Rory Fitzpatrick

Rory Fitzpatrick ( born January 11, 1975 in Rochester, New York ) is an American professional ice hockey defender, who currently plays for the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League.

Career

Rory Fitzpatrick began his career in 1990 in his native Rochester, before he joined the Canadian Junior Football League OHL 1992 to Sudbury Wolves. After his first season, in which he presented himself as a defender of both the physical game dominated, as could also set the tone on offense, he was selected by the Montreal Canadiens in the second round of the NHL Entry Draft in 1993 at position 47.

After two more seasons in the OHL in 1995 he joined the Canadiens in the NHL, where he completed 42 games in his first year. He also came for the Fredericton Canadiens, the AHL farm team of Montreal, used. After playing eight games in the 1996/97 season for Montreal, he was transferred to the St. Louis Blues. There he played in the season only twice in the NHL and spent the rest at the Worcester IceCats in the AHL.

The following year, he played almost exclusively in the farm team from St. Louis and only received a use in the NHL. In October 1998, he was hired by the Boston Bruins in the NHL Waiver Draft, but only two days later returned to the blues. In February 2000 he was transferred from the blues to the Nashville Predators, where he also did not make it in the NHL squad and only two NHL appearances in the 2000/ 01 season was before he delivered to the Edmonton Oilers in January 2001 been.

In the summer of 2001, Fitzpatrick was a free agent and signed a contract with the Buffalo Sabres. In his first year with the Sabres, he played mainly at farm team, the Rochester Americans, which are located in Fitzpatrick's hometown. 2002/ 03 he was at least 36 times for the Sabres in the NHL on the ice and also scored his first NHL goal, before he had become a regular in the 2003/04 season.

As the NHL season 2004/ 05 failed because of the lockout, Fitzpatrick took on odd jobs, but received towards the end of the season with the Rochester Americans a contract where he graduated from the remaining 20 games of the season. In the season 2005/ 06 he kept the Sabres status as a regular player, but he missed 26 games due to illness and injury.

In August 2006 he signed a contract with the Vancouver Canucks. There he played a solid season with the team and reached the second round of the playoffs. After the season, his contract was not renewed.

One month before the start of the 2007/ 08 received a sample contract for the training camp of the Philadelphia Flyers, but was initially converted into no permanent contract with the start of the season. On October 9, the Flyers him committed but still.

Rory Fitzpatrick was not able to show the offensive qualities by which he could excel at the juniors in his pro career. He is also more likely than hard worker and not as a gifted defender.

NHL All-Star Game in 2007

The NHL resulted in the fall of 2006 a new electoral system for the NHL All-Star Game in 2007, after which everyone was allowed to vote as many times as he wanted. Some fans who did not believe in this new system, joined together in order to reveal the shortcomings of the new electoral system in Internet forums. While many fans players were chosen, which are particularly strong performances showed a scorer or offensive defender, the group of opponents decided exactly the opposite type of player in the All -Star Game to choose and chose this for Rory Fitzpatrick to beginning of the election no point scorer was on his account. The idea quickly spread about other Internet forums and found more and more followers who voted for Fitzpatrick. By the time it was even campaign spots on the internet portal youtube and it was even a website posted on the Internet, which campaigned for Rory Fitzpatrick as an All -Star.

While the campaign was first conceived as a funny action against the new electoral system, it evolved over time to a symbolic gesture. Many fans chose now for Fitzpatrick, because they were of the opinion that a defender who does not protrude through high scores, but his team is working hard and therefore not in the spotlight, it also has earned elected to the All-Star Game to be, as offensively strong defender.

The campaign was also supported by members of his NHL team, the Vancouver Canucks. So wore his teammates at a training T- shirts with the slogan "Vote for Rory ". A week before the end of the election Fitzpatrick had already received 486 842 votes in the Western Conference and was in third place at the defenders with 36,000 votes behind second place, which he had to achieve, in the All- Star team the Western Conference to make to stand. For it was not to be expected that the coach of the Western Conference would appoint him to the squad.

The end of the election was on 2 January 2007 and a week later the result was announced. Fitzpatrick had not made ​​the leap to second place and had a backlog of 23,000 votes.

NHL stats

(End of season 2008/ 09)