PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- If you don't start playing hockey in Canada by the time you're 5 or 6 years old, Jim Henderson says, it's probably too late. Aside from some pond games here and there, Henderson never did -- not with his mother such a big baseball fan, his grandfather a baseball and softball player. Instead, Henderson pitched in a small town called Okotoks and later in the United States, traveling back north each winter to train in an indoor gym.
"You do what your parents tell you to do," Henderson said Saturday inside the Mets' Spring Training clubhouse, where he is looking to hook on as a non-roster reliever.