Being an Olympian in 2022 has long been part of Adam Cracknell’s plan. It’s just how he arrived at this point that’s unlike anything he could have imagined.

After signing with the KHL’s Kunlun Red Star in 2019, Cracknell intended to continue playing for them through the Olympics. That way one of hockey’s ultimate journeymen would have some job security and could have been eligible for the Chinese men’s national team.

A lot has changed since then. Instead of yellow stars on his red jersey, Cracknell will wear a maple leaf after he was officially named to Team Canada on Tuesday.

“It wasn’t my goal just to play for the (Chinese) Olympic team,” Cracknell said. “It was nice to have a job for a couple years and be somewhere where I was relatively comfortable. COVID just threw a wrench in it like everyone else’s lives.

“Now, I’m going to take advantage of the opportunity and hopefully represent my country as best I can.”

Rather than leading the way in Kunlun, Cracknell is amid his second season with the Bakersfield Condors, the Edmonton Oilers’ AHL affiliate. He signed a two-way contract with the Oilers for 2020-21 and an AHL-only deal this season to return to Bakersfield.

Cracknell was on Hockey Canada’s radar when it was announced in late December that NHL players wouldn’t be going to the Olympics. He got the blessing to take a leave from the Condors from Oilers GM Ken Holland, who was part of the management team with NHL players.

Cracknell is third in Condors scoring with 23 points in 28 games but brings more to the team as the oldest player, 36, and an alternate captain.

“I would characterize him as team-first, glue guy, someone who brings it every day,” Condors coach Jay Woodcroft said. “He is the type of player teams win with.”

Cracknell is ready and willing to do whatever he can to help Canada reach its goal of a gold medal.

But he’s also looking forward to touching down in China again and playing in a place he and his family were coming to enjoy.

“Maybe me being the only one that’s been to Beijing, I might be able to help guys out,” he said. “We all have the same goal and we’re all going to contribute in different ways.”

His first stint in China was a great life experience for Cracknell, his wife, Teresa, and their two young daughters at the time, Lynde and Bryde.

But it was also a whirlwind season filled with mentoring younger players, endless travel and stress and uncertainty as a pandemic began — factors that put Cracknell’s well-regarded leadership skills to the test.

Cracknell was running out of options.

He’d had a fine 2018-19 season for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies and San Diego Gulls, recording 38 points in 46 games. He’d even gotten NHL time with the Ducks and appeared in two games. But after 16 years bouncing across the pro hockey scene in North America — which included 210 NHL games, eight for the Oilers in 2015-16 — Cracknell had no contract offers.

He started to wonder if his career might be over.

But two of his Gulls teammates, Trevor Murphy and Andrej Sustr, had signed to play for Red Star. Their coach was Curt Fraser, an assistant when Cracknell played for the Dallas Stars in 2016-17.

Thankfully, Cracknell had some connections, too, and he signed on July 4, three days after NHL free agency opened.

“This is a perfect player for us,” Fraser thought when he heard Cracknell was available. “We were fortunate to get him.”

Cracknell left his offseason home in Cranbrook, B.C., in late July to attend training camp. Teresa and the girls joined him two months later and they lived in an apartment in downtown Beijing.

Kunlun’s rink was 45 minutes outside of the city, so attracting fans wasn’t always easy. Red Star games usually saw between 1,000 and 2,000 spectators in attendance.

“It was like an old factory,” Cracknell said. “It wasn’t the biggest arena. They ran it professionally.

“The experience with the people was always great. They were very friendly. We really enjoyed it. My daughters had fun at the games. It was just a long ride home.”

On and off the ice, Cracknell was one of the leaders on a team that was sometimes out of its depth.

Cracknell would help some of his teammates and those in the VHL (like the Russian league’s AHL) learn the finer points of the game such as forechecks and proper body positioning.

“It was fun to talk with them about how we do things in North America and teach them the game away from shooting pucks,” Cracknell said. “We had an instant bond through the game of hockey.”

“He took charge,” Fraser said. “He knew that we needed him to do that because we had a lot of kids who weren’t ready to play in the KHL. He worked with them every day in practice. He was always a guy you could really count on.

“When things got tough, he dug in. When things were good, he was your best player.”

Cracknell missed 10 games that season due to injury. “It killed us,” Fraser said.

But the situation around the team overall really worsened in December. Players started to get sick and run down. A couple of them ended up in the hospital for a week in January due to illness. It seemed like no one had any energy.

The team was preparing to leave for a road trip before the end of January when Red Star officials were told at the airport they might not be allowed back in China because Wuhan had been shut down. The coronavirus has been spreading in Wuhan, a city 1,160 kilometres south of Beijing, since late December.

They never went back to China.

“We ended up travelling for six weeks in Russia,” Cracknell said.

Luckily, Teresa and the kids got out of the country a couple days after Red Star’s road trip commenced. They went to Bali, Indonesia. Teresa’s parents were visiting in Beijing but they continued on to their planned vacation in Hawaii.

“They basically got out of there in the nick of time before they started doing the lockdowns,” Cracknell said.

Red Star had some of the worst travel in the league with flights as long as 12 hours that span eight time zones. The last few weeks before their season wrapped up at the end of February outside of the playoffs were far from easy.

Cracknell was the team “ace,” Fraser said. He kept the mood light, trying to keep his teammates’ minds off the lousy situation.

“When the COVID problem hit, that really put a damper on everything. But still, the boys played hard, and Adam was a huge part of that,” the coach said. “We made the best of it. It was a good thing we had guys like Adam on the team. Otherwise, it would have been really tough.”

Cracknell joined his family in Bali once the season was over. They stayed for a few weeks because their home in Cranbrook was being rented out.

“I brought my gear to Bali, but there was no ice,” he said, jokingly.

That type of quip is what Cracknell is all about. Though he’s a driven competitor, he’s easygoing in the dressing room and away from the rink. Deep down, he’s a kid at heart. That heart is big, too.

That’s part of the reason why teammates love him, and why many people have a favourite story about him.

Oilers forward Devin Shore was a rookie when he was teammates with Cracknell in Dallas in 2016-17. It was Cracknell who showed Shore the ropes and made sure he was adjusting well to the NHL.

So, Shore happily recalled Cracknell recording his only NHL hat trick against San Jose. Cracknell wore a stuffed shark hat with the teeth around his head during postgame interviews.

“He was pumped, and the guys on the bench were pumped for him,” Shore said. “It wasn’t like it was Jamie Benn or Tyler Seguin getting a hat trick. That was memorable for me.”


Fraser thinks back to a road game against one of the KHL’s top teams when Cracknell skated down the left wing, stepped over the blue line and ripped a howitzer of a wrist shot off the crossbar and in. The goal spurred Red Star to an unexpected victory.

“The entire building took a breath — and then everybody stood up and cheered,” Fraser said. “I don’t know if they’d ever seen a shot like that.

“If you would have seen this shot, it would have made all the highlight tapes for the NHL. It was absolutely incredible.”

Oilers assistant coach Glen Gulutzan was part of Vancouver’s staff when Cracknell was with the Canucks for part of the 2015-16 season. He also coached him in the ECHL with the Las Vegas Wranglers in Cracknell’s first two pro seasons.

Back then, Cracknell was “leading the brigade” to the Palms Casino, Gulutzan said. Cracknell, ever the social butterfly, had connections to clubs and shows and always put his teammates first.

“He did all these things that brought people together,” Gulutzan said.

That rings true for Woodcroft, his present-day AHL coach. Cracknell is the guy who organizes team meals on the road and makes sure no one is left alone during a holiday in Bakersfield.

“He has a knack for pulling people in rather than pushing them away,” Woodcroft said.

In a short-term tournament like the Olympics, creating positive team dynamics can be important.

But Cracknell isn’t going to Beijing to be just a cheerleader or mental skills coach.

“I like to have fun at the rink, but when it’s game time we’re trying to push each other,” he said. “You have to find a way to bring guys into the fight. That starts by leading by example.”

It’s easy to look at Canada’s roster — which features the likes of top 2021 NHL draft picks Owen Power and Mason McTavish, along with three-time NHL 40-goal scorer Eric Staal — and not notice Cracknell’s name.

However, Cracknell is the “perfect Swiss Army knife of a player,” said Oilers centre Ryan McLeod.

Cracknell isn’t known for being the fleetest of foot, but the Olympics are being played on NHL-sized ice. He can play all three forward positions and both special teams.

“He has so much in his bag of tricks,” said McLeod, Cracknell’s teammate in Bakersfield for most of last season. “You can throw him anywhere and he’ll be successful.”

That’s how Fraser describes Cracknell’s role with the Stars five years ago. Cracknell was generally a fourth-liner but was the forward who often got moved up the lineup in the event of underperformance or injury of a teammate. He had 10 goals and six assists in 69 games in 2016-17 — all season highs for him in the NHL.

“I’d take Adam on my team any day,” Fraser said.

It’s not hard to find people who are overjoyed by Cracknell making the Olympic team.

Avalanche coach Jared Bednar has known Cracknell since he was 20. Cracknell’s family billeted Bednar when he played his one season for the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders. He also coached Cracknell for three AHL campaigns.

“I love the story. I’m really happy for him,” he said. “Whenever you see a guy that worked at something for so long to get the recognition that he deserves … that’s important.”

One of those seasons was in 2011-12 with the Peoria Rivermen. Defenceman Shaun Heshka was on that team and said Cracknell going to the Olympics warms the heart of every journeyman.

“We’re pretty proud to see him out there,” Heshka said.

Cracknell left California on Monday for Switzerland where the Canadian team is gathering before flying into Beijing next Wednesday.

There are concerns about returning to China, a place he had to leave because of a pandemic that’s still ongoing. Cracknell said he didn’t contract COVID-19 while he was in China but got it recently — at the end of November — so he hopes he’s in the clear during the event.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a little bit worried,” he said. “We know the risks going over.

“I hope I can get away scot-free and have a great tournament, we do well and come home with a gold medal and everything’s perfect.”

There won’t be any culture shock about being in Beijing, Cracknell said. He should be at least somewhat used to his surroundings.

One difference is his wife and three girls — his youngest daughter, Sophie, was born last May — won’t be joining him this time due to the tight restrictions for the Games.

He’ll have lots of stories to share with Lynde, Bryde and Sophie in the years ahead, though; how he went over to China, could have played in the Olympics and then ended up at the Games with Canada in the end.

“When they get older, I can tell them about the experience and the things that we got to go through and they’re going to be very proud,” he said.

For one final twist, Canada is also in the same group as China.

That means Cracknell will play against some of his ex-teammates — people he led and taught not so long ago.

“To play against those guys, it’s going be a lot of fun for myself and I hope for them, too,” he said.