It's been a long day for Cheeks Klapanen, and a long past few weeks as well. A long offseason is always dull, especially compounded by a disappointingly early playoff exit during your debut SMJHL season. The frustration was palpable when reporters last visited the Anchorage locker room after the early playoff exit and Cheeks declined to speak to the media then. It seemed like the beginning of a worrying, and familiar trend - continuing from the agency's last SHL representative Leon Athanasios. All the media could hope for was some more communication later in the offseason.

A little over 2 weeks since the brutal playoff exit, there's been little mention of Cheeks Klapanen in the media. One publication mentioned the player in an S71 SMJHL redraft article, where it mentioned that the Finnish defenseman had a chance to be selected at some point in the draft had he declared sooner. Since then however, there's been little to no mention of the young player. We reached out to his agency last week to hear directly from his representatives what Cheeks was up to, and was simply told "Cheeks is busy preparing for the upcoming SHL Draft and for the next season, where we fully expect him to take significant steps forward and become a reliable contributor to the Armada." When questioned about any pre-draft process, the agency declined to provide any comment.

When reaching out to insiders around the SHL, our publication received surprising news - "he's just not talented enough to play here" said one team scout, while another said "that's one of the worst agencies in the business, there's no chance we take a chance on a player coming out from over there. They don't communicate with the press, their training is sporadic at best, and their players take seasons before showing signs of improvement. Why would we take such a sketchy player?" Absolutely shocking words to hear about a prospect once quietly regarding to be a promising young player in a fresh role compared to what he played in overseas in Finland. From this point onwards, we decided to do some investigation into what we had heard, and to see if these rumors were substantiated or not.

We began by reaching out to staffers on Anchorage with a promise of secrecy and anonymity. What we wanted to learn about, was what Cheeks was like around the team and organization. From a media perspective, all the world knew was a relatively quiet kid with minimal public presence and no history beyond a hard-working Finnish hockey bloodline. The staffer we spoke to informed us that he only saw Cheeks in the team training facility for practices, and never otherwise. There was no weight training, no meetings with team training staff for care, and simply no additional presence beyond the bare minimum. However the staffer admitted that somehow the defenseman continued to meet all expected metrics of the team and continued to meet all bare minimum requirements to stay eligible for the team, and active. So there was a significant probability that the Finn was training outside of the facility with personal trainers and rehabilitators. The staffer went on to mention that Cheeks was liked by the team, but more as a quiet dude that a friend group accepts into the circle just to allow them someplace to be. Klapanen wasn't often outspoken in public unless required to be by media obligations (when he decides not to accept the fine), and even showed little personality around the trainers beyond an air of being simply laissez-faire. So truthfully it seems like Klapanen seems vocal only with coaching staff, management, and teammates when required. So far, there's a picture being formed of an eccentric player with some odd habits, but nothing egregious to the point of the league reputation he's seemingly inherited.

When the long awaited draft day came, Cheeks Klapanen was nowhere to be seen at the draft show. As our reporter walked around the green room to speak with various other prospects who did show up to the draft, he couldn't help but notice an empty table with a Cheeks Klapanen placard at the center. While most prospects invited were typically first rounders and high second rounders, apparently the defenseman had earned an invitation that seemingly wasn't responded to. As the draft progressed, Cheeks was not selected by the conclusion of the first round, just as most pundits expected. Ranked as the #33 player, there was doubt whether Klapanen would even be drafted as early as 33 - or if he'd continue to slide down the board. The only teams some pundits had in mind were Buffalo at 40, given their connection to the player's agency, and San Francisco at 38 given their recent connection to the agency's last player Leon Athanasios. To everyone's surprise, former Edmonton GM and current Calgary GM Ellie Williams selected the defenseman at 29th overall - making the Klap man a Dragon. Immediately after the pick, GM Boom made the following statement: "We’re really happy to be able to get a player at this spot to add to our defensive rebuild, and to keep adding voices to our room." Surprising for the team to assume that Cheeks will have any prominent voice in the room considering what other sources inform us. But Williams has had experience with the agency having traded for Leon Athanasios during her tenure as Edmonton GM, so presumably there was some in with the player and his camp.

Hold on, we're getting a live press conference feed from Calgary with Cheeks Klapanen expected to speak first.

Dragons PR Rep: Hello everyone, please welcome Cheeks Klapanen to the live stream. He is calling in from New Jersey via Zoom as well.

Cheeks: Hi everyone, I'd like to begin by thanking Ellie Williams, the rest of the Calgary Dragons management and the organization for selecting me to play for this organization. I'm very excited to begin my SHL career in the future, but I'll be working hard to make the team in the meantime. I know everyone has some questions so we'll take a few.

Reporter: Hi Cheeks, welcome to Calgary. It's been a pretty quiet pre-draft process from your side, we haven't heard anything about you in recent rumors, and you weren't at the draft. Where were you tonight and how did you pre-draft process go?

Cheeks: Yeah so I'm in New Jersey right now, visiting some friends. I thought it was better to spend some time with those I was close to instead of sitting around in the green room since I knew I wasn't a first round pick. Had a nice duck gnocci tonight at a local bar or restaurant or whatever. Some good key lime pie as well. As for the pre-draft process, honestly it was pretty quiet. There's what, 20 SHL teams? To only hear from 3 is pretty disappointing. Calgary of course reached out, Buffalo reached out, Tampa had a nice chat as well. It was good to speak with those three teams. The rest of the league, pin drop silence I guess. My agents didn't really know what to make of it, no one even really reached out to them to set up anything or ask any questions so they had nothing to pass on to me. So it was a pretty quiet past couple weeks after the playoff exit but now we're drafted and ready to start getting to work.

Reporter: So you're saying that for some unknown reason 17 SHL teams simply never reached out to you? Why do you think that is?

Cheeks: I'm not going to really speculate about it here, I can't speak for those teams. I know there were a few who just didn't have a pick in the range I was expecting to go in so that's fine. The others, we didn't really research their teams to identify their needs and all that. We didn't quite feel the need to put in the time and research to figure out who may or may not take me instead of just trusting the process and expecting one of those three teams to reach out. If anyone else had selected me without a pre-draft conversation, I probably wouldn't have stuck around for long in the organization.

Reporter: Well then it's certainly fortunate Calgary selected you after a pre-draft chat. What are you bringing to the organization, and how are you looking to compete for a roster spot?

Cheeks: Probably just a solid two-way game. I think I showed a bit of that with Anchorage last season and obviously you want to improve each season. I don't think there's much to be surprised about with my game. Trying to set up our forwards with good passes, trying to limit the chances other teams get against us. We'll see when I start competing for a roster spot, I'm guessing not this season. I'd be surprised if it was that quick but you never know. Realistically I'd give it a season, maybe two depending on their needs. But we'll keep working on honing the all-around, two way game and find little areas of the game to improve upon. I'm always working with my personal film coaches and trainers to hit the different areas we identify improvement in. It's just as much marginal improvement as you can manage to do.

Dragons PR Rep: That'll be all the questions for today.

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Well a surprising press conference from Calgary, where there may have been more details left out by our sources. It's only natural that Cheeks would have kept a low profile and enjoyed time away from the SHL if there simply wasn't much team interest beyond a few management groups. We can only hope that Cheeks enjoys Calgary and that he pans out into a quality player.