Long before he was trying to sneak shots through a maze of shin-pads and would-be shot-blockers, Dougie Hamilton was aiming to create holes, not find them.
As youngsters, Dougie and his older brother Freddie — now teammates on the Calgary Flames — would retreat to their basement and rip rubber at the dry-wall.
“We tore the wall right up,” Dougie recalled with a grin. “I wish we took a picture of it when we were done with it.
“It was just destroyed.”
Parents Doug and Lynn Hamilton, as the story goes, were planning a basement remodel, so their hockey-crazed boys were temporarily allowed to work on their wristers and slappers without leaving the house.