This is the first installment of our #20in20 series where each week we will be profiling one key player from each of the Calgary Hitmen 20 seasons in the Western Hockey League. Join us in celebrating 20 years of Hitmen hockey! The best there is! The best there was! The best there ever will be!

Before posting big numbers for the Calgary Hitmen, Borys Protsenko thought he was heading to the Ontario Hockey League.

It was the Hitmen, however, that nabbed the Ukrainian forward first overall in the 1995 CHL Import Draft, stealing him away from another expansion franchise in the OHL’s Barrie Colts.

“My agent told me that they were very interested,” Protsenko said of the Colts. “They expressed interest first and I thought they were going to take me, but the Hitmen took me first.”

Brought over from Kiev by the Lethbridge Hurricanes, Protsenko caught the attention of CHL scouts skating in the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League, where he posted 52 points in 47 games for the Fernie Ghostriders during the 1994-1995 season.

After being plucked by the Hitmen to carry the offensive load in their inaugural season, Protsenko went on to lead the team in scoring in their first two years of WHL existence, setting the franchise record for most power play goals in a single season in 1996.

Joining a ragtag group of 16-year-olds and a handful of older players selected in an expansion draft, Protsenko said being apart of a brand new WHL franchise was a bit of a whirlwind.

“I didn’t really understand the whole concept,” he said of joining an expansion team. “It was a whole new group of guys that didn’t know each other. We had to work out the systems, we had to get to know each other and it took awhile before we got comfortable and settled.”

After a 75-point rookie WHL season, Protsenko was selected 77th overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1996 NHL Entry Draft.

He then went on to play for the Penguins’ minor-league affiliates in the AHL and ECHL for three seasons followed by a brief stint in Russia before heading back across the Atlantic to close out his career with the Fresno Falcons and South Carolina Stingrays.

Expansion teams in major-junior hockey can often be difficult to lift off the ground, but Protsenko knew that something special was brewing with the Hitmen as attendance numbers at the Saddledome increased steadily.

While the Hitmen saw success at the gate in the team’s first two seasons, on-ice achievement quickly followed. In just the third season of Hitmen hockey, the team made a run to the Eastern Conference Final.

“We had 19,000 people in the Saddledome and it was fantastic,” Protesenko said of the conference final series with the Brandon Wheat Kings. “From that moment on we knew the Calgary Hitmen would be alright in this city.”

Just one year after Protsenko’s final WHL campaign in 1998, the Hitmen punched their ticket to the Memorial Cup after winning the WHL Championship with a 4-1 series win over the Kamloops Blazers.

When it was finally time to hang up his skates for good, Protsenko, along with his wife and son decided to lay down some roots where it all started in Calgary, where he now works as an amateur scout for the Dallas Stars.

“After I played for the Hitmen I left and came back,” said Protsenko who is now a permanent Calgary resident. “It’s a great city to raise a family. The community is great, the hockey’s great, I can only speak highly of everything.”

Protsenko’s message to the 20th edition of the Hitmen; don’t take your time in the WHL for grantite.

“Live everyday and play every game like its your last,” he said. “Cherish the moment because looking back now, I understand how special those years were.”

Calgary Hitmen play-by-play man Brad Curle has more. LISTEN HERE