Looks are deceiving with Bruins captain

Even though Chilliwack Bruins captain Mitch McColm is a hard-nosed tough guy on the ice, and admittedly a bit scary looking off the ice, he’s “just a big kid trapped in a mean-looking body.”

“I’m just an easy going, melancholy kind of guy,” McColm says, as he casually lounges back in the stands at Prospera Centre, wearing snug-fit, hipster jeans, a baggy black t-shirt, and flip flops.

“I’m not a big mean monster at all.”

But he doesn’t fault people for thinking he is.

Most people see McColm as the six-foot-four, 212-pound enforcer who regularly skates with a chip on his shoulder and a snarl on his face.

They see him as the guy who forcefully shoves opposing players into the boards, and who rarely ever backs down from a fist.

“I’m a bit of a greasy kid on the ice,” he says.

But while it may be easy for other hockey enforcers, like say David Backes, or Milan Lucic, or even Sean Avery, to alter their personas off the ice by simply flashing their pearly whites, it’s not quite so easy for McColm.

He’s missing his top front tooth.

McColm lost the tooth in an on-ice brawl when he was 17, playing hockey in Fort McMurray, Alberta. And even though he got a replacement tooth right away, he rarely ever wears it.

In the three years playing for the Tri-City Americans, he wore it maybe four times, he says.

And so far, no one in the Bruins organization has seen him wear it yet. He didn’t even wear it in the presence of a girlfriend, or when he met said girlfriend’s parents for the very first time.

“It just kind of suited me in a way,” he says, flashing the toothless grin for measure. “Everyone fell in love with me not having that tooth ... I get in more trouble when I don’t wear it from my buddies,” he laughs.

OK, fine, so the guy’s missing a tooth.

Most people could get by that, I mean, lots of girls in Chilliwack fell in love with Oscar Moller – and he was missing a tooth.

For McColm, though, the missing tooth isn’t his only “scary looking” feature.

While Moller had the benefit of a pinch-your-cheek, dimply smile with blonde-hair and blue-eyed, boy-next-door features, McColm has scruffy-brown hair, dark, bushy eyebrows, and on most days an impressive-looking beard. Add to that three splashy tattoos, two of which are easily seen while wearing t-shirts, “I can look pretty haggard,” he says. “A missing tooth, a big beard and tatts ... I get a lot of looks.

“But I don’t think I’m that scary of a guy at all. Actually, I think I’m a pretty nice guy,” he says, his voice not menacing, but rather soft-spoken. “I like to talk to people, get to know them, you know ... I may look scary, but I’m just a big kid trapped in this mean-looking body.”

The tattoos are just a form of expression, he says. They’re not meant to be intimidating.

The first time he went under the jabbing pen, he was just 17 years old. He’d been talking about getting ink for years, much to the chagrin of his mom.

“She’s not a big fan of them,” he says. “But she always said that if I got one to make sure I knew what I wanted.”

His first tattoo was the Chinese symbol for courage on his chest, a constant reminder to always stick up for himself and do the right thing, which may not always be the most popular thing.

His second tattoo was getting the word faith stitched into the inside of his right wrist, one of the most sensitive, painful spots for a tattoo. And his third tattoo, which isn’t yet completed, is a half sleeve on his left arm that extends from his shoulder to his elbow and features the story of Geisha warrior viciously fighting off a dragon, similar to the way McColm viciously fights off his opponents on the ice.

Tattoos get a bad rap, he says, sliding up his shirt sleeve to show off the full effect of the Japanese art that still needs seven hours of work before it will be complete. “I think it’s a beautiful form of art.”

And he hopes he won’t be wrongly judged because of it.

So the next time you see McColm walking down the street, don’t run away in fear, he says. Introduce yourself, talk to him, tell him your story.

But if you see him on the ice, definitely run.