Former Flyers-Pat Falloon & Reggie Leach have ties with Cheechoo

Jonathan Cheechoo, 26, coming off a franchise-record 56-goal season, could be at the center - make that right wing - of the Sharks' drive to make the next Cup Finals. Loaded with the NHL's top goal-scorer (Cheechoo) and MVP (center Joe Thornton), the Sharks aim to become the first California team to win the Cup.

And to think Cheechoo only had to commit one serious no-no as a member of Moose Cree First Nation - the tribe inhabiting the small island of Moose Factory - to get to this point: He ignored his elders. At least one, anyway. His grandmother's reaction to him being drafted by San Jose in the second round in 1998 was, "Maybe he should just forget about it, come home," says his dad, Mervin.

Most in Moose Factory (population: 2,800), whose community and financial support boosted Cheechoo's chances to become the first from the tribe drafted into the NHL, hoped their native son would be chosen by the Toronto Maple Leafs. That was only an eight-hour trip in the winter, slightly longer when the ice thaws. The Montreal Canadiens would have sufficed, too.

But San Jose? "To hear 'San Jose, California,' was a shock," Cheechoo's father says. "Not many of us knew where it really was. We thought it was a world away."

Cheechoo saw it coming. When he had penned a "Where do you see yourself in 10 years?" assignment for school when he was 12, he saw himself playing with the Sharks.

"It was 1992, and they were a new team," Cheechoo says. "I had a Sharks jacket, and my favorite junior player was (Sharks forward) Pat Falloon. It was just something that kids do."

No native player had scored at least 50 goals since Reggie Leach did it for the second time with the Philadelphia Flyers, in 1979-80.