As enforcers go, many sides to Hawks' Scott

As Blackhawks enforcer John Scott was sitting at his locker discussing the finer points of fighting following a recent practice, teammate Bryan Bickell plopped down next to him and joined in the conversation.

“I beat him up once,” Bickell announced.

“We fought in the AHL and I knocked him out,” Scott countered.

“You did not knock me out.”

“I knocked you down.”

Asked if their fight could just be deemed a draw and move on, Scott shook his head.

“No, I beat him.”

And that's just what the 6-foot-8 defenseman has been doing since arriving in the NHL, dispatching of everyone he's squared off against. Everyone. In fact, Scott has been so dominant at tossing paws that anyone who goes up against him would probably be thrilled just to finish in a draw.

It hasn't happened yet. Not during a couple of years with the Minnesota Wild, where he was tutored by Derek Boogaard and not in his 8 fights this year for the Hawks.

“Long arms help,” Scott said with a smile. “I'm just tall, and guys can't really get inside my reach. I try to use that to my advantage. It's been working out so far.”

It worked to perfection in Los Angeles around Thanksgiving when Scott pureed L.A. Kings tough guy Kevin Westgarth. By the time the one-sided affair was over, Westgarth was a bloody mess, and in the words of Hawks announcer Pat Foley he left the ice “thunderstruck.”

“That's the one everyone remembers because I really busted up his face,” said Scott, who admitted there's still a couple of top fighters in the league he has yet to face. “I was nervous going into that one because I really didn't know who he was. He broke someone's jaw in the preseason so I was kind of a little worried about him.

“It felt good. I think I broke his nose. It worked out well for me; caught him with a couple of good ones.”

Afterward, Scott provided the quote of the year when he credited the victory to the fact that “I have long arms, so I'm kind of like a monkey-armed baboon swinging away.”

It's a fight that's been viewed nearly half a million times on YouTube and a gazillion more times on hockeyfights.com — and not just by hockey fans.

“I watch all the time; I'm addicted to hockeyfights.com,” Scott said. “I watch it every night.”

And to think, Scott has had all this success despite being a late-bloomer to the fight game.

“When I first came up I came from college, so I never fought at all,” he said. “So for fighters, I'm like a rookie. I've only been in like 25 fights in my whole career.

“(Being an enforcer) is not one of those things that anyone wants to do but someone's got to do it, and I think I do it well and I think the guys appreciate that. It's a tough job.”

But the world according to John Scott isn't just about his rough-and-tumble role as an enforcer. There's a lot more to this guy.

And it starts off the ice, where, if you didn't know what he did for a living, NHL tough guy would probably be way down the list.

“I'm the nicest guy off the ice that you'll want to meet; a lot of fun — joke around with the guys,” he said.

The 28-year-old is also one of the brightest, having recently completed his degree at Michigan Tech in … mechanical engineering.

“I've been going the last four summers to try and finish,” he said. “You can pretty much do anything with it, from designing engines to designing buildings to civil engineering.”

It's a degree he hopes to employ after his days on the ice are complete.

“I'd like to, yeah,” he said. “I spent a lot of years getting it.”

He's also spent a lot of years working on another passion of his — crossword puzzles.

“I do crosswords all the time, probably four or five a day. It's insane,” he said. “ I can buzz through a Saturday USA Today, those are tough. I have an app on my phone where I get crosswords downloaded every day so I'll sit there and be making dinner or lunch and doing a crossword.”

But just like a majority of people, the holy grail of crosswords — the Sunday N.Y. Times — is no cinch.

“Oh god, no,” Scott said. “It takes me a couple of days to do that one.”

Unfortunately for Scott, like most enforcers at this time of the year, he's had a lot more free time to work the crosswords as he finds himself watching from the sidelines as the Hawks make their final playoff push.

“Up and down. Down right now,” he said of a season in which he's skated in 40 games. “I'm out of the lineup so it's not too fun. In the playoffs all the tough guys just kind of take a back seat. It's one of those things you just have to deal with.”

Not exactly how he expected his season to go after signing a two-year deal with the Hawks over the summer.

“No, I thought I was going to play every day,” he said. “That's what I was hoping, so that's why I came here. — to play every game and help the team, but it just hasn't worked out. So I'm just plugging away, doing my best.”

How does he deal with the reality that his season is probably over?

“What are you going to do? You can sit around and be a cancer to the team or you can have a good attitude,” he said. “That's what I'm trying to do. I've only been around for a couple of years and if that's what I have to do to stay in the league, that's what I'll do.”

Plus, the pay isn't bad.

“It beats engineering (laugh).”