Magazines, newspapers and the Internet have carried Jordin Tootoo's name from his home 320km south of the Arctic Circle throughout North America and the world.
Now the hard-hitting ice hockey player from the frozen North has secured a spot with the Nashville Predators and will be the first Inuit to play in the NHL when they open their season today.
The 20-year-old right wing made the team after a successful training camp with the Predators, the team that drafted him in 2001. That was also an Inuit first.
He is expected to play on the fourth line of a sixth-year expansion team desperate for help at the box office. But Nashville coach Barry Trotz insists he loves how Tootoo plays, not his potential for bringing in fans.
"The one area of his game that everyone overlooks is he really has good hockey sense, being able to play the game. He plays old-time hockey. That's what he does. He's a loud, grinding-type player," Trotz said.
Trotz said Tootoo reminds him of the Detroit Red Wings' Kirk Maltby, the winger with 87 goals and 559 penalty minutes in seven seasons.
"When he's effective, everybody's yapping at him, and everybody's yelling at him," Trotz said. "He's going to be a real effective player."
Trotz has been most impressed with how Tootoo has handled the publicity that comes with his celebrity. Tootoo said he handles the pressure by just seeing himself as the first of many.
"I'm just trying to pave the way for the young kids out there trying to set goals," he said. "And hopefully one day kids can say, `If he can do it, I can do it.'"
The biggest knock on Tootoo is that he may be too small at 1.76m, 87km.
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