Peterborough, Ont. — It’s 9:11 a.m. in late November and the last player to take to the Peterborough Memorial Centre’s ice for his team’s 9 a.m. morning skate has just begun the first drill by flipping the puck into the wrong corner.



“Good job Sammy!” a teammate yells sarcastically from the bench.



“You guys are right,” Petes head coach Rob Wilson answers with a smile on his face, the thumb of his glove pointed at the scrawny, baby-faced culprit to his left, “he’s fucking stupid.” The jab in jest elicits laughter from the Petes’ players.



The kid, a smile on his face and dimples in his cheeks, shrugs his shoulders and flips the puck back into the correct corner.



He’s Semyon Der-Arguchintsev and that’s not the first time he has spent the beginning of a practice, or a game, with his head in the clouds.



He never seems to be in a rush. He’s often a bit loopy.