The Allen Americans announced on Tuesday that defenseman Erik Adams would be returning to the ice for them, effective immediately. The veteran blue liner made his season debut against Texas on Tuesday. (Photo Credit: John O'Neill)
The Allen Americans had an opportunity to move into a tie for the top spot in the CHL’s Berry Conference with a win over the Texas Brahmas on Tuesday night at the Allen Event Center. While the Americans failed to take advantage of that opportunity, the game was significant in that it marked the return of one of the original Allen Americans to the ice. On Tuesday night, defenseman Erik Adams played his first game for Allen since Game 5 of last season’s conference finals.
The Americans have seen their roster slowly depleted of late, and they played Tuesday night’s game without the services of many of their top players. Bruce Graham, Colton Yellow Horn, Jim McKenzie, Keith Johnson, Adam Pineault, and Ben Wilson were all absent for various reasons.
Adams return to the team will help restore a veteran presence to the locker room, and add experience on the ice.
But Adams says he doesn’t want to shake anything up; he just wants to help out.
“The team’s done a great job so far, and there’s a great group of guys in that locker room,” Adams said. ”I don’t want to go in there and disrupt anything. I just want to grab a paddle and row the boat along with them. The ultimate goal in the end is to bring home a championship here.”
After the team’s exit from the playoffs last April, Adams made the move from the ice to the front office, and has been working with the team in that capacity since the off-season. While it was different being involved with the sport of hockey in an executive capacity, Adams was glad to stay involved with the team and continue to stay in the area.
“Even though you don’t have a pair of skates on, at least you’re still involved in hockey, and trying to develop the sport and be involved any way you can,” Adams explained. ”It was different, that’s for sure. I think it was good that I was a player in the past. (The front office staff) can ask myself questions about the game and if this would work or that would work without having to ask the players or the coaching staff, and vice-versa: if they players or coaches had a question for upstairs, they could approach me. It was a good situation up there, but I did miss the game.”
So, when injuries and absences started to take their toll on the Allen roster, the coaching staff and front office didn’t have to pick up the phone to ask Adams if he’d like to try getting back on the ice. They just needed to see if he wanted to shed the suit and pick up the gear to play hockey again.
“Over the months I kind of missed it,” Adams admitted. ”So, when something come up here – the possibility of coming back – I kind of took a couple of weeks to see how I felt, and here were are now.”
“It’s going to be an adjustment, but I’ve been playing long enough that I understand what I need to do and how I need to perform to be comfortable out there and fit in.”
When Adams made the move to the front office last off-season, he said he wasn’t really tempted to leave the area and play for another team. There are certainly teams out there who could benefit from having them on their roster. Last season, Adams played in 54 games, racking up 29 points (7G, 22A). He was also a plus-17 in that span.
But Adams said he wasn’t tempted to leave Allen; he enjoyed playing and working for what he called a “special” program, and wanted to stay with it.
“I’m at a point where here is where I call home now,” Adams said. “My wife is from the area, and I just got the point where I’m not getting any younger. It was easy for me to move upstairs (to the Front Office) when the opportunity came up. Everyone that comes in here really enjoys the program and enjoys the organization. They love playing not only the game of hockey, but (playing it) in this town. They know there’s something special here.”
“It starts with our ownership,” he continued. ” Both Doug Miller and Steve Duschene have done a tremendous job, and they’re there for us as well. They love the sport of hockey. I think they have as much passion for hockey as the players do, and that’s key when your ownership group is like that. It just filters down to the coaching staff, who do a tremendous job of recruiting in the summertime. They bring in a lot of good character players. There’s a lot of skill players out there, but if you don’t have good character, you’re not going to go a long way in the game. I think that filters down to the players: it starts with the ownership, then it goes to the coaching staff and on to the players.”
Erik Adams and the Americans will try to close in on the Berry Conference-leading Wichita Thunder as they make a long bus ride for a brief road trip to face Dayton on Friday and Fort Wayne on Saturday.
