll rip up the deal and let him walk. Now I’m looking around and every team is full. Then I got a call from Glen Gulutzan who was coaching Las Vegas (Wranglers) at the time. He was a good Saskatchewan guy like myself, we had a great conversation.”

“He was focused on getting guys out of the ECHL, and I believed him. So, I’m playing in Vegas and then in January I get a call up to Peoria (the Blues AHL affiliate at the time). I can’t say enough how Glen put his name on the line to make that happen.”

“The Peoria brass actually called Glen to ask about a guy on another ECHL team and coach told them “don’t do that because I’ve got a guy here that’s better.” The Peoria guys told me all this and basically said – don’t screw this up.”

“That obviously carried over into (Blues) camp the following year and I was excited, I was nervous, I was all those things but… In the end, guys keep getting cut and you start thinking wow, maybe I can hang in here.”

“I ended up getting a two-year deal right out of Blues camp, went back down to Peoria, and got called back to St. Louis again pretty quickly. My first call-up was in October, then again in December and I was up almost the rest of the season from there.”

“So yeah, like you said, within a year of playing in the ECHL, I was a roster regular in the NHL with the Blues. It was just kind of thing-after-thing that just sort of happened. It starts with Glenn putting his name out there and it speaks toward the kind of guy he is and why he ended up being a great NHL coach.”

“I don’t think I ever got the chance to buy him a beer after that… I don’t think I’ve even seen him in person since, but I’ve sent him lots of messages to tell him thank you.”

Anth: Including St. Louis, you ended up playing NHL games for five different organizations throughout your career. With the exception of your year in Buffalo, you started in the AHL every time and always worked your way back to an NHL role.

What was that like, needing to re-prove yourself every time you signed with a new organization? That alone is stressful and only compounds the fact that you have to keep bouncing around different cities. How did you overcome that physical and mental strain and keep proving yourself year after year?

Strachan: “If you’re going to talk to any young guy coming into hockey, you’re going to tell them that building consistency is huge. I spent many of those seasons where it might be, one game down, one game up. You know, it was up-and-down all the time.”

“The whole process is mentally straining and I think that’s something that… you know, someone who has never gone through it doesn’t understand where that amount of stress comes. Toward the end of my career, I told people… it wasn’t so much that my body was too beat up, it was just that, mentally I was burnt out.”

“You spend every day, even when you’re on an NHL roster, worried that you’re going to be sent down. That’s a hard phone call to the wife, right? It’s a stressful business, but you also feel crazy fortunate to be in that position.”

“No matter if I just played 25 minutes the night before, or spent an entire practice bag-skating, I came into the locker room the next day with a smile on my face.”

Anth: As you mentioned, you were up with the Sabres for the entire year you were here in 2014-15. That season lives on in infamy between fans, reports, basically whoever you talk to in Western New York.

Many people feel that the organization was brazenly making moves to try and secure a lottery pick. Obviously, the players on the ice are trying to go out and win a game every night. You’re putting your body on the line for an organization who designed the team to try and lose games.

How did you as a person, and the locker room at large deal with that conflict? You had contrary goals where you guys wanted to go win games for an organization and fanbase for that matter, that doesn’t want to see you succeed.

That has to be unlike anything most players ever experience. Can you tell me a little bit about that year?

Strachan: “I can probably tell you more than a little bit… I’m trying to narrow down what should be told (chuckles). Even this summer I’m golfing with a guy who tells me he’s a buffalo transplant. I mentioned that I played for the Sabres and he asked what year, so I just said “the tank year”.”

“Obviously there were frustrating points where you feel like you’re battling against your organization. You’d notice that even when guys had good streaks, they’d get traded. It was very blatant, right?”

“At the same time, I just think we had a good group of guys. Coach (Ted) Nolan addressed it with us many times. We talked about it and he had some great motivational speeches. Looking back, it probably would have been easy for us to give in and not care, but of course, we’re going to care. We’re professionals and we were going to play as hard as we can each night. It was a real close-knit, good group of guys and we just kind of battled for each other.”

“It was tough when you’d come into practice and it’s like “oh hey, your best player? Yeah, he got traded.” It’s just, you know, whatever’s left here, we’re going to go and battle.”

Anth: Would you say Ted Nolan did a good job of insulating you guys from all the noise around the tank?

Strachan: “I think he took it head-on. I think he brought the noise in and used it as bulletin board material. He took it and used it as motivation.”

“He gave a speech that stands out. He came in one day and started talking about… I think it was right after the trade deadline… He came in and gave this whole speech about canaries in the coal mine. Like, he explained how the miners used to use the canaries and just ended it by saying… “Boys, we’re the canaries!”

“That was it. He was great on that side of things. He was, I think a great person and a great motivator. We were all going to show up and do our best every night despite what was going on around us. We weren’t going to let that distract us.”

Anth: So, I ask this question to everyone I interview who this applies to because I always find it really interesting. You finished your playing career in Europe, which was a really common thing for guys to do. You ended up going to play in the UK which isn’t so common. What was that experience like for you?

Strachan: “Early on, my wife and I always talked about going and playing overseas. We didn’t know I’d have the career that I ended up having in North America. At the end of my career, it came up and… we were older and thinking about family and stuff.”

“I took a tryout with the Arizona Coyotes and turned down a bunch of European team offers that year. I felt I had another year of North American hockey left in me. I didn’t end up making that team in Phoenix, and I was looking around at my options.”

“The coach on that team in Cardiff (UK) was an old teammate of mine in juniors. The general manager was also my agent’s best friend. They were teammates in college.”

“A couple of years before that, I had already set my sights on what I was going to do post-hockey. I was sitting there mulling my options over and I wasn’t ready to be done. I felt that I had one year left in me. I called Johan, who is now my boss and he said “why not go over there and play for a year and get your MBA?”

“So, my wife stayed behind and I went over by myself. That was probably a good thing because between hockey and school, it was busy. It wasn’t your regular hockey life where. You woke up and went to the gym, then to practice, then straight to school. Then it’s dinner time, and you go home and do some homework.”

Anth: Wait, so you got your MBA in the UK while playing pro hockey?

Strachan: “Yeah, that UK league obviously… I don’t know where it ranks among the elite leagues over there (in Europe), but it was surprising to me. You know, the quality of hockey over there was a much higher level than I expected.”

“But I went there with the thought that I could play hockey and do a year of school so that really sealed the deal for me. It was interesting to be in a situation where, like you said, 10 years of being worried every day whether you’re getting sent down or called up… to just be on a team for a year, right?”

“It’s an interesting setup in that league. There’s like four different championships that you can win. It took me probably half to year to figure out what was going on. The first game I go over there, I’m all jet-lagged and out of it and hadn’t skated in a week.”

“The coach comes in and says this is a huge game for whatever championship and I’m like, “What?! It’s October, what are we talking about here?” So, it was interesting but I honestly really enjoyed it.”

Anth: Fast-forward to today, you’re working with the Hockey Wealth Group. Explain to me a little bit about what you guys do. I looked at your website and saw that you guys handle financial planning for former pro hockey players.

Strachan: “Being fortunate to play as long as I did, I got to experience everything hockey has to offer. Early in my career, I got really interested in the financial side of things. You start educating yourself and you start getting people coming at you from all angles. Different groups and stuff and… I saw a lot of “bad” opportunities I guess, right?”

“And you constantly see… There’s guys I played with, these big name guys that were involved in terrible, terrible scams and lost a lot of money. So, it really became a passion of mine just to educate myself. I was fortunate that Johan Kroll, we were defensive partners at Ohio State. He retired from hockey and started his own firm.”

“The more I researched things, the more I believed in the philosophy that their firm operated under. It was a fantastic fit and we’ve created this team of all guys who are former-hockey players. They’ve all experienced being players who have been approached by all these different opportunities.”

“We just know that there’s a lot of bad information out there so, for us it’s just a real passion project to be able to give good, educational advice to other hockey players and help them in any way that we can. I feel fortunate that we’ve been able to do that and grow this business.”

“I think about phone calls with some of the guys we’ve helped and tears being shed. There’s a lot of situations on the back-side of hockey where guys need things, right? It’s unfortunate, but there’s a lot of guys who go their whole career thinking everything is great. It’s easy to think that while you’re playing and while all the big paychecks are coming in.”

“And we understand that. Your focus is on being the best hockey player you can be. You don’t want to focus on being a financial professional. Financial planning is our specialty. Financial planning and wealth management.”

Anth: To wrap-up here, you had an 12-year professional career-

Strachan: “11.”

Anth: … wait, why did I count 12?

Strachan: “You’re not counting Albany are you?”

Anth: Yeah, I think I did

Strachan: “(laughs) You can’t count that. I played forward and it was maybe one or two shifts, I can’t remember. I went down there at the end for the year and… I already told you what their brass had told my agent. They hadn’t really seen me and they didn’t have any interest in me.”

“I think I practiced with them two times in three weeks during this playoff run and they told me I was gonna play in a game, but I was going to play forward. The next day, someone from the coaching staff grabbed me and told me I should go back to school, get my degree, and do something other than hockey.”

Anth: Really?!… Oh my God…

Strachan: “Yeah, he basically said that if I really wanted to pursue it, I’d need to start many levels below (the AHL). This is not a career for you, go back, get your degree, and do something else.”

Anth: And less than two years later, you’re playing NHL games.

Strachan: “Yeah, many guys I played with and one trainer in particular on that staff, we still laugh about it. He called that coach later when I was playing in the NHL and was like “hey, you remember telling him all that?” and he’s like “oh yeah, I remember.”

“And he just goes “well, what the (explicative) do I know?”

Anth: (laughs) That’s crazy.

Strachan: “Yeah, looking back there was no chance for him to evaluate my skills, so that conversation was a little bit overkill… I told you it was a funny story.”

You can follow Tyson Strachan on Twitter at @tstracks to find out more about his post-playing career with Hockey Wealth Group.