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Ragnar · 09-14-2020, 10:03 AM

The S55 SMJHL season has come and passed, and along with that a variety of emotions, depending on who you root for, who you root against, who you want to see go far in their career and who you don’t. Along with another SMJHL season coming and passing is the coming and passing of another SHL draft, which saw some big names go early, some big names fall, some little known names picked in the middle, well you get it. People were picked. Many players were picked exactly where they were predicted to go, however one in particular was not.

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Hailing from Serbian, the towering six foot, eight inch goaltender Chimkin Tendy grew up in the town of Zrenjanin. But life wasn’t always as glamorous back home in Serbia as it is now in Anchorage. Chimkin grew up with his mother, father, and six brothers. The six brothers had to share a bedroom and all had to get jobs at a very young age, making it difficult for Chimkin to focus solely on hockey. His father worked long hours at the coal mines and his mother worked long hours at the other coal mines, leaving Chimkin, the eldest, to also take care of his younger brothers and mold them into the men they are today.

It is this resiliency and intestinal fortitude that has helped lead Chimkin on his path to a successful hockey career thus far, posting very decent numbers in his youth years and even decent numbers in the SMJHL, though in a limited role. He has a “never give up, even when the chips are stacked against you,” attitude and it shows. In just ten games played last season, Chimkin Tendy posted a 2.31 goals against average, and a .910 save percentage. In one of the ten games he had a shutout, which wasn’t accomplished by eight other goalies, six of which played more games than he did. If it hadn’t been for the season-long lights out play by Scoochie Stratton, Tendy could have shown off more of his goaltending prowess throughout the season.

Fast forward to the draft, and we see him picked by most experts in the media to go at the end of the second round, 36th overall to be precise, to the Tampa Bay Barracuda. Pretty standard for a goalie to go that late in the draft, as it is a position that often doesn’t need to be filled by teams every single year. Most teams in the SHL actually have a good goalie tandem, so they can forgo drafting a goalie for three or four or more seasons. In order to see where Chimkin Tendy was drafted and by whom, you’ll have to move forward 11 spots, well into the middle of the 3rd round, where he is taken by the S55 Challenge Cup Champions, the Buffalo Stampede. Starting for the Stampede is Elizabeth Doyle. She has 5 years of experience over Tendy and is looking to be the starter for Buffalo for many seasons to come. On top of her experience, she had an incredible year last year, going 34-10 in 44 games with a 2.01 goals against average and a .916 save percentage. She also had 5 shutouts. Her stats were better in 44 games in the SHL than Tendy’s were in 10 games in the SMJHL, so obviously she’s the better choice moving forward.

After an extremely long introduction, our very own Frank Interviewguy sat down with Chimkin Tendy to ask him a few questions.

FI: Hi Chimkin, thanks for sitting down with me. How are you feeling now that you’ve been drafted?

CT: I’m very excited about being drafted. I thought I was going in the second round, so to not hear my name after the second round was finished was kind of a bummer, but hearing it eventually was a rush of excitement. I’m very excited to eventually have a long and storied career in the SHL.

FI: How excited are you to eventually play for the Buffalo Stampede?

CT: Extremely. They just won the cup right before they drafted me, so obviously there is a winning culture straight out of the gate over there. I know I won’t be playing for them right away, and I have a lot of developing to do in the SMJHL, but just the thought of getting into a winning team right away is a dream come true.

FI: Speaking of development, how many more seasons do you think you have before you make the jump to the big team?

CT: I’m not sure. It’s not really up to me, so it’s difficult to say. I would guess the full four seasons before I’m backing up Doyle. She’s an amazing goalie and I don’t think I’ll be able to take the starting position from her. She’s just too good. So I’ll be working my ass off in the juniors for as long as I can and getting as good as I possibly can, and hopefully I can eventually surprise a lot of people and make them regret not taking me earlier in the draft.

FI: Speaking of the juniors, how do you think your first season in the SMJHL went?

CT: I think it went pretty good. Obviously I wasn’t the starter, so I only got to play in ten games… but in those ten games I feel like I did really well. I think it was a great way to show that I can compete in the juniors and put up good numbers, even when I play big minutes and lots of games. Hopefully the Anchorage management sees that and gives me more games moving forward. We’ll just not talk about the playoff game I subbed in for Smile

FI: How do you like your management in Anchorage?

CT: They’re great. They clearly know what they’re doing and they have put together a really great team up there in Alaska. With a little puck luck, the playoffs would have gone much different. But that’s how it goes in those situations, you just never really know who’s going to come out on top. We’ll come back next year more hungry than ever.

FI: And what about your management in Buffalo?

CT: The management in Buffalo is also amazing. Their work speaks for itself I would think. They just won a cup, so obviously they know what they’re doing. And the fact that they took a chance on me, well I am eternally grateful to them for that. I look forward to being a meaningful contributor to their team whenever they give me the honor of letting me lace up for them. Until then, Anchorage has my full and undivided attention moving forward.

FI: I think that about wraps it up. Thanks for visiting with us, Chimkin.

CT: Thanks. Do you guys validate parking?

FI: No.

[1,145 words, x2 for draft article]