Tommy McKee gets around.

He's a U.S. Air Force lieutenant in the financial services section at the McConnell AFB in Wichita, Kansas, and he's also a rookie NLL forward with the Vancouver Stealth. He's here, there and everywhere.

McKee played his first regular-season pro indoor game in Calgary last Friday night. The Stealth won 12-11. Then there was a 4 a.m. wakeup call for a 6 a.m. flight to Denver that was delayed 90 minutes so the jet could be de-iced. The players checked into their hotel in the early afternoon, had a nap, and faced the Colorado Mammoth on Saturday night. The Stealth won again, 15-9, with McKee sitting out so Chris O'Dougherty could be inserted into the lineup to bolster the defense. McKee flew home to Kansas on Sunday. He'll travel to Vancouver for his team's home opener this Saturday.

"The travel is a bit long sometimes but it's worth it," he says.

The weekend commutes will continue through the end of April, and into May if the Stealth make the playoffs, and most of them will be single-gamers so they won't be quite as hectic as the Calgary-Colorado combo.

McKee is the first U.S. Air Force Academy grad to land a full-time NLL gig, and he'll always remember the goal he scored in his debut. He had the ball in the corner of the Calgary arena to the right of goalie Christian Del Bianco. The shot clock was ticking down so he dashed into shooting position.

"I was hoping to get a shot on net and, hopefully, it would go in," he recalls.

He let an overhand shot fly. The ball nestled into the bottom of the net. The 5-foot-9, 180-pound rookie had scored on his first shot in his first NLL game. The first-quarter goal gave the Stealth a 3-0 lead in a game they led all the way.

@StealthLAX rookie @tommy_mckee get his 1st #NLL goal in the first quarter. Didn't take him long to break the seal. #usaf #usa pic.twitter.com/6UHSzy4wAk

— brad hock (@bradhock1) January 7, 2017

"It was huge," McKee said of the road win. "It reinforced everything we'd worked on in training camp. We could tell we were in better shape than those guys. It was satisfying."

McKee, 25, is from Holt, Michigan. He was in seventh grade when he started playing lacrosse. A Canadian channel that carried Toronto Rock games could be watched in the family home.

"When I saw that on TV, I said that's what I wanted to play."

McKee helped lead the Air Force Falcons to the 2014 ECAC title and was a second-team all-star despite missing half the season with a broken leg. He had a scoring streak from 2012 through 2014 of 33 games with at least a goal a game. Coach Eric Seremet encouraged him to give the NLL a shot. Seremet played in the league for seven years with Boston, New York, Syracuse and Colorado, hanging up his pro indoor stick with the Mammoth in 2003. Mammoth GM Steve Govett invited McKee to camp in 2015.

"I learned a lot from that experience," said McKee.

He got into two pre-season games in Canada, where Stealth GM Doug Locker took notes, before being released by the Mammoth. Last autumn, Locker invited him to a free-agent camp attended by more than 35 hopefuls. McKee was one of three men asked to proceed to the main camp. He made the team and was told he'd be going to Calgary for the season opener.

"Doug and (head coach) Jamie Batley gave me the news," he said. "My birthday was December 30. I told them it was the best birthday present I could get. I was really pumped up about it. I knew I could play with the guys in this league."

"Tommy has a ton of skill and impressed us throughout camp with his skill level, work ethic and desire to learn the indoor game," Locker said. "He's a very good shooter with a knack for being unpredictable and fearless."

Falcons teammate Eric Crampton was a sixth-round Colorado draft selection in 2014 but he became a pilot and could not get weekends off to pursue playing in the NLL. So, it's McKee carrying Air Force colors to the indoor pro league. Seremet, who played NCAA ball at North Carolina, and some of McKee's other McConnell AFB friends called him after the game in Calgary to offer their congratulations.

"I'm thankful for the support," said McKee.

A U.S. Air Force player on this particular NLL team is a perfect fit because it was named after detection-avoiding stealth aircraft flown by Air Force pilots.

It was an inspiring weekend for the Stealth. To get the two wins, the players travelled 1,300 miles in 48 hours. They declined to let fatigue bring them down in Denver. They outscored Colorado 5-1 in the fourth quarter to seal the win and, at 2-0, they are in first place in their division today.

"We were looking down at (the Mammoth) bench and they looked more tired than we did and that gave us momentum," said head coach Jamie Batley. "The guys worked hard and it paid off."