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Erie Otters’ Jake Evans throws massive bodycheck in OHL (VIDEO)

It has taken all kinds of finely meshed gears for the Erie Otters to go from the penultimate spot in the OHL pecking order, 19th overall last season, to its second-best record.

Normally, an Otters highlight might involve a breathtaking scoring play involving usual suspects as 16-year-old phenom Connor McDavid, Toronto Maple Leafs prospect and OHL scoring leader Connor Brown and/or Washington Capitals first-rounder André Burakovsky. On Friday, Jake Evans, the 18-year-old worker-bee wing who had full-time job last summer with the Multiple Sclerosis Society's Niagara region chapter, showed the team also had some sandpaper. The forward knocked one of the league's best shutdown defencemen, the Oshawa Generals' Josh Brown, flying with right-into-the-living room check.

Best of all, it was clean. See, it's still possible to have a big check in the OHL without worrying about a head injury.

Evans, from Thorold, Ont., toiled through the past two dreary Erie seasons and 17-year-old season truncated by a medial collateral ligament injury. It's undoubtedly a full-time job to train to be a major junior player in hope of cashing in a pro-hockey lottery ticket upon reaching one's early 20s, so it's all the more impressive that he slugged it out as a 9-to-5'er in the summers.

“I get some chirps about working — some guys say working out should be your full-time job in the summer, but I still manage doing both,” he told the St. Catharines Standard. “It’s tough sometimes waking up early, going to work, then to the gym and hockey after, but it’s a good experience. It makes me want to work that much harder in hockey.”

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet. Please address any questions, comments or concerns to btnblog@yahoo.ca.