\u201cIf I had four hours on the ice, he had four hours as well,\u201d Mcleod said. \u201cIt was all ages. He loved it. It was never a fight. He\u2019d get angry if we had nothing to do on a certain night. He\u2019d say, \u2018Aw, no practice?\u2019 It was just feeding him more hockey, feeding him more ice. He wanted it.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Cali, the transition from playing roller hockey in the Cayman Islands to ice hockey in Canada wasn\u2019t without a few hiccups.<\/p>\n
The biggest adjustment?<\/p>\n
Finding the brakes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t stop,\u201d Cali chuckled. \u201cEveryone was like, \u2018Who\u2019s this island boy that can\u2019t stop?\u2019 But I think I picked it up pretty quickly and was good from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not leaving the island life fully behind, Cali would often wear his old roller hockey jersey on the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was known as the \u2018Cayman Kid\u2019 because he had a Cayman jersey,\u201d Mcleod smiled.<\/p>\n
Before long, the kid from the Caymans was carving out a new name for himself in Canada.<\/p>\n
A late bloomer, Cali put himself on the map during a breakout season at the U-16 level with the Markham Majors of the GTHL.<\/p>\n
Turning heads, the was then selected by the Soo Greyhounds with the 18th overall pick in the 2024 OHL Priority Selection.<\/p>\n
But rather than head to the OHL, Cali opted to sign with the OJHL\u2019s Milton Menace, a decision that allowed him to play a prominent role with more ice time.<\/p>\n
Making the right call, he went on to log 54 (24G, 30A) points in 51 games, which was one of the top recent seasons for a 16-year-old in the OJHL.<\/p>\n
Building off that breakout, Cali shined throughout his first season in the OHL with North Bay in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
Finishing sixth on the Battalion in scoring with 36 points (16G, 20A) in 47 games, he earned praise for both his production and aggressive playstyle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was the best first year in the OHL I could\u2019ve asked for,\u201d said Cali, who became the highest-ever drafted from North Bay since the Battalion moved from Brampton in 2013. \u201cIt\u2019s been pretty quick in terms of how things have escalated. The lots of games (in the OHL) helped me adjust quickly, go through ups and downs and bounce back. I think it was great. I loved every second of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Standing 6-foot-2 and 218 pounds at just 17 years old, Cali, who entered the draft as the 25th-ranked North American skater by NHL Central Scouting, has all the makings of a future Panther on paper.<\/p>\n
Committed to playing a 200-foot game, he takes just as much pride in shutting down the opposition as he does scoring goals. And with plenty of time left to grow, it\u2019s safe to say his ceiling isn\u2019t even in sight at this point.<\/p>\n
But what should excite fans the most is Cali\u2019s attitude.<\/p>\n
Echoing what we often hear from players like Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov, being a good teammate is paramount if you want to be a Panther.<\/p>\n
Harkening back to his earliest days playing hockey, Cali said it’s something his mom made sure to instil in him.<\/p>\n
\u201cTreat everyone the same no matter what,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s something that helps a team win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following in his mom\u2019s footsteps, Cali plans to head to the NCAA ranks and play for Providence College next season.<\/p>\n
Before that, however, he\u2019ll head to the Sunshine State for his first development camp with the Panthers.<\/p>\n
Excited to see a familiar face, his North Bay teammate, Shemar Moses, was a fifth-round pick of Florida in 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were texting before this that I hope I went to Florida,\u201d Cali said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty cool that it actually happened. \u201cI\u2019m fired up to get to see him again. Exited to be in Florida. That\u2019s a destination spot for a lot of people in Ontario. It\u2019s cool to have development camp there. Can\u2019t wait to get on the ice.<\/p>\n
Still in the early goings of a journey that he hopes will someday land him in the NHL, he\u2019s officially now in the pipeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the certainty is the best part,\u201d Cali said of joining Florida\u2019s ever-growing system. \u201cYou don\u2019t really have to worry about external factors. You get to focus on yourself and getting better every day, and hopefully winning one day. It\u2019s nice to have some certainly.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the “Cayman Kid,” you can’t ask for more than that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a passion for me, but now it\u2019s turned into this,\u201d Cali said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIf I had four hours on the ice, he had four hours as well,\u201d Mcleod said. \u201cIt was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-322015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}