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Jonathan Cheechoo's hockey resume reads like most other players. The same cannot be said for his background, which makes it all the more impressive that the 20-year-old has established himself as one of the game's top prospects.

After leaving his remote island at the age of 14, Cheechoo has dominated at each step along the way and is now on the cusp of making a splash in the National Hockey League.

The Jonathan Cheechoo story begins back in Moose Factory, Ontario. Think of the smallest, most remote town you've ever seen, and Moose Factory probably bears a similar resemblance. An island measuring three miles long and one-and-a-half miles in width, Moose Factory is a tight-knit community of 2,000 Cree Indians.

There are no department stores in Moose Factory. No office parks. No restaurant chains. No hospital.

And there is certainly no airport. It is actually easier to get to the island in the winter, when the surrounding James River is frozen and both cars and snowmobiles are able to cross between Moose Factory and the main island of Moosenee, which is hardly a thriving metropolis in its own right.

When the river is not frozen, traveling to the island requires either the use of either a canoe or a helicopter. The island's residents hunt for much of their own food and supplement their catch with potatoes and other essentials available at the town's tiny grocery store.

"A lot of the food we eat is wild meat," said Cheechoo. "In late April and early May, and then again in the Fall, we hunt. My Dad and Grandpa started me when I was eight or nine years old. It was a pretty exciting time."

All young boys in Moose Factory are taught to hunt at a young age. It has been this way for years, and probably will never change.

"Hunting is a way of life here," said Cheechoo's father, Mervin. "My Dad was a hunter and a trapper. That's what he did for employment. It's really something that you enjoy."

As much as hunting is ingrained into the boys from Moose Factory, there is another clear passion on the island, and it can be seen on the ice.

Mervin Cheechoo first put Jonathan on the ice at the age of two, at a time when there was only an outdoor sheet of ice on the island.

From the very beginning, it was obvious that the young Cheechoo had a special talent for the game. He would spend endless hours on the outdoor rink that Mervin constructed in the family's backyard. Even in the summer, he shot 500 pucks a day.

But the town's few available players made any legitimate leagues impossible to pull together. With just one team per age group, the town's players saw the only legitimate competition at a handful of tournaments during the season.

"I noticed his talent right away," said Mervin. "He developed puck-handling skills on the outdoor rink and excelled in the tournaments."

When young Jonathan turned 12, he told his father that he wanted to play hockey. Two years later, he was off to Timmons, Ontario and a first crack at the Midget-A League.

"It was a real loss," said Mervin of not having his oldest son around the house anymore. "But it was a sacrifice that he had to make, and we had to make. I had those same dreams when I was that age, but I never had the guidance. I told Jon that I would support him. But I also told him that there were a million kids out there just like him who wanted to play hockey."

Cheechoo's first stop was in Timmons, Ontario, which also happened to be the hometown of Mervin's brother, Doug. In fact, Mervin himself attended high school in Timmons (about a seven-hour trip from Moose Factory), because Moose Factory did not have its own high school back then. Jonathan originally went for a tryout in Timmons. Not only did he end up making the team, he became one of its top players. After 17 goals and 18 assists in 28 games, it was clear that Cheechoo was ready for the next step, which came the following season in Kapuskasing.

The opportunity came merely by chance. The summer after his season in Timmons, Cheechoo was with Aaron Jolley, a friend from Moose Factory who was headed to a skating camp in Kapuskasing. Cheechoo participated in the camp to get some ice time.

The coaches liked what they saw and signed him up for the following season. Cheechoo did not disappoint, tallying 62 points in 33 games. After 76 points in 43 games for Kitchener the next year, Cheechoo was the fifth pick by the Belleville Bulls in the 1997 Ontario Hockey League draft.

It was in Belleville where Cheechoo would take both his name and his game to the next level. He put up 76 points in his first season and was named to the league's All-Rookie Team. That summer, the San Jose Sharks thought enough of the six-foot, 200-pounder to select Cheechoo with the 29th overall pick in the NHL draft.

"We saw him in the draft year (1997-98) in Belleville, and we liked his competitiveness around the net," said Sharks' Director of Amateur Scouting Tim Burke. "He has a good pair of hands, and his skating has improved every year." Burke downplayed the notion that the Sharks were the team that discovered Cheechoo, as many seem to think. "Nobody finds a player," Burke maintained. "Everyone has seen these kids and knows the kids. We were just lucky and fortunate enough to draft him."

Cheechoo made that selection look very shrewd, improving his point production in each of his final two seasons in the OHL. Last year, he led the team in goals (45) and points (91) while leading Belleville to the OHL championship.

From there, it was off to Lexington, Kentucky and the AHL. For the first time in his short career, Cheechoo would be far, far away from home, living on his own for the first time. So far, he has adjusted just fine.

With 53 points (25 G, 28 A) in 60 games, Cheechoo ranks among the AHL's rookie scoring leaders. In January, he was honored as the league's Rookie of the Month after posting 16 points (10 G, 6 A) in 11 games.

Surely, the support of Mervin and Cheechoo's mother, Carol, has helped.

The family listens to every Kentucky game through the Internet and has made several trips down to see Jonathan in action. This is clearly no your run-of-the-mill family vacation.

First, the Cheechoos climb into a freighter canoe (motorized 22-foot canoe) for the seven-minute trip over to Moosenee. From there, a five-hour train ride to Cochran, then a 10-hour drive to Toronto. As if that's not enough, there is still the 10-hour trek to Kentucky. Twenty-five hours in all. Mervin says he can do it in two days.

"We have a friend in Toronto, and we usually stay overnight there," he said. "I do most of the driving. I just go and go and go until we get there."

Go and go and go until he gets there. From the time he was 12 years old, Jonathan Cheechoo knew where he was going.

In fact, when asked by his seventh-grade teacher to write a paper answering, "Where are you going to be in the Year 2000?", Cheechoo had an answer which may have seemed pretty unrealistic at the time.

His response: he would be playing for the San Jose Sharks. Not just any NHL team. It just so happened to be the Sharks. The irony is not lost on Cheechoo to this day.

"It was funny," he said. "My Mom found the paper when she was cleaning up the house, seeing what to throw away and what to keep."

In his first professional season, Cheechoo has proven to be a real keeper for the Sharks. This summer, he will work with a personal trainer, improving his overall strength. He will also try to sneak in some fishing back in Moose Factory, where he has been celebrated as a town hero. If, as expected, he steps onto NHL ice someday, Cheechoo will become just the second Cree Indian to play in the world's greatest hockey's league. Fred Saskamoose, who played briefly with the Blackhawks in the 1950s, was the first.

Cheechoo and his neighbors from Moose Factory are counting on a career more well-known than that of Saskamoose. If Cheechoo's play over his first professional season is any indication of things to come, the

Sharks could be hunting for Cheechoo in Kentucky very soon.

Written By: Josh Goldfine

SportsTicker Staff Writer