‘Hockey’s changed’: Connor Ingram working to restart career with Oilers

CALGARY — From a distance, Connor Ingram’s mask appears plain. Which is apropos, because from the stands Ingram looks like any other hockey goalie.

Then he skates closer, and the faint art work — as if written in Sharpie — comes into view.

“People always ask why my gear’s white and why my helmet paint jobs are such subtle things,” he said. “I don’t like people looking at me.”

To be clear, Ingram — who is in the process of reclaiming his professional goaltending career with AHL Bakersfield after debilitating OCD landed him in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program — isn’t fond of attention.

“I (bleepin’) hate it,” he said. “I never have. I just don’t like people lookin’ at me.”

Let’s meet Ingram, 28, GM Stan Bowman’s long-shot dice roll for the Edmonton Oilers’ iffy goaltending situation.

And when we say “long shot,” we mean that guys don’t just come from where Ingram has come from — go through what he has gone through — and find themselves standing in the crease of a Stanley Cup contender very often.

We can’t think of one, to be honest.

“You never know if you’ll ever get a chance again,” Ingram said, sitting at a table in the Calgary Saddledome media room after a practice with the Bakersfield Condors. “The last NHL game I ever played was in L.A., and when I went into the program and I accepted that that could easily be it.

“You don’t get many more chances at this. This isn’t something that you come back from very often,” he said. “So I kind of accepted that that could be the end, hoping it’s not. When I took a chance to take care of myself, that was the part of it you had to accept.”

“The program” is the National Hockey League and NHL Players’ Association Player Assistance Program. “This” is OCD — obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mental-health condition characterized by uncontrollable, recurring thoughts (obsessions) and repetitive behaviours (compulsions).

Ingram has had it ever since he can remember, since long before anyone in Imperial, Sask., even knew what OCD meant.

“I had a ton of things as a kid that were OCD traits, but they were good things,” he recalled. “Like, I never lose things. I know where my wallet, my phone, my keys are at all times. My homework would be done the moment I stepped in the door from coming home from school.”

His bike and baseball glove were always put away in the exact same spot. He was a meticulous kid, which, as any parent would agree, is rare.

“OCD has a lot of great traits that seem like a good kid that’s focused,” he said. “It’s when your brain latches onto something that you don’t like when you start have trouble with it.”

For instance, a fear of germs or illness can lead a person with OCD to washing their hands so often they bleed.

Ingram has been through the worst of it, he hopes. His wife Sarah — “An angel in human form” — is his rock, and he leans on her as he does his weekly therapy sessions.

As Ingram told the NHL.com’s Amalie Benjamin after he emerged from the program, “For the rest of my life, I’ll sit in a stranger’s chair and tell them my problems once a week.”

“It’s like an illness,” he said now, shrugging. “Some people take a shot once a month. I sit in a stranger’s room once a month.”

As Ingram ponders a return to the NHL, he also considers the procession of journalists who will want to hear his story. The attention.

“It’s the first place people go,” he said, more matter-of-factly than by way of complaint. “Nobody thinks that we’re human beings just struggling a little bit. There’s a lot of that in hockey that doesn’t get talked about.

“I mean, we’re not allowed to talk about it. We’re monuments, not people.”

Does hockey understand a guy like him?

“Hockey’s changed,” he said. “I mean, how many teams have sports psychologists now? I remember looking at our staff (earlier in his career) and thinking, ‘You’ve got three trainers, a physio, a massage guy, a chyro person, and we didn’t have a sports psychologist.’ I remember just thinking, ‘The one thing I need isn’t here.’”

In Edmonton, should his game find a level deserving of promotion, he will find whatever help he requires, under a progressive general manager in Bowman. In Chicago, Bowman experienced how old-school hockey handles modern issues — namely, the Kyle Beach incident — and he has vowed to take a more modern approach to whatever might await him in Edmonton and beyond.

Also, Ingram will find in Kris Knoblauch a head coach who comes from the same home town in Saskatchewan, whose parents Ingram knows well.

“Mrs. Knoblauch, Holly, was our receptionist at my school my whole life,” Ingram said. “Bob (Kris’ dad), he ran the rink when I was really little, and then he refereed basically every minor hockey game I ever played.”

Bowman traded for Ingram in hopes he can become the goalie he once was in Arizona. There, Ingram put together back-to-back seasons with a .907 save percentage, behind a pair of Coyote teams that each finished 27th in the NHL standings.

But the process will not be speedy. Ingram got shelled in his last start — five goals on 20 shots Sunday in Calgary — and he has an .848 save percentage through four starts with Bako.

Everyone is sympathetic of Ingram’s journey, of course. But no one will step aside and hand him their job.

“I think it was almost eight months between hockey games for me. It’ll come back. I think it’s right there,” he said before the Sunday start. “When I was in Arizona, I was the NHL first star of the week. I have a Masterton (Trophy) sitting in my basement that no one will ever take away from me. I haven’t changed. It’s still right there.

“I’ve been doing this for long enough that I have faith in it. I don’t feel like I have to make major changes anymore,” he said. “I’ve got such a big gap in my resume, once you lay a base down, then you can lean on it and go back to it. At the end of the day, it’s just hockey.”

As far as a call-up to Edmonton one day, the dichotomy is stark: Shy guy, meet glaring spotlight.

Here’s a guy who despises attention, stepping into the crease of a Canadian Stanley Cup contender, with a back story that will have everyone watching. In Edmonton, should his game get him there, he will arrive as the saviour after two springs of Edmonton having the second best netminder in the Stanley Cup Final.

Wouldn’t he have been better off in a place like Anaheim? Or Raleigh? Or almost anywhere else but Edmonton?

“I definitely don’t like the attention, but I’ve done this for a long time, and I’ve learned how to stay out of it,” he said.

“Most people want to talk to me about my program stuff or things like that. I mean, nobody really wants to talk to a goalie after a game. We’re not usually on the board of people that they want to talk to anyways.

“At least where I’ve played.”