Not pictured: A greasy golf club. (Photo: Bruce Bennett, Getty Images)

David Bedkowski is an 18-year-old NHL prospect who has also become a cautionary tale, but not the kind that ends up in a documentary with haunting piano music. The lesson of his story is much simpler: Don’t golf with sweaty palms coated in chicken grease. 

How would one learn this lesson? Bedkowski, who is captain of the Owen Sound Attack, was unwinding with teammates at an indoor golf simulator in North Bay this month when he lost his grip on a club and sent it flying clear out of the room.  

It skittered to a stop deep in the kitchen, next to the pizza oven, and removed a chunk of drywall in the process. Teammates howled in disbelief, and the security camera caught enough of it to turn Bedkowski’s error into a viral moment on social media.  

“I’m just a pretty sweaty guy,” Bedkowski tells our Greg Cowan. “It was just a bad combination of sweaty hands and chicken juice. I went for a hard swing with the four iron, and it just slipped right out at the end of my swing.” 

You can click to watch the 43-second clip right here.  

“I was looking at a TV, and then I just saw a club go flying into the kitchen," Attack goalie Carter George tells Cowan. "Then, all the guys were ducking and laughing, and I thought, what the hell just happened right now?” 

In addition to being captain in Owen Sound, Bedkowski is also a prospect with the Buffalo Sabres, having been selected in the third round (No. 71 overall) in this year’s draft.  

How did the facility’s owners react? Independent of the free publicity, they thought it was hilarious. 

“We didn’t really know what happened until we came over and inspected and saw the dent in the wall,” co-owner Jill Dupuis tells Cowan. “It was comical from the start. Especially with the kids’ reactions to what happened. That kind of put it over the top.” 

This is the part where we, being mature adults, will not make a point of suggesting a player headed to the Sabres should become more familiar with golf. That would be unduly salty.  

Instead, we’ll just say you can read Cowan’s full — and fun — story in the Owen Sound Sun Times, right here.

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Harry Nansi fights for the puck. (Photo: Greg Cowan, The Sun Times)

Greg Cowan has another wonderful story that reminds all of us that NHL prospects do not always develop along a linear path. They are still kids, after all, and not all necessary skills are fully formed by the time they reach junior hockey.  

Harry Nansi is an 18-year-old forward with the Owen Sound Attack. His hands are a gift — “He can stickhandle in a phone booth,” says his coach — but his footwork needed some improvement.  

The Toronto Maple Leafs took him in the fifth round of the NHL draft earlier this year (No. 153 overall) and he spent the summer putting in a lot of that work.  

“He woke up at 7 a.m., trained with Maple Leafs coaches, and ate Maple Leafs food," Cowan writes in the Owen Sound Sun Times. "He gained 10 pounds and came back to Owen Sound looking like a new player.” 

The results are already being noticed.  

“It’s a big sacrifice," Attack head coach Scott Wray tells Cowan. “He’s got a big family back home, and when you’re in a city that you’re not from, and really, a French Canadian too, his second language being English, it’s not easy to do.  

“But, he understands that sacrifice, and he now understands what it takes to get a piece of the next level.” 

You can read the full story right here.

James Boyd, a lifetime ago, in 2014. (Photo: Graig Abel, Getty Images)

James Boyd has left the Ottawa 67’s to become vice-president of hockey operations with the Ontario Hockey League. 

Why?  

“There’s not one reason,” Boyd tells our Don Brennan. “When the OHL posted this job, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s an interesting job that I have no interest in.’ And, then, as I kind of learned more about it, and learned some of the roles and responsibilities … I was talking to different people in the league about it, and I think everyone on the hockey ops side really values this position.” 

He will officially move into the new role on Nov. 17. 

“It’s going to have a different cadence to it than being a GM and scouting and that sort of thing," Boyd says. "It’s probably not less work, but it’s different work. And, for me personally, it’s close to home in Toronto here." 

You can read the whole story right here.

(Photo: Ben Leeson, The Sudbury Star)

This faceoff, between Blake Clayton (Sudbury) and Quinn McKenzie (Sault Ste. Marie) looks to have ended up in a tie, on more than one level.