From: Edmonton Sunby Robert Tychkowski
How would you like 30 psychological examinations in less than two days?
If a guy wasn't nuts going into it, he'd have to be three-quarters squirrelly coming out.
But Joe Colborne took the best that his NHL testers could throw at him during the recent draft combine and walked away with his sanity intact.
"Hockey is a pretty big business now and if you're going to use a high pick on someone, you want to make sure you've covered all the components," said the Camrose Kodiak centre, who could be a first-round pick on Friday. "So when you go into those interviews you kind of take it with a grain of salt, knowing they're just trying to do their job."
At times, there was enough salt to make a cow pucker.
"Overall there weren't too many hard questions, but a few teams tried to get under my skin, to see how I would react," he said.
"Some tried to use negative comments, others tried to intimidate me by packing as many people as they could into the room. A few times they would do rapid fire questions to get me off. It was a pretty intense couple of days.
"The toughest part is that the CHL guys could stay at the combine for six or seven days, but because of NCAA rules (he's going to Denver next year) I was only allowed to be there 48 hours. So I had to get all my interviews and all the physical testing done in two days."
Aside from the mind games, most teams wanted to know why he stayed in the AJHL this year rather than move on to the WHL.
"That went pretty easy because they have a lot of respect for our coaches and our franchise up in Camrose," he said, adding he thinks he fared pretty well in the interviews.
"You never know what they're looking for. I just tried to be myself as much as possible. Hopefully they liked it."
If a guy wasn't nuts going into it, he'd have to be three-quarters squirrelly coming out.
But Joe Colborne took the best that his NHL testers could throw at him during the recent draft combine and walked away with his sanity intact.
"Hockey is a pretty big business now and if you're going to use a high pick on someone, you want to make sure you've covered all the components," said the Camrose Kodiak centre, who could be a first-round pick on Friday. "So when you go into those interviews you kind of take it with a grain of salt, knowing they're just trying to do their job."
At times, there was enough salt to make a cow pucker.
"Overall there weren't too many hard questions, but a few teams tried to get under my skin, to see how I would react," he said.
"Some tried to use negative comments, others tried to intimidate me by packing as many people as they could into the room. A few times they would do rapid fire questions to get me off. It was a pretty intense couple of days.
"The toughest part is that the CHL guys could stay at the combine for six or seven days, but because of NCAA rules (he's going to Denver next year) I was only allowed to be there 48 hours. So I had to get all my interviews and all the physical testing done in two days."
Aside from the mind games, most teams wanted to know why he stayed in the AJHL this year rather than move on to the WHL.
"That went pretty easy because they have a lot of respect for our coaches and our franchise up in Camrose," he said, adding he thinks he fared pretty well in the interviews.
"You never know what they're looking for. I just tried to be myself as much as possible. Hopefully they liked it."
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