Last season, Ty Conklin '01 crisscrossed the country as the starting goalie for the Edmonton Oilers, starred in the world championship tournament in Prague, and traveled to Columbus, Ohio, and St. Paul, Minn., for the World Cup tournament.

This season, following a lockout by the National Hockey League owners, Conklin has been fixing up his house in Newmarket, N.H., where he lives with new bride Erika Poulin Conklin '01, working out when he can with the current UNH hockey team, and housetraining a puppy.

What a change of pace.

It is, after all, not the first time Conklin has turned disappointment around. The go-to goalie at UNH for both his junior and senior years, an all-American and twice a Hobey Baker finalist, Conklin drew headlines for his outstanding collegiate goaltending. "If Conklin isn't the Hockey East Player of the Week," said the late Maine coach Shawn Walsh after back-to-back games against UNH in 2001, "then someone better have had quite a weekend."

But Conklin graduated undrafted. Undeterred, he signed a two-way contract with the Edmonton Oilers and spent the bulk of the next two years serving an apprenticeship with the Oilers' top farm team. "I knew I was going to be in the minors, and I wanted to position myself in a place where I was going to get the opportunity to move up the ladder and prove myself at the NHL level," he says.

His plan worked. In 2004, Conklin was promoted to the Oilers' NHL team as a backup to Swedish Olympian Tommy Salo. When Salo was injured, Conklin got his chance. Playing in the major leagues for the first time, Conklin began to help the Oilers win games, and not even a broken hand in February could derail his steady play. His performance was rewarded with a new two-year contract.

Picked for the U.S. national team in May, Conklin sizzled in Prague, where in an overtime shootout in the quarterfinals he faced down five successive players from the Czech Republic, the host country and tournament favorite. By the end, Conklin was named the tournament's top goalie.

Conklin was also picked last year for the U.S. World Cup team. "To make a team like that, you have to prove yourself over a period of time," he says. "It doesn't just happen all of a sudden. It's not one great tournament, or a great week in NHL.

"You can always tell when you're playing well," he says. "Everything just kind of happens—you don't give it a whole lot of thought. Things are more instinct." And the best way to be consistently good is repetitive training, he adds, "taking a million shots in practice."

As a result, this season—no games, no practices—is particularly frustrating. Conklin tends to be a laid-back guy, and he's exerting himself to take the down time with equanimity. "You try to stay optimistic, but a lot of time there doesn't seem to be room for optimism," he says. In January, Conklin was talking to the Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg team of the German Hockey League. Wife Erika is supportive: "Having Ty here is a treat. But as soon as that call comes through and he has to go play hockey somewhere, I'll be scooting him right out the door."