Plymouth Whalers' Josh Wesley Becomes Internet Star

Photo of Josh Wesley and his family by Rena Laverty.

Plymouth Whalers defenseman Josh Wesley is intelligent, humble and comes to Compuware Arena every day with a smile on his face.

In the short term that is the news cycle, Wesley – a Carolina Hurricanes draft choice - is the author of a video that has gone viral throughout the hockey world.

Wesley scored a spectacular goal last Saturday in the Whalers’ 5-4 loss in overtime to Erie.

Instead of describing the goal, let’s go to the video (courtesy of Yahoo! Sports Junior Hockey).

A couple of days later, Wesley talked about the reaction to his goal and the subsequent video after the game:

“It’s was pretty neat (to start) – I got a couple of texts from my family, just saying how awesome the goal was,” he said. “I never expected it to be that popular. I started to look at the video and couple of hours later there were 1,000 views. I was pretty pumped about that.

“The next day I looked and there were something like 13,000 views. I thought it was pretty cool. And then, a bunch of people were talking about it. (In the end), I thought it was really neat.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the video has over 19,000 views.

Wesley described what he saw in scoring the goal.

“I just reacted to what I saw,” he explained. “I saw some open ice, so I tried to take it. The defenseman started to jump up on me, so I did a little spin move – that’s what I was taught when I was a forward, so I can get away from him. From there, I try to work on my backhand in practice. So when I got close, I saw a little opening right over top of the goalie (Devin Williams) and I went to go shoot for it.

“I didn’t really expect it to go in, but as soon as it went in, I was pretty shocked. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

“When I was a forward, I would go down the wing and whenever you are that close to the goalie, he’s sometimes on one knee and there’s an opening over the shoulder. But it’s a very, very hard shot to make. Just to see that (shot) go in was pretty special.”

If Wesley’s goal on Saturday was a spectacular individual effort, his first goal of the year – on Friday in London – was a well-executed passing play involving three Whalers – Wesley, Connor Chatham and Victor Crus Rydberg.

Listen to the audio of the goal.

“It started on the half-wall with Victor,” Wesley said. “He passed down (low) to Connor Chatham. All the guys were looking at Chatham with the puck. He’s very skilled with his passing, so I crashed down to the crease (from the right point) and Connor had a great ‘sauce’ (saucer pass) that went right on my tape. I shot it at the net and actually closed my eyes, I think (smiling) – just hoping that it would go in. And it did.

“It was a great pass by Connor and pretty neat.”

With three points out of four to start the season, Wesley is optimistic about the current group of Whalers.

“Absolutely,” Wesley said. “We have great additions with Campagna and Milano and Bitten. We gained a lot of offense and we’re going to be more aggressive this year and be hard to play against. That’s what Donnie (head coach Don Elland) wants, so I think it’s going to help a lot of guys with their styles of play – especially me. I’m excited to see where the season goes.”

Plymouth plays in Guelph on Friday (7:20 pm, www.plymouthwhalers.com only) and host London on Saturday at 7:05 pm at Compuware Arena (7 pm, 88.1FM WSDP).