‘He came to play every night’: Hay reflects on gritty, determined Iginla
KAMLOOPS — Don Hay got to know Jarome Iginla before he became a Blazers icon. Hay vividly remembers the first day he met Iginla.
“Bob Brown and I were up at a camp in Sherwood Park, Alberta. We watched him play in the morning. We gave him a contract after the practice. It was him and his mom and his grandma and grandpa,” he noted. “We hand him the contract and said, ‘Take this home and look at it.’ By two o’clock that afternoon, he had it back to us. He was just eager to play.”
That love for the game translated to the Blazers. Iginla became a key member of two Memorial Cup teams in 1994 and 1995.