EDMONTON — Darryl Sutter had one foot up on the bottom rail, his arms folded over the top rail as he watched the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers rookies play for jobs in Penticton. Checkered shirt, he looked like a guy at a livestock auction.

The hockey man in him liked the best kids down on that sheet of ice. The ones who’ll help you win.

But the Sutter in him always cheered for the farm kids from flyover towns like Viking, Shaunavon or Lacombe, Alberta, a disappearing breed at those rookie tournaments as the price of minor hockey and the advent of expensive academies slowly limit families like Lou and Grace Sutter’s from NHL participation.

“Those are the kids you pull for,” Sutter said that day. “The smalltown kids, and the guys who weren’t drafted.”

Meet Daxon Rudolph, from Lacombe, Alta. He’s a little bit of both — a dandy young right-shot defenceman, who at six-foot-three and 206 pounds will surely help you win, and a kid who comes from the same Central Alberta roots that Sutter did.

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