Jackson prepping for last "home game"

From The Daily News of Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008. . . .

Scott Jackson is trying to treat tonight’s WHL assignment like just another
game.
You wonder, though, if there won’t be times when he sneaks an extra glance
or two towards his parents, Liz and Doug, in the Interior Savings Centre
stands.
Jackson, who turns 21 on Feb. 5, is in his fifth and final season with the
Seattle Thunderbirds, who are to play the Kamloops Blazers tonight. He is
from Salmon Arm and, with Seattle not scheduled to appear here again this
season, he knows that this is in all likelihood the last “home game” of his
career.
“I am (pumped),” he says, adding that the trips to Kamloops have always been
special.
“Especially my first season . . . there was a lot of excitement,” he says.
“Everybody loves to play in front of their friends and family and that was
always the closest place for me. It was always exciting and I seemed to play
better in those games.
“As you get older it loses a little bit because everyone has seen the games
and everything, but it’s still nice to be able to get to the home crowd once
in a while.”
This one, however, is different. It will be, to borrow from Martin Scorsese,
his Last Waltz.
“I think with those kinds of things . . . it might hit you after the game’s
over,” the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Jackson says from the home of Barbara and
Kent Chaplin, his billets for the last three years. “Once you’re getting
ready for the game it’s still just another game you have to prepare for and
you have to come into it like that.”
It won’t be “just another game” for Mom and Dad, though.
“We look forward to (games in Kamloops), for sure,” Liz says from Salmon
Arm. “We treasure any of those times when we get a chance to see him.”
This one will be the 299th regular-season game of Jackson’s career — he will
play No. 300 on Friday in Spokane against the Chiefs. Jackson is fifth on
Seattle’s career list of games played and will move to third if he stays
healthy for the rest of this season.
He has learned, as everyone does, that time waits for no one. He feels that
it was a long time ago when he played his first WHL game — that was on Dec.
11, 2002 — and yet it seems like only yesterday.
“It seems like it sped right by,” Jackson said. “But when I actually think
about coming down here and everything, how long ago it was, it was a while.
It’s been a large part of my life, for sure.”
The 42nd pick in the 2002 bantam draft, Jackson played two games with the
Thunderbirds that December and remembers being paired with Matthew Spiller,
who now is with the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers.
“I remember playing with Spiller a bit, and him kind of helping me along and
pointing me in the right direction as I was racing all over the ice,” a
chuckling Jackson says.
Since then, a lot of ice has gone under those blades. In 298 regular-season
games, he has 104 points, including 20 goals. He has played seven games in
Kamloops, setting up two goals as the Thunderbirds have gone 3-4-0-0.
Jackson missed Seattle’s first of two visits to Kamloops this season because
he was in camp with the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings. A second-round pick by St.
Louis in the NHL’s 2005 draft, he never did sign with the Blues and was with
Detroit as a free agent.
He later missed some time with an ankle injury. He’s healthy now but he can
see the end of his WHL career from here.
“This season has gone by . . . our schedule is going to be really busy and I
have a feeling it’s going to go by a lot quicker than I want it to,” he
says, knowing full well that as the next few months run their course there
are decisions to be made.
“That is the million dollar question right now,” he says when asked about
the future. “These next few months are going to be the deciding factor on
where I’m going to be in the next few years.”
It isn’t a surprise that Jackson’s goal is to play professionally, “to make
something out of it and to try and go on and get a contract and play for a
few more years,” he says. But he knows he can’t ignore the fact that the WHL
education policy will owe him five years worth of books and tuition when
this season is over.
“The other part of it is the opportunity you get through the (education
policy), and overseas there are a lot of options right now, too,” he says.
“I think about them a little bit but try to put them out of my mind until I
really have to make the decision.”
And that won’t happen until this season ends.
“We’ve always left his decisions in his career to him,” Liz offers. “We’re
there to support him in whatever he chooses to do. Since the time he was 15
his decisions in life have been up to somebody else. From that day forward
he hasn’t really had a say.”
The strong and silent type, rather than a trash talker, Jackson will
continue to go about his business the way he has for the last five years,
meaning his play will do his talking.
He just hopes it’s enough to allow him to continue playing the game that has
been so much of his life.

gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca