Ex-Rocket rebounds from post concussion symptoms

Idaho Steelheads forward Mark McCutcheon figures if he was a hockey coach he would love to have a player like his teammate, Tyler Spurgeon, playing for him.
"He brings all the things coaches look for," McCutcheon said. "He's a great two-way player, he kills penalties well, he sacrifices his body. That's a coach's dream."
And Spurgeon also scores. He notched his third hat trick of the season Saturday in Ontario, Calif. That ties a franchise record for most hat tricks in a season during the ECHL era, which began in 2003.
Despite missing 20 games while playing in the AHL, he has the third-most points on the Steelheads' roster (46, with 18 goals and 28 assists in 34 games). Spurgeon also leads the team in plus-minus ratio with a plus-21.
Add it all up and you can see why McCutcheon thinks a coach might appreciate the 5-foot-10, 188-pound center.
Oh, and by the way, his coach does.
"In my 25 years of playing and coaching pro hockey, he's one of the best," Derek Laxdal said. "One of the best."
Laxdal was talking about the overall package that Spurgeon brings.
"Tyler's your ultimate professional," Laxdal said. "His approach to the game, his respect for the game, his respect for the other athletes is second to none."
Perhaps Spurgeon's approach to his career is so exemplary because an injury almost took it away from him. Early in the 2007-08 season, he suffered a blow that resulted in a serious concussion, one that he was told could be career ending.
"There was mention of that from the doctors I was seeing at the time," Spurgeon said. "I was having problems with the post-concussion - the headaches, the sensitivity to light. It dragged on for pretty much the whole season."
And suddenly, a career that appeared to be on the fast track to big things was derailed. As a junior player, Spurgeon helped Kelowna win the Canadian Hockey League's Memorial Cup. He was selected by the Edmonton Oilers in the eighth round of the 2004 NHL Draft, and went on to play 119 games at the AHL level before his three-year contract with the Oilers expired at the end of last season.
His goal is to keep climbing the hockey ladder, but that didn't necessarily mean the 23-year-old sulked when he returned to Idaho after his stint in the AHL this season.
"If I'm going to be in this league, this is where I want to be. So when we come back here, it's not so much a letdown as 'OK, we're going to get back to work,' " said Spurgeon, who has 14 goals in the 14 games he's appeared in since returning to Idaho.
Note: Goalie Richard Bachman was reassigned to Idaho by the Texas Stars of the AHL on Wednesday. He is 3-3 with a goals-against average of 2.07 in the six games he's played with Texas this season.