Canes give Hagemo second chance

RALEIGH -- Nate Hagemo didn't know how badly he needed the game of hockey until he tried to go without it.

This week, hockey is trying to give something back to Hagemo.

The one-time Carolina Hurricanes prospect has had a long string of run-ins with the law since a shoulder injury derailed his hockey career almost three years ago, including an arrest less than two weeks ago while on probation.

This week, he's participating in the Hurricanes' prospect conditioning camp, his first taste of competitive hockey since October 2005 and the first scene in what he hopes will be the second act of his life.

"I got off track when I got hurt," Hagemo said Thursday after an on-ice session at the RecZone. "It was a big shock to me. For a while there, it was looking like I wasn't going to be able to play again. What happened with the shoulder, it wasn't so much what was physically wrong.

"There were a bunch of things I had to change in my life even to have the chance the Hurricanes are giving me now. For them to be giving me this opportunity, I couldn't be more grateful. It's really generous of them. It's great that people would give me a second chance."

Hagemo, 21, once ranked among the Hurricanes' most promising defensive prospects, a second-round draft pick after his freshman year at Minnesota, before a shoulder injury derailed his career and his life.

His shoulder is better. His life still needs some healing. The Hurricanes, who retain his NHL rights until June 2009, agreed at the request of Hagemo's agent, Neil Sheehy, to invite Hagemo to this four-day camp in an attempt to help.

"We got a call from the agent just recently," Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford said. "He's had some issues to deal with. ... We just felt we'd give him an opportunity if we can, help him out -- even just going forward with his life in the right direction, that would be good. Give him that last opportunity that he's missed over the last two years."

When the Canes took him 58th overall in 2005, Hagemo already was battling the injury that would help send his life spiraling out of control.

On Oct. 29, 2004, Hagemo was hit in the left shoulder during a game, damaging his brachial plexus -- the bundle of nerves that runs from the neck down to the hand -- and costing him strength and feeling in his arm. He aggravated the injury later that season. The next fall, the pain was so bad Hagemo redshirted after only three games. A year later, after seeing little improvement and unable to play, he left the team.

He was, he says now, completely unprepared for life without the structure hockey had given him.

"It just needed time off," Hagemo said. "That's what all the doctors were saying. I didn't really know what time off meant at that time in my life. I wasn't willing to give that up. All I wanted to do was play hockey. The best thing to say is I felt really lost. ...

"For a time there, I felt like I just gave this up in one hit and all this is over. I had a lot of 'poor me.' I'm over that now."

His legal troubles, though, are not over. In May, according to Hennepin (Minn.) County court records, Hagemo was sentenced to three years of probation after pleading guilty to a gross misdemeanor and four other misdemeanors in two separate traffic incidents. He also still could face felony drug charges after he was arrested in January with what police believed to be heroin in his car.

And on June 29, he was arrested again on suspicion of harassment and violating a restraining order. The Hurricanes were made aware of the latest arrest and were satisfied with Hagemo's explanation, Rutherford said.

"As far all that stuff, it's all in the process of being taken care of," Hagemo said. "All I can do right now is do the right thing and every day try to keep changing for the better and not go back to how things were."

His descent echoes Josh Hamilton's fall from grace, how a series of injuries helped turn the top prospect in baseball into a drug and alcohol abuser before he turned his life around.

Just last week, a friend gave Hagemo a copy of a magazine story about the Raleigh native. Now he's in Hamilton's hometown, trying to begin the same kind of process. Resuming his hockey career is a goal, but not the only one.

"What's more important is that somebody is a good person and lives a good life," Hagemo's father, Lloyd, said in a telephone interview Thursday. "That's what he's striving to achieve. Sports is a part of that. It's not who he is."

In the mug shot taken after his January arrest, when police found what they believe to be heroin in his car, Nate Hagemo's face is criss-crossed with scratches and cuts.

The picture is frightening. It says, very clearly, that Hagemo has been places you don't want to go.

Now, less than six months later, he's so close to where he desperately wants to be.

"I was talking to my mom last night and she said, 'Looking at you last year, I can't believe you've come this far,' and saying how proud she was I was here," Hagemo said, his voice breaking. "Like I said, I'm really grateful the Hurricanes are giving me this chance. I'm trying to do the best I can with it."