Belfast Giants continue to shore up defence with arrival of well-travelled Canadian defenceman
It is not completely unheard of for the Giants to carry eight defencemen in a campaign, however it is extremely rare for it to happen before the season begins and with Ciaran Long capable of covering on defence in case of emergency, it appears unlikely that they will add another full-time blue-liner.
But in McFadden they get a well-travelled and well-rounded defenceman, who joins after a season in which he scored two goals and 13 points for a struggling Innsbruck side but boasts experience in the OHL, AHL and Czech Extraliga, as well as in the ICEHL last season.
McFadden will not be short on reviews of Belfast given that career either, which has seen him play alongside former Giants such as Kyle Baun, Jordan Boucher, Grant Cooper and Blake Speers, while last season he played under Jordan Smotherman at Innsbruck.
A strong-skating defenceman, the Canadian came up through the junior ranks with the Guelph Storm, with whom he won the OHL title in 2014 in a team that also included the likes of Tyler Bertuzzi, Jason Dickinson and Pius Suter, and he would go on to captain the side in his final two years with the club in 2017 and 2018.
His performances in that OHL-winning season also earned him his first international call-up to the Canada Ontario Under-17 side where he was a team-mate of superstars such as Mitch Marner, Travis Konecny and Jakob Chychrun, among others, as well as former Giants centre Speers.
After a brief four-game spell with the Laval Rocket in the AHL, McFadden opted to join Acadia University instead of turning professional and excelled with the Axemen, being named to the USports All-Rookie team in his first year in which they won Universiade Bronze, before earning Second All-Star team honours in his second season.
It was his stunning displays with Acadia that earned him his second international call-up to the Canadian Universiade team in 2019, and his performances at college level meant he would leap straight back into the AHL with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms at the end of the 2021/22 season.
McFadden would have a 'C' back on his jersey to start the following season with the ECHL's Reading Royals before embarking on his European career, making the switch to Slovakian side Poprad two years ago and ending the season with Energie Karlovy Vary in Czechia, taking the team into the Play-Offs, before spending last season in Innsbruck.
But, despite all of his hockey achievements, it is McFadden's off-ice achievements that are even more impressive, the Owen Sound man a strong advocate for mental health after losing a close family friend to suicide in 2011.
The defenceman started up 'McFadden's Movement', a non-profit organisation which encourages people of all ages to talk about their mental health and accept help, in September 2016 and, to the end of 2024, has donated just over $158,200 (just over £86,000) to mental health charities across North America.
Every year McFadden's Movement hosts an MM27 Celebrity Charity Classic golf tournament, which this year raised $36,485 (just under £20,000) that will be invested in mental health charities across Canada.
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