A couple weeks ago, T.J. Friedmann, who grew up in South County and now plays NCAA hockey at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, got an unexpected phone call. It was from Keith Tkachuk.
Tkachuk, who played nine seasons with the Blues and has the third most goals of any American-born player, has the title of director of player recruitment for the team, and one of his jobs is to find undrafted college players, like Friedmann. Tkachuk was calling with an invitation to take part in the Blues’ developmental camp.
The response from Friedmann was not long in coming.
“About 10 seconds,” he said. “It was a quick yes, for sure. I saw it as a great experience and couldn’t turn it down.”
Along with all the draft picks, some of whom will be playing soon at events like the world juniors, and recent college graduates that were in town for the Blues’ development camp that took place last week, there was another constituency on the ice. Six players taking part this week at Centene Community Ice Center were products of St. Louis’ growing hockey community. For them, wearing a Blues jersey, if only a practice jersey in July, was a big deal.
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