Jake Davis: A New Hope (Ep: IV)

[Josh 1,656]

With the elimination of the Malmo Nighthawks from S69 VHL playoffs, the career of Jake Davis is officially over. Following a meager regular season finish for Davis and the team, the writing was on the wall and the team exited in the first round. Fortunately this story starts almost 10 seasons ago and although Davis never took home the cup, he had some memorable stories along the way. 

 

To recap Davis’ career, we have to go back to the first season that he went pro. Back in S61, Davis was an up and comer but with no real junior accolades tied to his name. After cold calling quite a few agencies, a friendly agent at the JD agency returned his call and offered his services. Within a few weeks his agent was able to tag him onto the Ottawa Lynx just a couple games into the season. While still early in his development, he was able to put up a respectable 53 points in the 70 games he played that season. The Lynx were also able to make the playoffs but unfortunately were bested in 5 games by the soon to be champions, the Oslo Storm. However by this time Davis had solidified his position as a first line winger and even managed to put up 7 points in those 5 post-season games. 

 

As a result of the aptitude for the game and skill shown during S61, Davis was projected to go quite early on in the VHL draft of S62. A few days prior to the draft, a GM with a pick in the late first round had even reached out to him signaling his intention to pick him. On draft day, Davis couldn’t feel anything but a bit of disappointment as names went up on the board of players he knew didn’t have the ceiling he did. Names like Nguyen, Mulligan, and Slipher were all called out before the General Manager of the Toronto Legion walked up to the microphone. It was a huge surprise that he had fallen to the second round but frankly that didn’t matter anymore. Davis let out a sigh of relief but knew that his work was cut out for him, he was just getting started.

 

Unbeknownst to Davis at the time of the draft, was that he had passed a milestone in his progression. After a quick call with his agent Josh, he was told that he was ineligible to go down to the minors for S62 and would instead be called up to play his rookie season with the Legion. While it sounded like an exciting idea, Davis also knew that the Legion weren’t going to be a competing team as they were made up of mainly younger players. They were all great players and likely some future Hall of Famers, but at the moment they were inexperienced just like he was. However his off-season training had put him in the best shape of his life, both physically and mentally. Regardless of where in the standings this team was going to end up, Davis showed up to training camp with bright eyes and a renewed vigor. 

 

To be continued...

Word Count: 525~

Edited January 5, 2020 by Josh