NHL Lockout Turns Enforcer into Hometown Star

Some NHL players went to Sweden or Russia during the lockout. Some stayed home to hang out with the family and count their greenbacks. A few joined minor league teams in the AHL or elsewhere.

Nobody went as far as Darren Langdon, not in hockey terms, at least. A 12-year veteran of NHL brawls and wrestling matches, Langdon spent the lockout back home in Newfoundland, playing for free. He joined the Deer Lake Red Wings, a bunch of guys with day jobs, riding the bus and playing weekend games in tiny arenas.

Langdon's NHL career has been spent trading punches with fellow goons. But going back to Deer Lake revived his scoring touch. “For the past 10 years, when I got the puck I dumped it in," he told the Sunday Independent. "But it’s been fun doing what I used to do 12 to 15 years ago.”

The long, cold nights on the bus didn't bother him much. Consider Langdon a man with a realistic view of his hockey career: "I started off riding the bus, and I’m going to end it riding a bus."

He and his team mates wrapped up the season last weekend by winning the Newfoundland championship. And if the NHL lockout drags into next season, Langdon says he'll be back in a Deer Lake uniform next year. "I don’t feel like going anywhere like Sweden. They’re too fast for me over there anyway."