LISTEN UP!

When you think about the various skills required to play in the National Hockey League, the ability to listen is probably not the first one that comes to mind. And yet, there may be no more important quality for a player interested in improving his game.

Hockey is a sport where self-preservation is a natural urge, and the tendency of some players is to hear only what they want to hear. Thinking they know what is best for them, young players all too often believe the quickest way to the NHL is the path of least resistance.

Andy Miele has learned to listen.

It was not always so. As a youngster growing up in Grosse Pointe Woods near Detroit, Miele (pronounced mee-lee) was a bit of a pistol with a rebellious streak. Having been raised on 8 Mile like rapper Eminen, he wonders if he might have had a little bit of a gangster attitude.

"I was probably a tough kid to deal with," said Miele, who started skating when he was 4. "When I was real young, my mom and dad would have to pin me down to get me dressed because I didn't want to go to the rink."

Miele liked to play hockey – in fact, he played all sports except football – but practice was another story. "Some days I wanted to go, but if I didn't want to go, I didn't want to go. So on certain days, for a little bit, they had to push me."

Despite his size – he was always one of the smaller guys – Miele excelled at the sport. He loved playing with the puck, so much so in street hockey that another kid once yelled at him until he ran back to his house in tears. He became more of a playmaker after that and, like most kids in hockey skates, set his sights on someday playing in the NHL.

He played high school hockey at Grosse Pointe North, then played AAA hockey with HoneyBaked Ham and Little Caesars, before trying out for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders of the USHL to pursue his dream of playing hockey at the highest level.

It was a big decision for Miele and his parents: Jim, an employee of Hewlett-Packard, and Sue, who worked various jobs to support Andy and his older sister Ashleigh and younger brother Shawn. "They put in the time and hours of travel that most hockey parents do," he said, noting that he had their full support to leave home at age 16.

Jim Miele had played club hockey at Ferris State after running track and playing baseball and football in high school. As an athlete himself, he did everything he could to motivate his children.

"If I wasn't trying my best, my dad would get very frustrated with me," he recalled. "He felt that if I wasn't working hard, I was wasting my time and his time. I remember a game during my sophomore year in high school where I didn't try very hard and he didn't talk to me for three days. He was really, really upset with me."

Miele played well in the USHL, first in Cedar Rapids and later in Chicago, so he was confident that he was on track to play college hockey at the Division I level. "My biggest goal, of course, was the NHL," he said. "I was a huge Red Wings fan growing up. When I was young, I loved watching (Sergei) Fedorov because he was so dynamic and fast. As I got older and grew to understand the game, I gained a ton of respect for Steve Yzerman."

Ignored by the two big programs in his backyard – Michigan and Michigan State – Miele chose Miami (Ohio) on the basis of the positive direction of its hockey team. It didn't hurt that the school also had a beautiful campus and a 3-to-1 female-to-male ratio. "That was actually one of their recruiting tools," he said. As things turned out, it was at Miami that he would meet his girlfriend, Hilary.

His admission to the school was delayed, at least temporarily, by the fact that his ACT scores weren't high enough. Unable to be on the campus with the rest of the freshman class, he had to wait until he was cleared academically by the NCAA. He joined the RedHawks midway through the 2007-08 season.

"I had been a little lazy because I always knew I could get into school based on my hockey," Miele said. "I wish my parents had pushed me a little more in school than they did."

Miele enrolled in the school's American Studies program, but he jokes that ice hockey was his major. He scored on his first shift in his first college game, then continued to improve his play from that point forward, with his point totals increasing each year.

He gives a lot of credit for his progress at Miami to the college's coaching staff: head coach Enrico Blasi and a bevy of assistant coaches, including current Griffins coach Jeff Blashill, who was at Miami during Miele's freshman year. "They all had their different styles, but they got the same results," he said. "They were all great in their own way."

Miele led the nation in scoring during his senior season (2010-11), when he tallied 24 goals and 47 assists for 71 points in 39 games. It was the most points by a Division I player in eight years.

"I had great chemistry with my linemates, who were Reilly Smith (now with the NHL's Boston Bruins) and Trent Vogelhuber (now with the AHL's Springfield Falcons)," Miele said. "We didn't have to communicate – we always knew where each other would be."

Although Miami fell short in its bid for a national title – the No. 1 seeded RedHawks lost to New Hampshire in their first tournament game – Miele won the Hobey Baker Award as college hockey's top player. "The icing on the cake would have been a national championship, but (the honor) was a nice way to end the year," he said.

Having previously been given the cold shoulder during the NHL Entry Draft, Miele attracted a number of free agent offers following his collegiate career. Most organizations talked about putting Miele in the AHL and letting him develop, but the Phoenix Coyotes indicated that he would get a good shot at starting in the NHL.

"At the time, it was exactly what I wanted to hear," he said. "Looking back, I think I probably should have listened to the guys who were talking about development. I needed more time to develop before I got my chance in the NHL."

Miele ended up playing 15 NHL games during his three-year stint in the Coyotes organization. He registered a pair of assists in his first appearance last season, but otherwise was kept off the scoresheet.

"Maybe if I had developed a little more confidence, I would have played better," he said. "For some guys, (success in the NHL) is easy and for others, it isn't. I was the kind of guy who had always been a late bloomer. I usually get better as the years go by and I'm hoping that continues."

Shuttled back and forth between Phoenix and the team's affiliate in Portland, Maine, Miele put together two solid AHL seasons before exploding with an all-star caliber campaign in 2013-14.

"I knew I was going to become a free agent, so at the beginning of last season, my agent told me, 'You're going to need to have a year like your Hobey Baker year where you tear it up.' To get a good opportunity somewhere else, I was going to have to put up a lot of points."

Miele tied for third overall among AHL scorers last season after posting 72 points (27 goals, 45 assists) in 70 contests with Portland. He tied for third among league scorers in power play assists (25) and tied a career-high by recording five points in a single game.

When Miele was ready to ink a new deal, he had a good idea where he wanted to sign. "No matter where I was going, I knew I would be starting in the AHL," he said. "I knew I wanted to play for a team where I enjoyed the city and where I could play for a coach who could teach me more things and help me develop. I wanted to play for Blash."

Miele had developed great respect for Blashill during his first year at Miami before Blashill left the school to become head coach and general manager of the Indiana Ice, a Tier I junior hockey team in the USHL.

"He's a winner and if you're winning at every level, you're doing something right," Miele said. "He pays so much attention to detail, which is so important throughout the year."

Miele was looking forward to the Red Wings' training camp in Traverse City to show the organization what he could do, but he was never able to set foot on the ice during the preseason. He remained sidelined with a sports hernia that had been misdiagnosed at the end of last season.

"I was doing all my workouts like nothing was wrong during the summer, and then I skated," Miele recalled. "I started feeling (pain) again, so I knew something wasn't right."

Projected to be sidelined for 6-8 weeks prior to the season, he missed the Griffins' first three games. "It was frustrating because I was really looking forward to getting a fresh start," he said.

Miele wasted little time in making an impression when he made his Griffins debut. He tallied a goal and assist in his first game, then recorded a pair of goals three games later. Through his first 15 games, Miele was scoring at a point-per-game clip.

Yet he knows that points alone won't be enough to earn a promotion to Detroit. Blashill has already told him as much. "He's told me that I won't play in the NHL if I don't work on my defensive game," Miele said. "It's tough to hear but it's what I need to hear."

Blashill concedes that Miele has "high-end offensive ability" but believes that he has the talent to be more than a one-dimensional player. "Andy's learning how hard we expect our centers to work defensively," Blashill said. "That's a habit that's going to take some time, but I think his best hockey is still ahead of him."

Feeling that he was cheated out of a chance to make a favorable impression on his hometown team during training camp, Miele is looking at the regular season as his audition for the Red Wings.

"This is my time to show them what I can do," Miele said. "Luckily, it's a long season, so I still have plenty of time. They know I will put up points and they expect it, but what they want to see is whether I can play both sides of the puck."

Blashill believes that Miele will prove that the Red Wings made the right decision when they signed him last summer. Why? Because he listens.

"What I like about Andy is that he's not just an offensive player," Blashill said. "He competes extremely hard, similar to Tomas Tatar, and you win with guys like that."