There is no way to measure this, but it is almost certainly true: Of all the players in the NHL who attended rookie camps over the past week, Luke Rowe surely is the person who has spent the most time considering life after hockey.

You would assume, at least, that most players at a rookie camp have given almost no thought to the topic, and why would they? Definitionally, they are at the beginning of their careers, starting something they hope will last for a long time.

The nature of being a professional athlete demands a laser focus on today. Not tomorrow, and certainly not some undefined amount of time from now. Of all the myriad questions Matthew Schaefer has been asked over the past few months, what he will do once his hockey career is over has not been brought up, because it would be an absurd thing to ask an 18-year-old.

Rowe is an exception to this almost universal rule for two reasons. The first is his age, 27, which made him at least five years older than most of his peers at Islanders rookie camp and nine years older than the likes of Schaefer. The second is he already knows what he will be doing after his hockey career, and he has known it since he arrived at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs six years ago.