If your idea of the typical professional hockey player is an unkempt ruffian looking for someone to cross-check and ends all his sentences with "eh?," then you haven't met Scorpions center Jamie Herrington.

Yeah, of course he's Canadian, but in a recent interview, never ended a sentence with "eh?"

Turning 29 on Saturday and all but abandoning his dream of playing in the NHL - "You don't see a lot of guys break into the NHL at 29 years old," he says now, although he once had a player-tryout contract with the New York Rangers - Herrington speaks several languages and has even recorded a CD of his own compositions in France and, when he's on the ice, does his best to play well at both ends of the rink, knowing he better serves coach Ray Edwards on the ice than in the penalty box. Maybe you were at a recent "meet and greet" with the Scorpions at the Smokehouse on Peggy Road after a game. If so, you would have seen Herrington verbally pushed to join a performing duo - and wooing the crowd with his own brand of music.

Herrington's been playing guitar for about seven or eight years, by his count, and he said he gets some of his inspiration from James Taylor.

"In the world of guitar, that's not very long," Herrington said.

"He's a very heady player (that's good, by the way)," says the team's play-by-play man, Adam Minnick, who's seen every game Herrington has played with the Scorpions since his arrival here a week before Christmas.

"He's a smart player."

A native of Cornwall, Ontario, Herrington's always been a hockey fan, always wanted to be a professional player. "My dad played back when he was young and played for our junior team, the Royals, back then and had a couple of pro tryouts.

"I was always into playing hockey, and my brother played as well. When I got to junior age, just out of bantam in Canada, I started playing junior and realized there was an opportunity to possibly go to school in the states, utilize hockey to help pay that way."

He attended Dartmouth, so he should be the latter, eh? "I was very fortunate to have an opportunity to go to the Ivy League; it was one of those opportunities I couldn't turn down."

After college, Herrington played for the Richmond Renegades of the East Coast Hockey League for almost a complete season, then found himself completing the 2002-03 campaign with the Pensacola Ice Pilots, also in the ECHL; he played in Pensacola again the following season, then played 28 games in France for Villard-de-Lans.

As the 2006-07 season began, he was with the Dayton Bombers of the ECHL, but played just two games before arriving in Rio Rancho, his first visit to the Southwest.

"I think I'd be classified as a two-way center, a guy that kind of tries to play both ends of the rink," he said, asked for a scouting report on himself. "(I'm) just as concerned about playing good defense in our zone and keeping them off the scoreboard as I am about trying to create offense. I think I've done a decent job of filling that role. I'm not a guy that takes a lot of penalties."

It didn't take long before his teammates heard him softly playing on the bus rides to away games.

"I've been writing a lot of original stuff recently," he said. "I play kind of acoustic rock.

"James Taylor is probably my biggest guitar influence; I try to do as much James Taylor as I can," Herrington said. "He's pretty intricate as a guitar-player-singer, though, so some of his stuff is pretty tough. ... Gordon Lightfoot (a Canadian),James Taylor, Jim Croce - those kind of artists I listened to with my parents, my family, (growing) up. Tragically Hip is a really big Canadian band that took flight when I was just starting to get into music when I was in high school.

"It's just one of those things I picked up on the side," Herrington downplayed it, "to kind of kill time.

"I'm not sure I can define who I sound like; I have a little bit of an Eddie Vedder vibe, with my vocals," he explained. "It's kind of mellow, it's pretty laid back. Adult contemporary is probably more my category than anything."

Herrington said the musical side of him helps keep boredom away.

"Being a professional hockey player at the rink pretty much half a day, you've got a lot of free time, so I spent a lot of time playing guitar," he said. "My first year pro, in Richmond (2002-03), I started playing little local venues, hitting open mic nights, and I started drawing quite a crowd, just a little bit of the hockey exposure with those kind of fans.

"I'd like to think I was doing OK talent-wise; people wanted to come back and see it, so I kept playing venues pretty much everywhere I've played hockey the last five years."

Yeah, he can pluck the first few notes of "Stairway to Heaven" -- what guitarist can't? - but he'll never be confused for Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton or "Edge" of U2 fame. "I don't go anywhere near Hendrix," he said. "I had never touched a guitar till my second year in college."

But, then, none of them can pass the puck to a wing flying alongside the boards and score a goal.

And that's really what he does best, Minnick says.

"He's very good at dishing the puck off. That line with (Ryan) McLeod and (Konrad) Reeder, him on the inside - he's going through the middle and dishing the puck nicely to the speedsters," he said.

Herrington's arrival a week before Christmas coincided with the arrival of two veterans coach Ray Edwards credited for helping turn around the team's fortunes, Ryan VandenBussche, whom Herrington had admired during his days as a junior, and Josh Gorbutt, plus goalie David Cacciola.

"Jamie has proven he can score at each level of hockey he has played," Edwards said at the time. "Adding Jamie up front will only make our offense stronger. We were very fortunate to get a player of his caliber at this point in the season"

"I just think he was trying to right the ship; we've really done a good job since then," he said. "The team was actually, I believe, in last place - it was an exciting turnaround. ... That's a big accomplishment for a first-year program."

Obviously, Herrington helped: In the 43 regular-season games he played in, he scored 12 goals and assisted on 13 others.

Talk about accomplishments, Herrington speaks several other languages, not counting Canadian (American joke, eh?).

"I'm fluent in French and Italian; my German's all right; my Spanish is mediocre," he said.

And no matter how he says it, or plays it, it's been an exciting time in New Mexico for Herrington.

After the playoffs, and, hopefully, helping to win a championship, Herrington plans to find more gigs for his music career, probably in Ottawa.

"I've tried to look around (Albuquerque) for little places to play," he said.

The problem has been, he said, "With my schedule of hockey, it just conflicts and I can't put it together."