Not all child actors end up like the kids from Diff’rent Strokes: I’m living proof. It’s true. Long before my highly anticipated (by me, anyway) return to acting in a couple of NHL on TSN promos (I prefer they be called short art films), I was a child star.

At seven, I shone as the second sheep from the left in the Rothwell United Church’s Christmas nativity scene.

I broke into TV drama two years later, eating oranges and heading a ball deftly towards the net on a community cable show about youth soccer.

But my first love was live theatre.

No one could touch me when it came to faking a cough to stay home from school. Several times, mom called 911 in tears. (Coincidentally, those same acting skills come in handy today, pretending I’m interested when my wife shows me drape swatches.)

Critics said I had the subtlety of a Corey Feldman, the intensity of a Corey Haim, and the hair of a Corey Hart.

Yet I gave it all up to pursue my dream of being a hockey host.

Though I have never regretted my decision, somewhere deep inside me, the acting bug was still alive.

Then, wonderfully, magically, I received a message from above (okay, an e-mail from the third floor TSN promotions department): They wanted me to co-star in a couple of NHL on TSN promos…er…short art films.

Despite my success as a young thespian, I was about to find out that the transition to adult films (oops, I mean films with adults in them) is not easy.

Being myself on NHL on TSN is a piece of cake. Playing myself in an NHL on TSN commercial is not.

The promos were shot at a local arena in Toronto where the Leafs practice. They starred likable Leafs forward Alyn McCauley. (Soon to be ex-Leaf. More on that later.)

Alyn and I are friends from our days in Ottawa when he was a junior star and I was working for a local station, so that helped. Plus, he’s one of the nicest guys in the NHL. We probably did 50 or 60 takes to get all the angles and cutaway shots, and he never complained or gave any of that pro athlete attitude.

I, on the other hand, refused to leave my dressing room until they removed the red sprinkles from my iced donuts, screamed at a make-up artist for over-powdering my left ear, and walked off the set twice because I felt a slight draft.

The storyline was a continuation of our ‘Hockey Lives Here’ theme; the idea being that hockey really does live at TSN. In the first spot, I was (supposedly) somewhere in the bowels of the TSN building, carving a hockey stick. Alyn walks up, in full uniform, and asks:

‘Is it ready James?’

‘Here you go, Alyn,’ I reply, and hand it to him, proud of my handiwork (I practiced my ‘proud’ face in the mirror for two weeks…I was convinced Meryl Streep could not do ‘proud’ better).

Alyn grabs the stick, has a look and says: ‘It’s the wrong hand!’

Duthie, looking puzzled (‘puzzled’ is easier than ‘proud,’ because I know ‘puzzled,’ I live with ‘puzzled’ every day) responds: ‘You shoot left?’

McCauley: ‘Right.’

Duthie: ‘That’s what it is…right.’

McCauley: ‘NO…left!’

Duthie: ‘You shoot left?’

And so begins a 30-second Abbott and Costello ‘Who’s On First’ routine.

Good, clean, simple, stupid comedy. My favourite kind. The spots are written, produced, and directed by award-winning TSN promo wizards Andy Bianchi and Noel Rigelhof.

They are both truly warped, which is a good thing. It makes the shoots a lot of fun. Plus, they do all the work. We just show up and act. Check that. Attempt to act.

You see, despite my earlier musings about my acting prowess, the thing is….I…well…how do I put it…suck.

I graduated from the Dustin Diamond School of Overacting. I make Hasselhoff look like De Niro. I will make you long for Steve Guttenberg.

Somehow they found a couple of usable takes. Alyn, on the other hand, pretty much nailed everything. I hate him now.

We shot a second spot that day, where Alyn is trying to fix a Zamboni in time to clean the ice on our NHL on TSN set. He eventually finds a TSN microphone stuck in the engine.

My key moment was the close-up ‘surprised’ reaction shot. I ended up looking like the kid in Home Alone.

Still, the guys did a great job editing and the finished promos look great.

Unfortunately, they lasted about as long as Juwanna Man did in the theatres.

In early March, McCauley was traded to San Jose. Since he did our spots in a Leafs uniform, the promos were dated, and dead.

Oops. That’s Hollywood.

It’s okay. I’m now considering other roles.

Sadly, no one is considering me for them.

James Duthie is host of NHL on TSN. Agents and movie scouts can reach him by mail at the TSN headquarters in Toronto.