Patrick O'Sullivan lay on his back, limbs up, looking like a turtle trying to right himself, unable to wipe clean that lobe-to-lobe grin. A heartbeat earlier, he had chipped the puck into the net during one of his first unofficial workouts with Kings teammates.
Good times lay ahead.
This is the new kid on the ice block. The Kings thought enough of O'Sullivan, last season's American Hockey League rookie of the year, to trade Pavol Demitra, their top offensive player, to the Minnesota Wild to get him.
A day after that workout, O'Sullivan, a 6-foot, 180-pound forward, betrayed no emotion as he spoke, using a just-the-facts-ma'am voice. This may be a fresh start, but what he sees as a stale tale is in tow.
Bad days best left behind.
This clear-eyed, fresh-faced, 21-year-old has steamer-trunk-sized baggage he'd prefer to check. His childhood, with the beatings from his father, John O'Sullivan, a former minor league hockey player who would punish his son for playing poorly, is in the past. The story, though, is a constant companion.
"There really is no reason to ask about it anymore, but it would be naive of me to think people don't want to know," O'Sullivan said.
It is a grim tale that landed him in a fish bowl four years ago, when he finally said enough and the story went public. The dominos fell. Cathie Martin, his mother, left her husband. Patrick O'Sullivan filed assault charges against his father. John O'Sullivan was slapped with a restraining order. Newspaper articles, magazine pieces and even a television documentary followed.
Four years have passed and O'Sullivan is not only ready to play hockey, he's ready to talk hockey\o7 ... please\f7.
"I do try to separate the situation," O'Sullivan said. "It really has nothing to do with me being a hockey player. What I tell people when I'm asked is it was something in my personal life and I dealt with it. I'm in a much better place now than I was back then."
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The 2003 draft was a difficult day for O'Sullivan. Arena security guards were assigned to him for protection. His father showed up in Nashville anyway, sitting across the arena from his estranged family, gesturing, "Why," every time a team passed on his son.
Everyone knew why.
Patrick O'Sullivan's skills developed rapidly. He went from being a 5-year-old stumbling in his father's old equipment to being the Ontario Hockey League's first overall pick with the Mississauga Ice Dogs in less than a decade. He got that good that fast.
