EVERETT — There’s a typical route players take to reach the WHL. It involves playing hockey year-round, playing for traveling teams, attending hockey camps and the like. The process involves making the commitment to hockey at an early age, with the WHL and beyond as the target.

Cody Fowlie? Well, he traveled a different path.

The Everett Silvertips winger eschewed the hockey-heavy upbringing experienced by the majority of his teammates. But Fowlie is now finding his way in the WHL, and he’s proving a player can make it without following the standard formula.

“He’s making good progress — and he’s a work in progress, too,” Everett coach Craig Hartsburg said of Fowlie. “I kind of think he’s a late bloomer. Since Christmas he’s looked more comfortable, more at ease with playing in the league. He’s doing more things offensively and he’s become a pretty steady player for us.

“Cody’s a good example that late-blooming kids can progress and play at a high level.”

Fowlie, an 18-year-old rookie from Airdrie, Alberta, has been one of Everett’s most-improved players this season. Though he has just six goals and seven assists in 52 games, his play has picked up considerably since the Christmas break, and eight of his 13 points have come in Everett’s past 14 games. After spending much of the season on the Tips’ fourth line, he’s now formed a solid third-line partnership alongside Josh Birkholz and Jari Erricson, and he’s a valuable member of Everett’s penalty-killing unit.

“I feel pretty good,” Fowlie said about his play. “Me and my linemates are doing well. We’re doing the systems right and pucks seem to be going into the net.”

But Fowlie wasn’t always destined for the WHL, or even junior hockey in general. Fowlie’s experiences in youth hockey consisted solely of playing during the season. While his high-profile teammates, such as Portland’s budding star winger Ty Rattie, continued playing past season’s end, Fowlie’s gear was stashed away during the warmer months. Playing in the WHL — or even the junior A Alberta Junior Hockey League — was never on Fowlie’s radar.

“I just wasn’t really interested,” Fowlie said about his reasons for being a seasonal hockey player. “I had other interests. But I ended up being more interested in hockey in the later years. I started working out and stuff like that.”

One of the reasons Fowlie was reluctant to make a full-time commitment was because he has a November birth date. As a result, he was often playing against players who were nearly a year older. Add in being a late bloomer and Fowlie became a player hockey coaches and scouts easily overlooked, making a hockey future appear unrealistic.

But eventually someone noticed. Fowlie, who didn’t play midget AAA until last season as a 17-year-old — most top WHL prospects are playing midget AAA when they’re 15 — had an immediate impact upon joining the UFA Bisons of the Alberta Midget Hockey League, tying for seventh in the league in scoring with 45 points in 35 games. That was enough to catch the attention of the Tips, who added Fowlie to their 50-player protected list.

“When we watched him our scouts liked him,” Everett general manager Doug Soetaert said. “He’s a very good skater and he has good hockey sense. We figured he could come in and become a regular third-line player for us.”

That required an adjustment period. Every player who enters the WHL has to adjust to the speed of the game and the strength of the opposing players. However, Fowlie had even more to learn. As someone who only played during hockey season, Fowlie never received the same level of coaching as most other WHL rookies. Learning all the details of the systems was a challenge for a player who’d never seen anything quite like it before.

“Definitely the systems (have been the bigger adjustment),” Fowlie said. “It’s definitely more complicated, and you have to be better than the other team every game.”

But now Fowlie is starting to get it, and he’s become a valuable asset to the Tips.

“I think it was just him feeling confident and comfortable he could play in the league,” Hartsburg said. “Most kids at 14, 15, they look at this league as where they want to play. Cody probably wasn’t looked at closely, so he didn’t know if he could really play. But his confidence is growing and he’s becoming a better player in the second half.”

Check out Nick Patterson’s Silvertips blog at http://www.heraldnet.com/silvertipsblog, and follow him on Twitter at NickHPatterson.