South Carolina Stingrays coach Spencer Carbery gets this call about once a day this time of year.

It’s the middle of March and the college hockey season is winding down. A college coach or an agent will give Carbery a quick ring and tell him about his latest prospect — a player that’s going to hit the ground running at the professional level and help the Stingrays during their run in the Kelly Cup playoffs.

Carbery will do his due diligence. He’ll make a few calls and check out the prospect, but most of the time, he’ll have to pass on the player.

But when Carbery got a call from Matt Thomas, the head coach at the University of Alaska-Anchorage, last winter, he knew he needed to listen. Thomas was Carbery’s coach when he played with the ECHL’s Fresno Falcons. Carbery trusted Thomas’ judgment and knew he had an eye for spotting talent.

Thomas was calling about a big, hard-nosed forward named Brett Cameron. Carbery called around and found out that the NHL’s Calgary Flames were also interested in Cameron. So Carbery wasted no time signing the young forward.

“I trust Matt, I trust his judgment and if he recommended Cameron I knew I needed to take a good, long look at him,” Carbery said.

The 6-3, 215-pound Cameron arrived in the Lowcountry last March and was as good as advertised, scoring three goals and adding an assist in just three games. It didn’t take long for the American Hockey League to take notice and Cameron was quickly called up to Adirondack, the Flames AHL affiliate.

“He was a big, strong power forward that could skate and was pretty skilled,” Carbery said. “Every scout just drools over a player like that.”

The Stingrays were in the midst of their 23-game winning streak when Cameron left for the AHL.

“It was tough to leave because I knew this was a good team,” Cameron said. “Sometimes you can walk into a locker room and just tell that this was a tight group of guys.”

Cameron finished the season in Adirondack, playing in five games.

When it came time for Carbery to put his Kelly Cup playoff roster together, he had to make some tough choices. He wanted to put Cameron on the roster, but knew he wouldn’t get him until the end of the AHL season, which was well into the first round of the Kelly Cup playoffs.

“We needed Brett, but we had some other guys we needed too,” Carbery said. “It wasn’t an easy decision to leave him off the playoff roster, but we had no choice.”

Cameron understood Carbery’s decision.

“I wanted to come back for the playoffs, but when it didn’t work out, it was okay,” Cameron said. “It’s a business and he made a business decision.”

Cameron kept close tabs on the Stingrays as they rolled to the Kelly Cup finals.

“I texted the guys, they had a great run,” Cameron said. “There were times when it killed me not to be playing. You don’t get many opportunities to win a championship.”

Cameron spent the summer in Spruce Grove, Alberta, working on his game and waiting for a call from an AHL or NHL team.

It never came and Cameron was back with the Stingrays.

“Cameron has all the tools to play at the next level and beyond,” Carbery said. “He just needs a little better foundation. He needed to work on his game away from the puck and he’s 100 percent better now than he was at the beginning of the season.”

Cameron is second on the team with 19 goals and 27 assists and was named the ECHL Rookie of the Month in February. He is seventh in scoring among all ECHL rookies.

“I honestly think it was a good thing Brett didn’t get called up to the AHL earlier in the season,” Carbery said. “He wasn’t ready back in November or December. He would have gone up and then been back down pretty quickly. He’s become such a better all-around player and now he’s putting up the numbers too. He’s not going to be in this league for much longer.”