Goalie Stops Here : Blue Finds Spot in Boston After Bouncing Around From Orange County to All Frozen Points North

Bounce around hockey’s minor-league system like goaltender John Blue, experience the sensation of waking up without knowing what town you’re in, and you’re bound to develop some resiliency and resourcefulness.

“At the beginning of each season, I’d make sure to order all white equipment,” said Blue, an El Toro resident for the past seven years. “The colors were neutral, so wherever I’d go, I’d fit in.”

Blue’s jersey collection would probably cover the entire color spectrum--he played for 10 minor-league teams from 1987-92, including six in 1990-91.

And Blue’s ego took more beatings than most NHL expansion teams. Every year, coaches and general managers from Phoenix to Portland, Me., from Knoxville, Tenn., to Kalamazoo, told him to retire.

But these days you can find Blue dressed in black, the standard color for Boston Bruin goalies, and in the league that so many thought he would never reach--the NHL.

“It’s a nice difference,” said Blue, 7-6-4 with a 2.79 goals-against average since being called up by Boston Jan. 7. “It’s been a long, hard road but well worth the wait.”

Blue never thought the road or the wait would be this long. After a standout career at Minnesota, which made the NCAA final four in two of his three seasons, Blue made the 1988 U.S. Olympic team as a backup to future NHL standouts Mike Richter (New York Rangers) and Chris Terreri (New Jersey Devils).

Blue didn’t get any ice time in the Calgary Games, but he still equated his presence on Olympic team with being one of the top three American goalies.

His math was a little off, though.

“I was thinking, ‘All right, maybe I’ll spend a little time in the minors and go right to the NHL,’ ” Blue said. “I was excited about the future, but then, boom , reality kind of hit me. I was a lot farther from the NHL than I thought.”

Blue’s athletic ability and instincts got him to the Olympics, but his coarse technique and relative lack of experience left him stalled in the minors.

Whereas most Canadian players learn to skate when they learn to walk and spend much of their formative years on ice, Blue’s childhood memories are of the sand at Huntington Beach.

He didn’t begin playing hockey until his family moved away from Orange County when he was 6, and from then until high school, hockey was merely a hobby, something to fill the weekends between football and baseball seasons.

Blue, who later lived in Washington state and Northern California, didn’t get serious about the sport until his senior year at San Jose Santa Theresa High School. He left in the fall of that year to play for Des Moines Buccaneers of the U.S. Hockey League, a junior league, and completed his high school degree work in correspondence classes.

But three college seasons and his stint on the U.S. national team didn’t prepare him for the International Hockey League.

“Growing up in California, I didn’t have the coaching (other goalies had),” said Blue, who runs a hockey school in Costa Mesa in the off-season. “I got by by being a good athlete but needed better technique--I had to learn to play the angles properly and to not flop around. That’s when you’re diving all over the place, out of control.”

Blue was a ninth-round pick of Winnipeg in 1987, but the Jets quickly lost confidence in him. They traded him to Minnesota in 1988, but the North Stars didn’t show much faith in him either.

“I don’t think my style was very popular with management,” Blue said. “I just didn’t have many supporters.”

Blue’s 1990-91 season, when he was passed around like a Christmas fruitcake, proved that.

Blue began the year at Minnesota’s IHL affiliate, the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Wings and was then loaned to Capital District (Troy, N.Y.) Islanders of the American Hockey League for 10 days. He returned to Kalamazoo but wasn’t needed, so the North Stars loaned him to the Knoxville Cherokees, an East Coast Hockey League independent. Blue spent only a week there before being picked up by the Albany (N.Y.) Choppers, an IHL independent.

Blue spent three months at Albany and went 11-6. Then the team folded. He moved on to the Peoria (Ill.) Rivermen, the St. Louis Blues’ IHL team, for two weeks and finished the season with Maine (Portland) Mariners, the Bruins’ AHL team.

“What a year--it was crazy,” Blue said. “I remember waking up many times, not knowing where I was at. Everybody used me and everybody tried to get rid of me. I learned more that year about how to deal with situations and people than I ever had.”

And, if you can believe it, Blue wouldn’t have traded that year for any other.

“It brought me to a point where I knew I could handle any situation,” Blue said. “I had every negative thing thrown at me from, ‘You’ll never play in the NHL,’ to, ‘Why don’t you retire?’ to, ‘You’ll never be good enough.’ But I was able to work through it all and still believe in myself.”

At his last stop that year, Blue found someone who believed in him. The Bruins saw enough in Blue to invite him back to Maine for the 1991-92 season. He had a 4.57 goals-against average in 43 games and started the 1992-93 season in Providence.

Blue sat for two weeks while Providence went 2-8. The team then put Blue in goal and won seven in a row. Blue went 14-4 with a 3.3 GAA before moving to Boston, which had a roster spot open when No. 1 goalie Andy Moog had to leave the team for personal reasons.

Blue lost to Quebec, 3-2, in his NHL debut Jan. 7. But he gave up four goals against New Jersey two days later and was pulled from the game in the second period, much to the delight of the demanding Boston Garden crowd, which was chanting, “Boo!” not “Blue!”

“I remember going to the bench and wondering, ‘Am I going to get another chance?’ ” Blue said. “Luckily, the coach (Brian Sutter) had confidence in me and came back with me the next game.”

That was a 5-2 victory over Buffalo on Jan. 12. Two days later, Blue shut out the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-0, and those Boston Garden jeers had turned to cheers.

Blue was the No. 1 goalie for much of January and February, and his 2.79 GAA would rank among the NHL’s best if he had enough games to qualify.

Moog returned last week, but Blue wasn’t disappointed to drop to a reserve role--as long as it meant staying in Boston, where his salary, in the $200,000 range, is about five times more than what he made in the minor leagues, and where he can continue to prove his detractors wrong.

“I was labeled a minor league goaltender, and it’s tough to break that stereotype,” Blue said. “You have to play consistently at this level, and then people will start to say, ‘Well, maybe he does belong.’ Hopefully that’s what I’m doing now, erasing those thoughts, putting new ones in their minds.”

And in the back of Blue’s mind are those people who said he should hang up his skates.

“I remember who said those things, but I probably shouldn’t name them,” Blue said. “I don’t want to be vindictive. It’s not like I’m out to show them now. But it is nice to know they weren’t right.”