Westlock local Cade McNelly has made his debut as a professional hockey player, following closely in his family's footsteps.
Twenty-three-year-old McNelly (#3) made his official debut in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) with the Tulsa Oilers on Friday, Jan. 3.
The game, held at the Monument Ice Arena in Rapid City, South Dakota featured a showdown between the Tulsa Oilers and the Rapid City Rush, resulting in a 1-3 loss for McNelly’s new team. Still, McNelly showcased grit, determination, and fight— both literally and figuratively— as he held his own in a fight against the more experienced, 36-year-old, Garrett Klotz (#88). This fight occurred during the first period with six minutes and four seconds left on the clock— ten (gameplay) minutes after hitting the ice for the first time with the ECHL.
McNelly, who weighs in at 6 foot 3 inches and 205 lbs, signed with the Tulsa Oilers in July of last year as a third-pairing left defensemen. After securing a visa and taking steps to relocate, he officially joined the team on the ice mid-season for the 31st out of 72 regular season games.
“I was glad that [the Tulsa Oilers] wanted me on their team,” he says, when asked how he felt to make the jump from the Western Hockey League (WHL) to the ECHL. “I was excited to get back out there and do whatever I can to help the team be successful.”
Final score aside, the game holds great significance for McNelly, who shared his excitement for being able to play after over a year hiatus from playing the sport on a professional level. Even without playing legitimately for a while, he says he has remained diligent in his workout and practice schedule in order to remain in the best shape possible— for exactly this reason.
As for getting on the ice for the first time with the Oilers, he remained calm in the face of pressure, saying that it came naturally after the first few shifts. “It was like riding a bike,” he says
McNelly was a welcome addition to the team, adding a sense of comradrie through his tough playstyle, strong will, and never-back-down attitude. "McNelly was a player that signed in the summer,” says head coach Rob Murray in a news release on the Tulsa Oilers website. “He’s a big body and plays a very physical game. He will add some grit to our lineup and another left shot to our defensive group. We are excited to have him on board.”
Murray’s belief was not without merit, as viewers of the game on Jan. 3 witnessed McNelly’s passion for the sport and dedication to his new team firsthand as he held his own in a gloves-off, helmets-off fight against Rapid City Rush’s Garrett Klotz (#88)— one of the bigger, more notoriously tough players on the opposing team. The scuffle was riveting, with Klotz narrowly taking the victory from a viewer standpoint. However, with neither Klotz nor McNelly getting taken down to the ice in the fight that lasted almost 60 seconds, morale for the Oilers was heightened as a result. McNelly’s new teammates cheered, banging their sticks on the boards and clapping him on the back as he returned to the bench afterwards. Both participants received minor penalties for removing the helmet and major penalties for fighting.
McNelly is not new to the art of fighting on the ice, having been in many similar gloves-off moments over the course of his career, including in his second ECHL game the following day on Saturday, Jan. 4, also against Rapid City Rush, though this time was against forward, Connor Mylymok (#22).
“I think that’s just the way my style and my game are. I've always played a physical game, and I was never really one to back down from fighting,” says McNelly, adding how important it is for hockey culture and building team comraderie, especially with a new team. “I think it helped me to get into the game, and kind of kind of set the tone in a sense.”
McNelly has been skating since the age of 5 and comes from a long line of professional hockey players. McNelly credits a lot of his success to those that supported him in his early hockey days— family, friends, and coaches alike. Perhaps his most notable influences came from his grandfather, Yvon Bilodeau, originally from Vimy, and uncle, Brent Bilodeau, from Clyde. Yvon was drafted round 6 #78 overall in the 1971 NHL amateur draft for the Philadelphia Flyers, while Brent was a first-round draft pick of the 1991 NHL Entry Draft for the Montreal Canadiens.
“Obviously they were playing at a very high level and knew a lot about the game. So, when I was younger, they taught me a lot,” McNelly said.
At the time of Brent Bilodeau’s NHL draft, Brent was already a player for the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds— an achievement McNelly shares with his uncle. Both Brent Bilodeau and McNelly were players for the Seattle Thunderbirds at various points in their hockey careers.
Though McNelly is a rookie, his player statistics speak for themselves. He joined the Tulsa Oilers having already led the WHL in penalty minutes, recording 110 points in just 40 games, adding 10 points (3 goals, 7 assists) from the defensive zone in 2019-20, according to a Tulsa Oilers’ news release from Dec. 19. He also finished fifth in the WHL in penalty minutes (PIM) with a career-high of 123 PIM in 46 games in 2018-19, averaging more PIM per game than any player with more than 10 appearances.
McNelly hopes this jump to the ECHL with the Tulsa Oilers will pave the way to advance his career to even higher levels in the future. When asked if he had a ‘dream team’ in the NHL, McNelly stayed humble, saying, “I'm honestly good with anywhere as long as I can find my role.” He adds, “I just need to find where I fit in the lineup best to get the job done right.”
As of Sunday, January 12, the Tulsa Oilers hold a standing of seventh (out of fifteen) in the ECHL’s western conference. The team is an official ECHL affiliate of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) Anaheim Ducks and the American Hockey League’s (AHL) San Diego Gulls.
