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Blake Wesley

Blake Wesley is the older brother of longtime NHL defenseman Glen Wesley. While Blake did not last nearly as long as Glen in the National Hockey League, he did enjoy a 9 year professional hockey career that included 298 games in the NHL, plus another 19 Stanley Cup playoff games.

Blake was born and raised in Red Deer, Alberta, where he was a standout youth player until he left in 1976 to play WHL junior hockey with the Portland Winter Hawks. He would put in three seasons in Portland, becoming one of their top players ever. Upon his draft year in 1979, arguably the deepest NHL draft of all time, Wesley was ranked as the 11th best prospect by The Hockey News and was drafted 22nd overall (1st pick of the 2nd round) by the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers had acquired that pick from Colorado in an earlier trade involving Don Saleski.

Wesley was a red head who tried to play with more fire than his natural temperament desired. He was told he needed to be more aggressive and more physical if he wanted to make it in the NHL. He tried the best he could, but perhaps he could have found a little more success had settled down and concentrated on his overall game a bit more.

Wesley would play 2 seasons in the Flyers system, including 50 games in 1981-82, before being traded to Hartford in the big Rick MacLeish trade that shuffled around a lot draft picks and prospects.

Wesley had a chance to play in Hartford, but it was not the best place for a young defenseman to be breaking in.  The Whalers were a pretty weak team at that time. Wesley was a combined -50 in 100 games over 2 seasons in Hartford.

A quarter of the way into the 1982-83 season Wesley was on the move north to Quebec City. He would find a home on the Nordiques blue line over the next three seasons, though by the third season he was demoted down to the minor leagues.

Wesley resurfaced for 27 games with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1985-86, but otherwise rounded out his career in the AHL.

Blake Wesley, a notably impressive chef, retired in 1988. In 298 NHL games he scored 18 goals, 46 assists for 64 points. He moved back to Portland after his playing days, where he had run a summer hockey school for many years. He was working for the local Pepsi bottler in the 1990s before becoming a junior hockey coach in the new century. Now he appears to be heading up elite hockey schools in British Columbia's Okanagan region.

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