Thornton, who will turn 31 Wednesday, will return for a second season with the Bruins in 2008-09. His summer in the mill didn't turn him into an NHLer, but it helped shape him, steel him, for a journey that at times made him wonder if he would ever make it out of minor league rinks, be free of overnight bus rides.
"Like 20 hours from Saint John, New Brunswick, to Norfolk, Va.," said Thornton, the scrapping winger who signed with Boston as a free agent last summer. "That's when you're thinking, 'What the hell am I doing here?' "
Not that he didn't enjoy the minors, mind you, because as careers go, playing hockey is a decent alternative to flipping through an endless conveyance of steel bars, culling out the bent and twisted pieces, careful that the razor sharp ends don't slice through protective gloves. In mill parlance, Thornton that summer was a "flipper," hired to eyeball defective steel rods and yank them for disposal.
Once removed, the defective bars had to be destroyed, which had Thornton trading in his crowbar-like rod extractor for a torch hot enough to cut through steel. The rods, in lengths of 20, 40, and 60 feet, were methodically diced into 2-3-foot pieces, then heaved into a recycling bin.
"We'd turn our hardhats around backwards for that job," said Thornton. "The theory was, with the bill of the hat turned backwards, it would deflect the sparks from going down the back of your shirt. That was the theory, anyway . . . but trust me, it didn't always work out that way."
Three generations of Thorntons have worked the Brazilian-owned Gerdau plant, which opened in 1964. Gerald Thornton, Shawn's grandfather, worked in the plant for 17 years before retiring in the '90s, not long before his grandson's gig. Mark Thornton, Shawn's 51-year-old father, is still on the job after 34 years. Last week, with great pride, he led a family tour through the plant, taking advantage of the mill's two-week summer shutdown.
"That job was a guaranteed workout for Shawn," recalled his father. "The heavy part of the job was a good thing for him. He'd go home feeling good after eight hours of flippin' bars, I'll tell you that. Did he ever get in shape that summer."
