Alex Newhook having lots of fun with Avalanche

Over 100 games into his NHL career, Alex Newhook is living his dreams

The lives and careers of professional athletes can sometimes be broken down into milestones and dates.

Things like professional debuts, first goals and first championships all get logged as ways to cleanly remember a career.

For 21-year-old St. John’s native Alex Newhook, his young National Hockey League career with the Colorado Avalanche already has a several of those milestones, including a Stanley Cup championship.

Newhook hit another milestone when he logged his 100th NHL game against the Philadelphia Flyers — he scored, too — in early December.

“It's a pretty cool milestone,” he said. “It's one of those things that you kind of look back and it didn't seem to me like it was 100 games, it kind of felt like it flew by.”

NEW GOALS

“At the end of the day, you just got to try and take it game by game and try and be as good as you can every game to stay in the league and keep playing.” Alex Newhook

Hitting that mark is nice, but then the goal quickly shifts to doing everything you can as a player to make sure you hit 150 or 200 games played.

That isn’t lost on Newhook. Getting to 100 games is cool and everything, he points out, but how you get to those other milestones takes over soon after.

“At the end of the day, you just got to try and take it game by game and try and be as good as you can every game to stay in the league and keep playing,” he said.

Sometimes, that involves leaning on veterans on your team who have been around for more than 100 games and learning to treat the game as they do.

On a team laden with players who have logged significant minutes in the NHL and who often check in with the younger guys on the team, Newhook has often found himself going to Andrew Cogliano, a veteran of over 1,000 NHL games.

“So, you talk about 100 and the guy with 1,300, it’s kind of nice to talk to him about some of his experiences,” said Newhook.

COMING AROUND

You could forgive Newhook for starting slow in his second full season in the NHL. He didn’t register a point in his first eight games this year, but they don’t call it a sophomore slump for nothing.

Newhook busted that minor slump in the ninth game and hasn’t really looked back since. In 45 games this year, he's scored 11 goals and 19 points, on pace to beat his point total from last season.

Since the calendar flipped to 2023, Newhook has been on a roll. He’s scored seven points (four goals, three assists) in the 11 games in January, which includes his first career three-point game.

On top of his improved offensive play, he’s been contributing on the defensive side of the puck as well.

He’s done all of it while floating between a winger and a centreman for most of the season, depending on what is needed on a given night.

“I've been pretty happy with my play, and I'm just trying to try and do whatever I can to help our team get back to where we were last year,” said Newhook.

SHARING THE LIFESTYLE

The lifestyle of a professional athlete can be hectic. During the season, there's little time for home life, aside from homestands, but it's everything he dreamed about and expected.

He’s been welcomed into the Avalanche organization with open arms since being drafted in 2019 and, as a community, Denver has been quick to adopt him as one of their own.

“As a young guy, you kind of learn what it's like to be around a winning team and winning cultures,” said Newhook.

“That’s going to benefit me for my whole career. So it's been really nice and been good to kind of be embraced into the league in such a culture.”

It wasn’t that long ago, only a couple of weeks, that Newhook got to share the NHL lifestyle he’s been living for a couple of seasons with his father, Shawn.

In what was the first dads and mentors' trip for the Avalanche since 2018, Shawn got a taste of what his son experienced when Colorado headed to Chicago earlier this month.

It was something the younger Newhook was glad to be able to share with his father.

“My dad told me it was the coolest hockey trip he's ever been on,” he said.

“So, it was nice to kind of let him live a little bit through me, and he played a bit growing up, so to kind of see what it's all about to make it and what the lifestyle is like for us, it was was really cool and definitely a special trip that I'll never forget.”

ROLE MODEL

In his time in the spotlight Newhook has become a shining example for young hockey players from his home province and elsewhere.

They can look at him and see someone who started where they are and made the most of it.

Look no further than Reegan Hiscock, who is turning a stint with the Victora Grizzlies — Newhook’s junior A team — into a scholarship with Northeastern University, a NCAA Division 1 school.

Newhook sees the work Hiscock and others from his province are putting in and taking on the duties of a role model for them is something he’s proud to do.

His advice for those players is simply do what you think is the best thing for you.

“I think just pursuing your goal, obviously, it takes a drive, and it takes a kind of an internal ambition to pursue it like that,” said Newhook.

“I think just doing what's best for yourself in the moment, I think sometimes gets overlooked.”