Amerks Sean McMorrow relishes role as enforcer

By Shawn Krest

Practice ends, and most of the Rochester Amerks players head for the locker room. A few stragglers stay on ice for extra work or to pick up stray pucks.

For Sean McMorrow, however, practice is just beginning. Grinning like a madman, he throws down his gloves and searches for teammates.

He ties up with Ryan Jorde first, showing the defenseman the nuances of how to fight. He shows Jorde how to keep balance in a fight, how to pull an opponent’s jersey over his head, and how to throw punches while protecting your own face.

The demonstration draws a crowd. Paul Gaustad is next into the scrum, but he quickly decides to square off with Jorde instead. Jason Pominville jumps in and ends up flat on his back, with McMorrow pinning him to the ice.

The playful McMorrow hardly looks like "the toughest guy in the OHL," a reputation he carried with him when he turned professional.

While a label like that would seem to carry a bulls-eye with it, McMorrow doesn’t think anyone has challenged him because of it. In fact, he’s gone looking for trouble.

"Basically the way players see junior hockey (the OHL) here is like a kids league," said McMorrow. "So it didn’t really give me any more challenges from a fighting perspective, but my teammates expected a lot out of me. They heard I had a reputation in junior. What I’ve tried to do is to do a little bit extra to live up to the expectations that the older guys on the team and management have of me."

His reputation does bring him more attention from referees, though. "Usually when something rough happens in the game, my line goes out the next shift. I do feel that there is a spotlight (on me), and that’s fine. That’s the way it’s been throughout my career. I know that’s how I make my money. Sometimes it may be a little bit uncomfortable, but at the same time everyone wants to have the spotlight on them. It’s a little more exciting."

Enforcers are often stereotyped as violent and dim-witted, but McMorrow is just the opposite. Soft-spoken and easygoing off the ice, he explains the nuance involved in choosing when to fight.

"Eighty five percent of the time, it’s when the team needs a momentum change," he says. "If there are ten or twelve minutes in the game where nothing’s happening, or things aren’t going our way, sometimes you can get a change by grabbing someone. It’s happened in (a recent game against Milwaukee) where we were down 1-0. I fought Mitch Fritz right off the draw. The crowd got into it, and, and we ended up scoring three unanswered goals."

Of course, it doesn’t always work that way. Instigating a fight often leaves the team killing off a power play. "It’s risky," admits McMorrow. "But when it happens like that, when you pick up an extra penalty, the boys know what you were trying to accomplish. You just have to live with it and move on."

Amerks notes: The Milwaukee game kicked off a five game unbeaten streak, with four wins and a tie, which lifted the team into a tie for second place in the AHL Central.

Right winger Jaroslav Kristek is on a hot streak. He has scored in every game of the unbeaten streak, with a total of seven goals. Other hot Amerks include Paul Gaustad (4 goals during the streak) and Chris Taylor (6 assists in the streak).

Several Amerks have gotten a taste of the NHL in the last month. Goalie Ryan Miller got a spot start for Buffalo in an attempt to shake the team out of a slump. Irondequoit, NY native Rory Fitzpatrick performed well in his time with the big club, getting an assist in his six-game stint. Amerks leading scorer Jason Botterill was called upon December 9 and Norm Milley was brought up on December 12.

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