RALEIGH, N.C. _ One of several tattoos on Scott Darling's right forearm is of a phoenix, that mythical creature that rose from the ashes. The same image is on his goalie mask, a reminder of his unlikely climb from castaway at the lowest level of pro hockey to Stanley Cup champion.
He arrives at The Performance Academy in Raleigh, N.C. on a steamy Monday in July at the beginning of a different ascent, trying to work his way back from one of the worst seasons by a goalie in the NHL's modern era and into the good graces of the Carolina Hurricanes.
There's not much on the line: Just his career. And the Hurricanes' nine-year playoff drought.
Bill Burniston, the Hurricanes' strength and conditioning coach, is waiting for Darling, who arrives wearing USA Hockey shorts from his recent stint with the national team at the world championships. A few other athletes are working out, teenaged baseball and hockey players, but it's a holiday week and the cavernous gym is mostly empty. Burniston puts down his coffee and warms up with Darling by playing catch. This isn't part of the program, but Darling has a new baseball glove he's trying to break in.
Soon, he's on the indoor turf field surrounded by four LED lights on stands, set up in a square about 20 feet on a side. Darling has to dance between them, responding as they turn on and off, constantly shuffling and changing direction. Cam Ward, who arrived at the gym shortly after Darling, a day after signing as a free agent to fill Darling's old job as a backup for the Chicago Blackhawks, joins him for some of it.
"A good ankle-breaker," Darling says.
"If I wanted to break your ankles, I'd do other things," Burniston says.
"I'm getting turf burn, I'm moving so fast."
"Your feet are smoking."
It's the kind of offseason workout NHL players all over the world are doing to get ready for the season, and it's what Darling apparently wasn't doing last summer when he signed a four-year, $16.6 million contract, came in out of shape, struggled in net and became the single most critical factor why the Hurricanes missed the playoffs yet again (although there were several).
"If Darling has just an average season, and I think he's going to have one better than that, we will be a playoff team," former owner Peter Karmanos said before the season. Darling did not _ and the Hurricanes were not.
The Hurricanes never won more than four games in a row. Of their five winning streaks of three or four games, four ended with a switch from Ward to Darling in net. He was the ultimate cooler, the guy you hope never sits down at your blackjack table.
His general manager got fired and his coach left before he could get fired. The Hurricanes' new management team did have one opportunity to trade Darling's contract this summer but decided his history as a backup with the Blackhawks offered enough reason to gamble that Darling, properly supported and motivated and still only 29, could recapture his previous form.
Wherever Darling is headed, and nobody knows how any of this will work out, this is where it begins. Four weeks in, Darling has lost at least 15 pounds and looks leaner and more defined, even if his red beard remains just as bushy. The Hurricanes are more concerned about his body fat than his raw weight, and don't want to track either closely at this early point in the process, but it's safe to say he's closer to his roster weight of 232 pounds than he was when last season started or ended. There is a long way still to go.
All of which leads to one very obvious question with no obvious answer: Why wasn't he doing this last year?
"I'm not really sure," Darling said. "It was a weird summer for me, in my personal life. I'd grown comfortable in Chicago. I'm from Chicago. That was the longest I'd played for a team, three years. Of all the professional teams I've played for, that was the longest I'd played anywhere. I had a life there. I had a house there. It was a big move for me personally. I think I just let my foot off the gas and figured it would just work out as is. I learned pretty quickly you can't do that at this level."
