With the United States playing Finland in its first game at 8 tonight, I thought it would be fitting to highlight the career of arguably the best hockey player from Chautauqua County, Fredonia native Nick Bailen.

Unlike many of the other sports, the path to professional hockey generally requires branching out from home at an early age, especially when you come from a small town. So Bailen’s path to some of the highest levels of professional hockey is not an unusual one, but one that very few find success in it quite like he has.

While Bailen grew up playing in the Northern Chautauqua County Youth Hockey Association at 9 years old, he left Fredonia to pursue more competitive travel hockey in Buffalo, and at 15 he began playing for St. Francis Prep.

After just one season playing with the Red Raiders, it was time for Bailen to advance to junior hockey, but that was no easy feat for the undersized defenseman.

Fredonia native Nick Bailen, left, representing Belarus, knocks the puck from Sweden’s Isac Lundestrom during the 2021 IIHF World Hockey Championships in Riga, Latvia. AP Photo

“I wasn’t drafted by the USHL or the OHL,” Bailen told the OBSERVER in 2015. “I was always told I was too small. Even after I went to college, I was still told I was too small.”

He didn’t let his physical attributes get in the way of his dream, and his actual hockey talents landed the small right-handed defenseman a spot on the Indiana Ice at 16 in the top league in the United States, the United States Hockey League.

It didn’t take long for him to catch on with the organization as the next season he was already named an assistant captain and was the captain of the club in what would have been his first year eligible for the NHL Draft.

Bailen’s counting stats in the USHL were not eye popping, scoring one goal and seven assists over 52 games at 16, then four goals and nine assists in 53 games at 17 and eight goals and 13 assists in 58 games at 18. However, Bailen still captured the attention of NCAA Division I Bowling Green State University in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association. As a freshman in college hockey, Bailen began to pop offensively with six goals and 10 points in 37 games, scoring the same total as then Montreal first-round pick Ryan McDonagh at the same age and scoring more than future Stanley Cup champion Alex Killorn.

Bailen had a strong freshman season, but he would not go down as one of the Green Falcons greatest players like Ken Morrow or Rob Blake, instead he entered the transfer portal.

During his transfer season, he returned to junior hockey in Indiana for one more year as captain and nearly doubled his previous point totals with 14 goals and 27 assists to earn a nod into the USHL All-Star Game.

Bailen returned to Division I hockey the following year and it was his highest scoring season as he cashed in eight goals and 28 assists as a sophomore with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to earn an Amateur Hockey Coaches Association East Second-Team All-American selection. Bailen earned the honor with a future Sabres defenseman, Taylor Fedun, and a familiar name, Gustav Nyquist.

His junior season took a step back with him scoring just seven goals and 15 assists in 39 games, but he saved the best for his senior season as he netted 12 goals with 19 assists in 25 games and had a plus rating of 14. In that final season, Bailen was recognized as an ACHA East First-Team All-American, and joining him on the team are some pretty recognizable names like Stanley Cup champion defensemen Chad Ruhwedel and Trevor van Riemsdyk, forwards Kyle Flanagan and Steve Whitney, goaltender Eric Hartzell, and the legendary Johnny Gaudreau.

Immediately after school, Bailen landed a job in the pros, skating in 12 games with Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League and he registered three assists in those games.

Unfortunately, Bailen was not pursued further by the Sabres or Rochester organization and he had to make the difficult decision to take his career to Europe.

That decision turned out to be the right one for him and a selective choice by North American clubs as he went on to prove he absolutely belonged here.

“It was tough because I had to decide whether I wanted to stay in the United States and Canada or leave the country,” Bailen told the OBSERVER in 2015. “I decided the Finnish Elite League would give me a better chance to better my career and the Finnish league is just as good, if not better than the AHL, and it worked better for me financially.”

Bailen didn’t sign with just any Finnish club, he was offered a one-year contract with Tappara, the most successful club in league history with 20 championships.

His first year did not disappoint as he scored 11 goals and 21 assists in 54 regular-season games and then added four goals and eight assists in 17 playoff games. Tampere lost the championship that year and Bailen collected his Liiga Silver Medal along with an All-Star selection and most points in the playoffs by a defenseman. That kind of performance earned him an extension from Tappara, but a better offer came along.

While it was not the NHL, the Kontinental Hockey League came calling and Bailen wasted no time taking an offer from the second-best league in the world, joining Dinamo Minsk in Minsk, Belarus.

That first season he scored 11 goals and had 26 assists in 60 games, earning himself a KHL All-Star selection and honors as League Defenseman of the Month for December 2014.

Along the way he picked up Belarusian citizenship, he scored another 38 points for the club over a season and a half and participated for Belarus in the 2018 Olympic Games qualifiers.

Midway through his final year in Minsk, he joined the Vaxjo Lakers in the Swedish Hockey League and scored four goals and 10 assists in 20 games there before returning to Russia.

At the start of the 2017-18 season, Bailen joined the KHL’s Traktor Chelyabinsk where he had five of the best seasons in his career. Over that span, he scored 136 points in 254 regular-season games, also earning honors such as KHL Defenseman of the Month March 2018, KHL Playoffs Most Goals by a Defenseman 2018, an All-Star selection in 2019-20 and KHL Defenseman of the Month February 2021.

Then, in his final season with the club, he had his best year of his career, leading the KHL defensemen in both assists with 36 and points at 42, taking home the league’s honors as Defenseman of the Year for 2021-22. The award is generally given to the league’s top scoring defenseman and Bailen did just that, even cracking the top 15 overall.

His name is forever connected as the top defenseman in Russia, a distinction he shares with one of the greatest defenders of all time, Sergei Zubov.

Following his best season in the KHL, like many athletes, he left the league after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 despite being the top defender at the time.

That talent clearly translated as a year after being named the top defender in Russia, Bailen was taking home that title in Germany. In his first season with Kolner Haie in the Deutschland Elite League, Bailen scored 19 goals and 26 assists in 56 games to take home honors as the Top Defenseman for 2022-23.

Bailen followed up that season with four goals and 20 assists in 34 games and this year the 35-year old left Kolner Hair for the top league in Austria and currently has one goal and seven assists in nine games with Graz99ers.

Not only has Bailen had an incredible professional career despite not getting his chance at the NHL, but he has also been able to play in a World Championship as a dual citizen in Belarus. At the international level, he has represented Belarus in the Olympic Game Qualifiers, the World Championships Division 1A and, in 2021, the IIHF Men’s World Championship in which he skated the most minutes in a 1-0 upset win over Sweden.

As Father Time gradually slows down, the Fredonia native it is clear when he hangs up his skates not only is he one of the top hockey players ever to come from Chautauqua County, but he is also one of the best athletes with a resume that includes NCAA All-American, KHL Defenseman of the Year and DEL Defenseman of the Year.