There are several ways to describe Ryan Hutchinson, the Kingston Frontenacs man-child rookie rearguard. Following a 15-minute chat with the amiable American, a listener is left with these single-word impressions: Pleasant, affable, dedicated, diligent, determined, industrious, funny, candid, respectful.

Classy, too, a first-rate tipper, but we'll get to that later.

As for his strength of character, a profanity-peppered coach-player anecdote from Friday's loss to the Oshawa Generals serves as a ringing endorsement. It is retold here by Frontenacs coach Todd Gill, who played the role of the curser.

Hutchinson, whose brutal first period on Friday was lowlighted by two delay-of-game penalties, was in the dressing room between periods when Gill stormed in, smoke coming out both ears.

"I got on him hard," the coach recounted. "I said, 'Your play is (f----ing unacceptable, just-f----ing terrible. I'm sitting someone out so you can f---ing play like that?'"

Gill told the kid to change, that his night was done. "Get your f----ing stuff off," were his exact words.

"I knew he meant it," recalled Hutchinson days later. "He came back in twice more to tell me."

"I was dead serious," reiterated the coach.

At the start of Period 2, Gill was understandably startled to see No. 18 on the bench.

"I said, 'Whaddaya doin' here?'

"He looked at me and said, 'Coach, I don't quit.'"

After practice yesterday Gill reflected on that incident, which told him something about the kid's heart that no cardiologist in the land could detect.

"Even though I was still mad at him, I thought, 'That's character, that's what a coach wants to see and wants to hear.' I didn't show it at the time, but I was pleasantly surprised to see him on that bench. Most kids would've got changed and left it at that."

Hutchinson realizes he took a chance with such a defiant stance. Then again he's been bucking the odds since he was in short pants in Ryazan, a Russian industrial city 200 km southeast of Moscow. It was here he was born and adopted nine months later by childless couple Paula and Jeff Hutchinson of Bloomingdale, Ill., hard by Chicago.

"Bobber and Hutch could be cousins," a Fronts teammate cracks from somewhere in the hallway on Monday, referring to the club's resident Russian, goalie Igor Bobkov, the angular Siberian.

Jeff Hutchinson wasn't surprised to hear of his son's indefatigable nature or such a risky response from a player who, at the time, was temporarily housed in the coach's doghouse.

"He's always been an independent thinker, not your average cookie-cutter type," said Pops Hutchinson, a salesman with a national automobile parts chain. "He's taking a serious approach to what he's doing, which is what we preached to him last summer before he left.

"He's matured quite a bit since he's been up there," the dad added. "We noticed it when he came back at Christmas. He had everything planned out and he really watched what he ate, which bothered his mother a bit. But as I say, he's taking a serious approach."

Hutchinson is "a boy in a man's body who's only going to get bigger and stronger," according to Gill. He stands six-foot-one, weighs 211 pounds and doesn't turn 17 until the penultimate day in March.

"For the minutes he's playing — around 18 a game on average at, in my opinion, the hardest position for a 16-year-old in this league — Hutch is gaining the experience he needs," explained Gill. "He'll only get better."

Fellow blueliner Michael Moffat said Hutchinson also has hauled his weight in fulfilling duties that traditionally fall on rookies.

"He's right in there loading the bus, cleaning the bus, picking up pucks, all the things that rookies have to do," noted Moffat.

"We're a pretty young team," he added, "and Hutch tries to keep us loose in the room, especially the younger guys.

"On the ice he plays a solid D, which allows guys like me to take off once in a while," reported Mobile Moff, who has made significant strides in deciding when/if to join or lead a rush.

Growing up in and around Chicago, there is much to miss for those who must move away. That goes double for teenagers pried loose from home, school, friends, city, state and country.

"It was a little rocky at the start," said Hutchinson. "Everything happened at once, new team, new family, new school, new country, and, on top of it all, playing in a new league. Fortunately it's working out. I've got a great billet, great teammates and a great coach."

When he does get homesick, and what 16-year-old wouldn't miss home now and then, he massages a favourite memory: He is at the United Center with his folks taking in a Blackhawks game.

"You learn to appreciate nights like that, when you're hanging out with your parents and watching hockey with them instead of them watching me."

One thing Hutch has not done this year, however, is set a fiscally wise example for his cash-strapped shinny brethren. Stylish, sure. Smart, not so much.

"Yeah like that time he tipped a cute waitress in the restaurant $20," Moffat revealed in disbelief, pointing out that the amount represents nearly half a player's weekly $50 stipend.

The generous tipster explained the gratuity.

"It was New Year's Eve, the waitress recommended a good meal and I guess I can say she looked all right," Hutch noted sheepishly.

"She even thought I was 20, he added proudly. "That was kinda neat until Moff's dad blew my cover and told her the truth."