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Express look to May to anchor bounceback season

Burnaby Express goaltender Harrison May heads into his final BCHL season under circumstances that are exciting for a few reasons.

In his previous years in the league, May played for the Alberni Valley Bulldogs and the Merritt Centennials, teams that finished last or next-to-last in the BCHL standings. For the 2009/10 season, May has joined a team that is better poised to compete than any of his former squads.

Additionally, the Express are a team that went after and acquired May specifically to lead them forward. Add to that pressure, the fact of playing 15 minutes down the highway from his family and friends in his hometown of Vancouver, and you have a situation that might intimidate most players. But Harrison May isn’t most players.

“I’ve just got to show up and play,” says May. “There’s pressure, but there’s always going to be pressure. I don’t feel a lot of it from other people. I want to win, so I put more pressure on myself than anyone else does.”

May has an unusually calm disposition, even for a goalie. He’s a player of few words who prefers to let his on-ice play do the talking for him.

Burnaby Express head coach, Dave McLellan describes May this way: “Harrison’s got a very quiet demeanor; he plays that way too. He’s quite a matter-of-fact kid.”

“He just comes and does what’s necessary in practice to be physically and mentally prepared. He’s dedicated to fitness and wants to move on in hockey. He’s a good kid, and he’s got a very good approach to everything he does.”

Because May played his minor hockey in B.C.’s Lower Mainland, McLellan and his staff have been able to follow the netminder’s development for a long time. When the Express made the decision to overhaul their goaltending this offseason, they knew May was their man.

“With his development in our league and his experience, we really believed that he was going to be one of the best 20-year-olds in the league,” explains McLellan. “We thought that in the right situation, he’d be the guy that could help us, and so far so good.”

McLellan has reason to be optimistic. Burnaby has gotten off to a strong start this year, and May is 2-0-0-1 in his first three starts. His one blemish is an overtime loss in which he made 42 saves.

May speaks positively about joining his new team, and his approach for the `09-10 season.

“It feels really good, the fans are really good, and we’ve got some scorers,” says May. “I’m just trying to do what I’ve done the last few years, which is stopping the shots and giving my team a chance to win.”

Stopping shots is something May has done a lot of. In the last two years, only the Westside Warriors’ Kevin Jebson has faced more shots than May. McLellan thinks that facing that kind of adversity has made May a “mentally tougher” competitor.

As for May, he is even-keeled about the challenges of his previous BCHL campaigns. “[Facing so many] shots didn’t bother me. I just had to keep trying to win and doing my best,” reports May, explaining his minute-by-minute attitude. “Every shot counts. I play every shot like it was my last.”

It’s that steeled competitor’s outlook combined with a blue-collar work ethic and raw skill that causes McLellan to talk about his goalie with so much enthusiasm.

“[Harrison] is exactly what we’d hoped for,” declares McLellan. “He’s a blocker type goalie that fits our style of defensive zone play. And having coached against him, we found that we had to make adjustments all the time to try to create opportunities to score against him.”

“We think [opposing] teams are going to face the same issue with him in the net. He’s very good with the first shot- if he sees it, he’s going to stop it. He’s got excellent rebound control as well and he’s a big goaltender. He’s lived up to and beyond expectations.”

All of the above bodes well for May’s future. He’s committed to the game he loves, and approaches the sport with the kind of understated but intense passion that is prototypical of the Canadian hockey personality.

“This year I just want to win,” says May. “I also want to get noticed, and you have to win to get noticed… [As for the future,] I just want to play. I’d like to go to college or play pro – anything. I just want to keep going.”

For a guy who stops pucks the way Harrison May does, keeping going shouldn’t be a problem.