[Gumby]

We were talking about Wellwood's fitness level a few pages back:

“His commitment to conditioning and being a professional athlete probably wasn’t where it needed to be for him to have success. It’s still not NHL calibre.”

— Alain Vigneault on Kyle Wellwood, Sept. 21, 2008

“It’s really good, NHL-calibre. He’s one of the good players on our team right now. He understood what he needed to do, and you’ve got to give him full credit [because] he went out and got it done.”

— Vigneault on Wellwood, Sept. 16, 2009

Kyle Wellwood lost more than 17 pounds between training camps. He lost me.

How can anybody cheer for this guy anymore? He is eating nutritiously and exercising. He rides a bike. And not to the McDonald’s drive-thru. Now, it’s his body that is ripped instead of his bag of Old Dutch.

The 26-year-old Vancouver Canuck centre has betrayed the most basic trust with fans, the understanding that he would eat, drink, work out and look just like them. Kyle Wellwood has turned into a professional athlete. Disgusting.

Somebody give this guy poutine before it’s too late.

Surely, the Canucks’ coach must be shocked at Wellwood’s transformation.

“If I said no, I’d be lying,” Vigneault conceded Wednesday after outing Wellwood. “For a guy who had three or four years of junior hockey and five years of NHL training camps, and still not getting it? Now he knows he’s got it and what he needs to do.”

Wellwood had an epiphany. He went into the summer round and came out square.

After nearly eating his way out of the NHL, the doughy player who cleared waivers twice at the start of last season, who was supposed to lose his job after Mats Sundin was signed, was expected to be replaced at the trade deadline, the player who survived all that, is now a lean, mean, fighting machine.

Well, lean, at least. And it may allow Wellwood to finally achieve something more than temp status.

After a healthy summer of hard work, Wellwood weighed in for this season at 180 pounds — 17 fewer than last September. He is thinner and firmer. Although the Canucks aren’t divulging anyone’s body-fat count or VO2 cardio results, Wellwood’s progress is astonishing.

“I haven’t seen my testing,” Wellwood said. “They have the results but I haven’t seen them. They were good enough that we didn’t have to go over them.”

Last training camp, Vigneault went over Wellwood with a bus. And to some extent, Wellwood never escaped the indictment of his conditioning.

Wellwood went on to score 18 goals. He clung to a job that seemed lost for good when he was waived in October, two days before Rick Rypien and Pavol Demitra were injured in Chicago, forcing Wellwood’s return.

Any team could have claimed him at half price, leaving the Canucks on the hook for $499,000 of Wellwood’s salary. He was a great story.

But Kyle Wellwood is tired of the Kyle Wellwood story, and you can’t blame him for that. Nobody wants to be a novelty act forever.

He is at the age where, professionally, he should be taking off instead of merely hanging on. But if uber-prospect Cody Hodgson makes the Canucks, as expected, guess whose job appears to be most vulnerable? Same thing if shifty playmaker Sergei Shirokov makes the team.

“Kyle still has a lot to prove, both to himself and others,” Canuck general manager Mike Gillis said. “We’re really encouraged by how he has approached this, really encouraged about his dedication and determination to become a front-line player.”

Wellwood had to adapt or perish. If his conditioning didn’t improve dramatically, he wouldn’t have been offered a new one-year contract in July and couldn’t compete this month for a spot on what may be the most talented Canuck team in 40 years.

“I just think it’s the culture here in Vancouver,” Wellwood said. “The players and management, their approach to the game is very good and professional. To come in and be a part of that, it’s definitely contagious for the players from different organizations.

“If they didn’t take [conditioning] as seriously as they do, I wouldn’t. How hard everybody works, it’s easy to be part of that.”

Wellwood is noticeably quicker than last season and said he feels stronger. His stamina and resistance to injury should be better, too.

After hernia and foot injuries kept him in a barcalounger much of last summer, Wellwood said he was able to train healthy this off-season in Windsor, where he rode his bike through the countryside five times a week.

He was also able to train intelligently for the first time. Wellwood said it was only after the Canucks claimed him on waivers from the Toronto Maple Leafs before last season that he began to fully understand conditioning.

“At the end of the day, what’s important to me is he got it done for the Vancouver Canucks,” Vigneault said. “He proved he is committed to this team, committed to himself and hopefully we’ve got a pretty good player coming.

“I think probably for the first time in his life. . . he is in real good shape. Until that happens to a professional player, you don’t know the limits. You don’t know what his potential is. I think now we’re going to find out.”

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/F...677/story.html