What a difference a summer can make.
At the end of the 2011-12 season, after being demoted by the Abbotsford Heat of the American Hockey League to finish the year with the Utah Grizzlies of the East Coast League (ECHL), Cochrane’s Justin Dowling vowed to get better.
He hit the gym and prepared himself for a successful year in pro hockey.
The former Swift Current Broncos star began the 2012-13 campaign with the ECHL Idaho Steelheads, where he notched 13 goals and 33 assists in 34 games.
That offensive torrent put him on the Texas Stars’ radar, and the Dallas Stars’ AHL affiliate club based in Austin, Tex., called him up in January.
“I had a good first half of the season during the lockout with Idaho,” Dowling said, mentioning the wholesale movement of players between leagues when the National Hockey League’s lockout ended in January. “The very next day after the lockout I got on a plane and headed to Austin (Tex).”
Once called up to the Texas Stars, Dowling took little time cementing his status as a top-six forward in the AHL with 16 goals and 14 assists in 38 games, including a Jan. 26 hat trick against the San Antonio Rampage.
“The coach they have with Willie Desjardins, he allowed me to play the style of game I’m accustomed to, like I played in junior. He let me kind of free-wheel with the puck a bit and I played a lot more power play. The opportunity was just a lot better this year.”
It’s a long way from where he was when, with the Heat in 2011-12, the Calgary Flames’ AHL farm club sent him to Utah.
“Everyone always takes falls. It’s how you get back up and handle situations like that. I just worked hard in the summer and made sure that I did get better, and got better at the areas I needed to, not just areas I was already good at,” Dowling, who’s in Cochrane for the summer, said.
“Once the season started, I just felt like I was a step ahead of everyone else. It seemed like I worked so hard, everything was just falling into place for me.”
The 23-year-old centre has already signed on for next season with Texas, where he’s been lighting it up with teammates he’s quick to praise.
“I played with Mike Hedden and Alex Chiasson. What Alex Chiasson did in the NHL this year; he played seven games and had seven goals. When you’re playing with a guy who can score like that, and me being a playmaker, it seems to be easy to get points when you have a guy who can do so much for you on a line.
“And then Mike Hedden is just such a good skater and a smart hockey player that he just created space and created openings for me and Alex. So it was good.”
With a spot on the Dallas Stars’ farm team locked up, all that’s left for Dowling is to take the next step.
“We’re still discussing that, seeing if I’m going to go to Dallas’s training camp starting in September. I’m assuming I will be, because there are going to be talks of getting an NHL contract, not just an AHL one. Who knows, if I go to camp and do really well; you never know what’s going to happen.”
And he’ll be in the gym and on the ice all summer to ensure he gives himself the best chance possible to succeed.
