The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
The Captain
Tasker showcased talent all season
By Tom Perkins, Special Writer
PUBLISHED: March 6, 2008
There was a tense moment in the locker room between Belleville/Willow Run captain David Tasker and head coach Scott Heister early in the season.
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In the heat of the moment, Heister let Tasker have it, but how it put the spring in Tasker's skates. He suddenly began living up to his potential.
"That was the turning point for David," Heister recalled. "I was trying to tell him and others that they could be the dominant players on the ice, but the other teams' guys just wanted it more. I think that pissed him off and he wanted to show me I was wrong."
Until that point, there wasn't a name on the roster that was doing anything dazzling or dominating play for the Flyers. They were struggling as a team and their efforts were poor in their losses but Tasker's game and intensity suddenly spiked and the team followed suit.
Not only was he scoring goals, but so were others on the team, and the Flyers began winning a few more games. And even in their losses, they battled respectably.
"As the year has progressed he has become more the backbone of the team," Heister said. "Obviously he's got a lot of guys out there with him, but as he goes, the team more and more follows. The more intense he gets, it seems that the more intense the team skates with him."
Tasker agreed his and Heister's chat was the turning point.
"Once Scott talked to me and told me that I needed to pick it up, I started skating harder and had more intensity," he said.
He added that while his approach has been to work hard at his own game, he is also out there to help the younger and more inexperienced guys on the team, of which there are several on Belleville/Willow Run.
"I just try to do my best in every game and do whatever it takes to win," he said. "And I try to do what I can to help a lot of the guys get better - show them how to pass, shoot and skate better, or what to do in certain situations."
The junior captain leads the team in goals and assists, and since last season Heister has seen the type of growth and maturation that sets a player apart.
"His confidence has increased tremendously," Heister said, adding that he believes a mid-season position switch from defense to forward for several games helped Tasker realize his potential. "He would never take the puck coast to coast as a defensive player - that wasn't his style. He wasn't worried about scoring himself, but once he got to center he realized he could dominate play, and he started going end to end."
Tasker has spent the latter part of the season back at his original position.
"Defense is what I've been playing my whole life, and switching to center worked out a little bit, but I'm still better at playing D," Tasker said. "I think I'm more comfortable playing defense, but playing forward helped me get more comfortable skating it up, and I'm trying to do that more now."
And there are too many examples to count that prove he is more a threat. There was his hat trick against Royal Shrine and what Heister called their "amazing goalie", or there was the game against Springfield, OH, where the Flyers had fallen behind 2-0.
"It was basically a situation where I grabbed him by the face mask and said 'Go get me some goals,'" Heister recalled. Tasker scored a goal and had a several assists, and Heister counts the captain's sudden intensity and presence in the defensive zone as just as important in taking the game away.
Tasker recalled assisting on teammate Zack White's first career goal.
"I was skating down the ice and I took it wide, came back, looked over, saw Zack, threw it on his stick and he put it through the five hole," he said.
Though Tasker has worked hard in the off season at camps and played club hockey all his life, Heister believes there is another reason he is the player he has become.
"As far as a quality of person he is, there aren't many like him at his age," Heister said. "He is well rounded, very moralistic and him and I can have a pretty frank discussion, which I think you need to have with a captain. He's a quality individual, and an honest young man. It's rare to find kids with his temperament."
Heister added that a lot of guys stick with their club program and skip high school hockey, and he admires his captain for sticking with a team that has a lot of inexperience. Tasker explained he did it for a bit of excitement that can't be found playing for a club team.
"I've been playing club hockey all my life and I wanted to see what high school hockey was like. I wanted to see what it would be like to play with my friends and have all my friends come to the game" he said.
With a 3.8 grade point average and another year ahead of him in which to develop, Tasker said he is looking to continue his career beyond high school, where the crowds that see his talent are only going to grow.
Tom Perkins is a freelance writer for the View/Courier. He can be reached at trperkins@gmail.com.
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