Freshman Friday is a Q-and-A feature with new members of the men's hockey team. This is the third of eight installments this year, featuring goaltender Nate McDonald.
Q: Welcome to Ithaca! How's Cornell been treating you so far?
A: It's been amazing. Just the way everybody sort of welcomes not only myself, but the rest of the freshman class has been really cool to see. In my classes, everyone seems very friendly. And obviously with the team, the upperclassmen have welcomed us with open arms and made us feel very comfortable in the locker room as well.
Q: You mentioned classes. What are you studying?
A: I'm studying human development. I actually started off as a human biology major, and I've already switched because I've really liked the psychology class I'm taking right now and find it really interesting. I'm also in a nutrition class, so I'm thinking of minoring in that.
Q: Had heard that you were once considering physiotherapy. Is that still on the table?
A: Still on that course, it's just that with human development I don't have to take chemistry. It's actually one of the major reasons. But I also really like the cognitive aspect of the development of the body as well. So I figured it was a better fit for me in human development.
Q: Have you done anything along those lines before you came here?
A: Fortunately, I've never really had a big injury or anything like that. But I've always been interested in the therapy aspect of sports. I figure if hockey doesn't work out – and hopefully it does, because that's the goal – then I can still be part of the game, in a sense. I've always been interested in the way athletic therapists and physiotherapists work and how they're integrated into the team.
Q: So you're from North Bay, Ontario, where there's plenty of players that go both the major junior and NCAA routes. At what point did you figure the latter was best for you?
A: I'll be honest, during my minor midget draft year I was really focused on the OHL. I thought that was the route for me, and I got drafted by Peterborough. I thought maybe I'd be able to slip in there, but things didn't work out. So my first year of junior hockey playing in the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League was when I really started getting interest from NCAA programs. So I started shifting my focus toward the NCAA and realized that it would be a good route for me. I've always excelled in school, so I figured it would be the perfect combination – especially being at a school like Cornell and playing for one of the best hockey programs. You really can't go wrong.
Q: So glancing at your career, you went from bantam in Northern Ontario to midget in the Toronto area. So why did you move back north to the NOJHL?
A: I had an opportunity to be a third goaltender with Georgetown in the OJHL, or I could go back north. I wasn't guaranteed a starting position, but I was told I'd be able to battle for that spot. Plus, Powassan's only about 15 minutes outside of North Bay, so it was nice for me to be able to go home and play in front of family and friends. I lived at home my first year of juniors. And the community in Powassan was just amazing. Everyone rallies around the team, sort of like how Ithaca rallies around the Big Red. It was just a really cool opportunity for me as a 17-year-old rookie to get 40 regular-season games in a junior hockey atmosphere, and then after that season I went back down to the OJHL to develop a little further before coming here.
Q: I think it's fair to say your time in Powassan was really a jumping-off point for you. The award list is pretty long – league championship, named the league MVP, first-team all-star, best goals-against in the league. Teams were starting to call. Was Cornell in the picture at that point?
A: I started talking to Cornell around January (2017). We just kept constant contact all the way through, and then I ended up committing to Cornell after my first game in Whitby in the OJHL the next year. It took quite a while and it was a process, but I'm really happy it all worked out.
Q: So that brings us to last year, which actually seemed like a tough year. You start off with a team that finished last in its division, then you get traded to another team that's right around .500. It seems like so much of goaltending can boil down to confidence sometimes. If you're on these teams that aren't doing so well, is it fair to say that it's a real mental exercise to stay confident through that?
A: It definitely is. I would have phone calls with (Cornell assistant coach
Sean Flanagan) once or twice a week, and he would help me just stay in the right mindset. Because you definitely can get in the wrong mindset quickly when you're not on a winning team and worrying about what other people think. So I just focused on making the next save. I was facing 40 or 50 shots per game, which – in all honesty – was probably good thing. I got a lot of pucks.
Q: Somewhere on the internet, I found that you participated in #GCAMP. Can you explain what that was?
A: It's mostly an opportunity for players who perservered through something really challenging off the ice to train with some of the professionals who have gone through similar situations. There were a lot of people there with some pretty terrible stories. But I've been really lucky – I don't have that story myself. I got a last-minute call and they had a goalie drop out and needed a goalie to fill in. To skate with guys like Sidney Crosby and P.K. Subban was pretty special.
Q: What did you take away from that experience?
A: I just asked little things. I talked with Subban a little bit and same with Crosby, asking about what they look for when they're coming down on net – little tweaks in a goalie, like foot positioning and things like that. A funny story from that was that after practice, Subban was just taking some one-timers and I asked him if I could hop in the net. He said 'sure', so he's taking one-timers and they're maybe half speed, or not even – not really putting that much effort into it. So I kept telling him, 'shoot it, shoot it, shoot it.' I was younger, just coming out of midget hockey and hadn't played junior yet. Finally, he just unloaded one. I got my glove on it and made the save, but I felt like I went flying two feet back into my net from it. It was just a lot of fun and a really cool experience.
Q: When did you start playing hockey?
A: I actually started playing in major novice, which is pretty late. I started as a defenseman and scored two goals in my first game, then I went in net. So I grew up in Eganville – didn't move to North Bay until I was in seventh grade – and just playing house league. We were playing against one of the best teams in the area from Petawawa. We ended up losing 24-0 in my first game. I just felt terrible. But I remember one of the coaches from Petawawa comes up to talk to my parents and says that I was a great goalie and that I have a lot of potential. My parents thought it was almost sarcasm. But I just stuck with it. Even though I let in all those goals, I just fell in love with it and haven't been out of the net since.
Q: Do you model your game after anyone?
A: I like watching Frederik Andersen (of the Toronto Maple Leafs). He's a big goalie – as I am, myself – he's really calm and doesn't get caught out of position too often. But when he does, he's athletic enough to make that big save. Just the way he sees the puck. I feel like he's always making saves out in front and he sees the puck and tracks really well.
Freshman Friday Archives
Oct. 12 — Misha Song
Oct. 19 — Joe Leahy
