Steve Walker
Steve Walker ( born January 12, 1973 in Collingwood, Ontario, Canada ) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played from 2000 to 2011 for the polar bear from Berlin of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga. After the season 2009/10 Walker abruptly ended his playing career. From November 2010 he played again for the Polar Bears Berlin.
Career
In 1990, Steve Walker joined as a junior at the gambling in the Canadian Junior Football League Ontario Hockey League Owen Sound Platers. In his first season he came up with 16 appearances, scoring one goal and five assists. In the summer of 1993, he joined the Wheeling Thunderbirds in the East Coast Hockey League. He remained there, however, only a year and graduated nine games in which the links shooter could score a goal. He then joined the 1994/95 season the Muskegon Fury of the Colonial Hockey League and managed the breakthrough there. He was one of the best scorers the league and could in the two years in which he stood in Muskegon under contract, 168 time points.
Then he laced up skates for the league rivals Flint Generals, in which he could repeat his performance shown. This was followed by an offer of the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League, which he accepted also, however, left the team after just three AHL games.
He left the Americans and went to Detroit, where he was active for the Detroit Vipers of the International Hockey League from now on. The Vipers Walker was back to its former power and won with the team in the season 1996/97, the Turner Cup, the championship of the IHL. The Canadians stayed another three years for the Vipers and belonged at this time to the point best strikers in the team.
After he had little chance of a change in the National Hockey League or the unterklassige American Hockey League, he pushed in the summer of 2000, a move to Europe. After him the charge of the polar bear Berlin transferred in the German Hockey League. With the Berliners who at that time were on the verge of financial collapse and sporty placed in the lower third of the table, he managed in the coming years, the rise to a serious force in the German Ice Hockey.
While he was in his first season still missed the playoffs with the polar bear, he reached with them already in the 2001 /02 quarter-finals, which, however, was lost to eventual runner- Adler Mannheim. After a semi-final in 2003 and a final defeat in 2004, he won with the capital club in the playoffs in 2005, the first German Championship of his career. Walker had his six goals in twelve playoff games large part of this success.
On 6 February 2005 it nominated the fans and journalists in recognition of his good services to the DEL All-Star Game, which took place in Hamburg's Color Line Arena. Walker scored two goals. It was followed by two more nominations in the years 2008 and 2009. Favorites in the following season he was able to defend the polar bears the title. In the final, the DEG Metro Stars were, as in the previous year, the Adler Mannheim swept.
The left- shooter was now one of the most important foreign striker of his club and crowd. In the summer 2006 he was also appointed by his former coach Pierre Pagé to the team captain. The 2006/07 season was the miss of the tournament less successful for the polar bears. The previous best season in his career was the subsequent season 2007/08. After a second place after the main round and the associated direct qualification for the playoffs, he just missed with 85 points winning the scorer statistics of the regular season. Only the German - Czech Robert Hock scored two points more than the Berlin captain.
At the end of the playoffs, he moved with his club for the third time in four years in the final of the German Cup one. There, the polar bears were able to gain three wins and one defeat until then third all-German championship in club history. He also received the award of Most Valuable Player, which honors the most valuable player of the playoffs. Added to this was the victory in the final of the German Ice Hockey Cup.
In 2009 he defended the German championship title for the second time after 2005 and 2006. Walker was in this season further with the polar bears in the newly formed Champions Hockey League actively and won with his team three of the four games. Nevertheless, the polar bears left behind the Russian club HK Metallurg Magnitogorsk in the group phase of the financially lucrative competition. The now 35 - year-old Canadian was able to achieve only one assist in the four games.
After the 2009/10 season, he decided to end his career now. He cited the long separation from his family, who lives in Canada and its increased susceptibility to injury. A return to the polar bears during the season Walker was, however, open.
Steve Walker played from November 20, 2010 again for the Polar Bears Berlin. He signed with the EHC Polar bears Berlin a contract until the end of the season in the summer of 2011. Walker could only partly build on its strong performances the past, although he came to almost a scorer point per game in its 25 main round inserts ( 5 goals), but in the / - balance sheet showed a typical negative for him value of -1. Experts, they also attested to a smaller radius than in the previous season, but also what has been justified by time out and age.
Awards and achievements
- 2008 Most Valuable Player of the DEL Playoffs
- 2008 DEL All-Star Game ( injury-related cancellation )
- 2009 DEL All-Star Game
- 2009 Best Plus / Minus Statistics DEL Main Round
- 2009 German champion with the polar bear Berlin
- 2011 German champion with the polar bear Berlin
Career Stats
( Key to Career statistics: Sp or GP = Games Played, T or G = goals scored, V or A = achieved assists; Pts or Pts = scored points scorer, SM or PIM = received penalty minutes, / - = Plus / Minus balance sheet; PP = scored majority gates; SH = scored shorthanded goals, GW = achieved victory gates; Play-downs/Relegation 1 )