Connection Back To Perfection With Ankle Nearly 100 Percent, Cardarelli Helps Cirjak Rekindle Memories Of Burnaby

When the ankle snapped, Joe Cardarelli wasn’t sure where the pain was coming from.

It hurt everywhere.

In agony, slumped against the wall at Eagles Ice-A-Rena, he didn’t know how to answer Jason Podollan, the first on the scene to ask what was wrong?

What’s wrong? Everything, actually.

There was the pain. It came out of the nowhere of an Oct. 12 practice and promised trouble.

Working 3-on-2, driving for the net, centering the puck for Podollan, Cardarelli had opened himself up. Defenseman Joel Boschman stepped into him, routinely. Cardarelli simply lost an edge and crashed into the wall.

But there was more to the agony than the pain. When the ankle gave, the quick start to his 18-year-old season gave with it.

The NHL’s Tampa Bay Bandits had picked the Spokane Chiefs left wing in the eighth round of the ‘95 entry draft. Cardarelli was eager to make them see the wisdom of their move.

A lot was going right.

Coach Mike Babcock was taking his first look at a Podollan-Trent Whitfield-Cardarelli line that would match Cardarelli with the quickest and most skilled of the Chiefs’ deep stable of forwards. One moment it was clicking, the next Cardarelli was being gathered up and hauled away.

The Chiefs cursed their luck and went on with the business of winning that now has them 10 games from their first Western Hockey League West Division championship.

Cardarelli missed 28 games.

“After it happened I started thinking how I could be involved with the team without actually playing,” he said, “but that was just about impossible. When you’re not part of the onice activity, all you’re doing is hanging out with the guys.”

Hanging out, crutching around the locker room and the halls of the Arena, Cardarelli took heart from the slightest encouragement.

“I’d go in for a checkup and hear that things were moving along well and I’d get excited,” he said. “I had to keep looking ahead. I had to put things into perspective. If I came back and couldn’t play, I made up my mind I’d work that much harder in the summer.”

The ankle is still less than 100 percent (“It probably won’t be 100 percent until summer,” he says, “but there’s nothing to worry about.”). Back-to-back games can cause some swelling. Yet even with a wheel at 95 percent, Cardarelli, since his return after Christmas break, has been a persistent, consistent attacker.

His unassisted goal and an assist on a Dmitri Leonov strike in Portland were keys in Wednesday night’s 4-2 win in the Rose Garden.

On the goal, “Leeber (Greg Leeb) and (Jan) Hrdina were going like mad on the forecheck,” Cardarelli recounted. “Tetarenko (Joey, a Winter Hawks defenseman) came from behind the net and put the puck up the middle, on my tape. I heard Leeber yell ‘Shoot!’ I put my head down and shot.”

He found the far corner with one of the league’s most accurate shots.

It comes from one of the WHL’s coolest heads. Cardarelli is the only Chief with as many goals (21) as penalty minutes.

Tonight Cardarelli is in Seattle, where the Chiefs can regain sole possession of the West Division lead.

Saturday night he’s back in the Arena where he and John Cirjak play like they’re connected at the mind.

It’s impossible to tell Cardarelli’s story without telling part of Cirjak’s. For the last eight years - one season of atom-level hockey, two years of peewees, two years in bantams and three years in Spokane - Cardarelli and Cirjak have teased and tormented defensemen and goaltenders together.

They’re the boys from Burnaby, the Burnaby Connection. Although they went to different schools in Burnaby, British Columbia, and usually played on different lines, they were always on the same team, and never too far from each other on a power play.

Domenic Cardarelli, Joe’s 22-year-old brother, remembers the style.

“One year in bantams, Joe had 133 goals in 66 games,” he said. “It was their last year of bantams and he and Johnny fed off each other. On a give-and-go the goalie never had a chance. They were unbelievable together. You could tell they didn’t belong at that level.”

The Chiefs made Cirjak their first pick of the ‘92 bantam draft, the 11th player taken. A trade with the Brandon Wheat Kings gave them an earlier second-round choice - the 18th pick of the draft - that they used to select Cardarelli.

It was the right move at the right time. Chiefs general manager Tim Speltz said that only three of the 16 second-round picks that year are playing in the WHL.

If they’d waited any longer, the Chiefs might not have brought in the act that played so well in Burnaby.

The Connection can be as instinctively lethal as ever. Often it’s Cirjak and Leeb circling low with Cardarelli, cool and sturdy, in the slot, taking the bumps and waiting for the puck.

The two are nearly as close off the ice, although everybody’s friends on a winner.

Strong but not particularly quick on skates, Cardarelli is what the coaches call an improving skater. After a game, you can find him in the weight room, pumping the exercise bike. He’s made himself quicker.

“Once I get going, I’m pretty good but going from A to B is slow,” he said. “Jumping the loose pucks” is not one of his strong points.

“I worked on an acceleration program last summer in Vancouver,” he said. “I could tell the difference from training camp last year to this year.”

Most of the other tools are in place.

The Cardarelli family attends weekend games in Kamloops, Seattle and Kelowna and occasionally - as on Saturday night - here. Otherwise their source is the radio.

“We listen to every game (on Spokane radio KGA),” Domenic Cardarelli said. “Sometimes, the whole family comes over - aunts, uncles, cousins - not every night but a lot. We always have the game on. The station is in and out, but for the most part, it’s not too bad.

“We like listening to (broadcaster) Craig West. He gets excited and always says something nice about my brother.”

That’s not too tough an assignment. The team is exciting and it’s not hard to find something nice to say about Joe Cardarelli.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: JOE CARDARELLI Hometown: Burnaby, British Columbia Position: left wing Height, weight: 5-11, 200 Age: 18 Cardarelli, lethal on the power play, has 35 points (21 goals, 14 assists) in 33 games. He suffered a broken ankle on Oct. 12 and missed 28 games.