Jon was always an athlete as a kid. Born in Killarney, Ireland, he played a number of different sports, including football (soccer), rugby, hurley, and track and field. He excelled at all of them and despite having dreams like any typical kid, never expected to make a career out of any of them. At the age of 10 he moved to Canada with his parents where he first picked up the game of hockey. He had seen it on TV a few times in Ireland but didn't know much about it until his new Canadian friends got him interested. From there he signed up to play, and while it took him a couple of years to catch up to the development of other kids, he quickly surpassed most kids afterwards. He had played both forward and defense but eventually settled on D when he was 14. He spent a few years playing AAA hockey on the east coast before being drafted to the Halifax Raiders, and the rest is history.