Calgary Herald

Mark Smith will never be a one-note hockey player.

Smith, the sophomore centre with the San Jose Sharks, has always been musically inclined. He first picked up a guitar -- a time-worn Yamaha six-string acoustic, he recalls -- and taught himself some chords around the same time his hockey career started to crescendo with the major junior Lethbridge Hurricanes.

National Hockey League stardom, and four divergent paths, have finally caused the breakup of his five-year-old band, the Epic Latitudes. But you can be sure that music still strikes a responsive chord in the 24-year-old product of Eyebrow, Sask.

Smith and the Sharks (12-7-4-3) play host to the Calgary Flames tonight at the Compaq Center (8:30 p.m. MST).

"I grew up loving it. One thing I've always wanted to do was play music," said Smith. "I'm sure that if I wasn't playing hockey, I'd definitely be involved, in some way, in that industry. You sit down and play a guitar, and you can get right into it. You just don't think about anything else."

After messing around on the fretboard for a couple of summers while playing with the Western Hockey League's Hurricanes -- "when I went out and bought an electric, I really drove my parents crazy," he chuckled -- Smith and his brother Derek, who plays drums, got serious enough to form a band.

Along with friends Ryan Gallagher, who shared vocal and lead-guitar work with Smith, and Brant Hubic of Regina, who'd played bass with buddies who later rose to fame as country-rock crossovers The Waltons, the Epic Latitudes started doing regular gigs for five to six months of the year around Saskatchewan.

And after two seasons in the American Hockey League with the Kentucky Thoroughblades, Smith's guitar work caught the ear of producers with the NHL's Cool Shots television program, who set the NHL rookie up in a jam session with former bandleader turned San Jose TV personality Greg Kihn and aired the segment in November 2000.

This past summer, the Epic Latitudes did one last farewell tour across Alberta, B.C., and Saskatchewan -- including an afternoon performance in Edmonton as part of Tony Twist's Iron Horse Harley Davidson bike tour -- and turned off the amps.

But Smith, whose influences range from Smashing Pumpkins to the Tea Party to grunge godfather Neil Young, is still serious enough about songwriting to keep an eight-track digital recorder along with his collection of seven acoustic and electric guitars.

"I'd done some songwriting, and we'd filter that in along with covers as much as we could," said Smith, who counts a Martin acoustic and a Gibson Les Paul electric among his favourite axes. "I'm still always trying to write new stuff. I don't really have the smarts to do any serious recording, but I use the machine to lay some tracks down acoustically if I have any new ideas."

Smith has averaged 8:25 of ice time in 22 games this season, during which time he's managed to become San Jose's penalty-minutes leader (49), along with his three goals and one assist.