Still not ready to hang ‘em up

CARRYING ON-Above, Bobby Hannah of Simi Valley's Ventura Mariners 18AA team looks on during a practice Tuesday night at the Easy Street Arena. Below, Mariner goalie Matt Salit attempts to make a save. Below right, James Stover winds up for a shot.

Seventeen-year-old Matthew Potter has been trying to find the net since he was just 5, starting out like many California youths in a local roller hockey league that offered a summer alternative to baseball.

If not for the actions of a pestering best friend, he might have ended up a pitcher or a catcher, but instead he ended up a hockey player.

"I just loved being out on the ice and skating, and the camaraderie between the guys," he said. "I started out playing it young and I just never stopped."

Growing up in Moorpark, Potter got involved with the local team—Simi Valley’s Ventura Mariners out of the Easy Street Arena. Putting in both the time and the money, Potter came up through the hockey ranks (one oddly named stage at a time) from Mite to Squirt to Peewee and so on, and today is a member of the Mariners’ 18AA team, the program’s eldest group of players.

Three days a week, Potter shows up along with 16 other players—nearly all of whom are from Ventura County or the San Fernando Valley—to make the most of the team’s hour on the ice. Just months away from "aging out" of the program, the senior skates with a purpose, knowing these final months will be critical to his future—both in hockey and elsewhere.

That’s because like nearly every one of his teammates, Potter has hopes of playing hockey beyond the Mariners and outside of the state, a growing trend in an area that fell in love with the ice sport after the Los Angeles Kings acquired legend Wayne Gretzky.

"I’ve been around ice hockey a long time, and let me tell you, we have a really good core of kids here with a lot of potential," said Mariner in-house hockey director Luc Beausoleil, a 14-year veteran of semi-pro hockey who hails from Montreal. "I’m not saying we have a NHL player right now, but when we travel places people are always very surprised about the quality of players we have here. It’s not surprising that there’s a lot of these guys who don’t want to put down the stick after they finish up with the Mariners."

For the fortunate ones, there could be a scholarship waiting at a four-year university with a NCAA-sanctioned program (none of which are in California), but for most it comes down to a split decision—look for a smaller school to play at, most likely on a club team, or endure the pressure and competition of fighting for a spot on a Junior-A or B team, hockey’s equivalent of the lower-minor leagues.

"You move away, they put up you in a boarding house and you basically just live to play hockey for one or two years," said defenseman Daylin Ackerman, 17, who’s trying to decide between going to a smaller Div. II or III on the East Coast or trying out for Juniors. "But the competition is fierce, and it’s a lot of hard work. But hopefully, after two years, you walk onto a college team as a 20-year-old incoming freshman."

Though there are countless junior leagues available to play at both in the U.S. and Canada (the closest being the Western States Hockey League) the battle for an open spot remains supremely difficult. Less than 1 percent of youth players make it to juniors.

"I’ve been to tryouts when there are 60 guys trying out for five spots—but that’s just the nature of it," Ackerman said. "The best players are the ones that survive."

Once in league, players can compete in games frequented by hockey scouts from all the college ranks right up through to the NHL. It’s a shot-in-the-dark to be sure, but it’s what almost any young hockey player dreams about—a shot at the big time.

"I know I will go to college eventually but I figure why not give myself a chance to pursue my hockey dreams for a little bit first and try to get a scholarship or get drafted?" Potter said. "If not, I will just go back to school. I want to be a pharmacist."

Even today, as the California hockey talent pool grows, local players face the bias of being a hockey player from a warm-weather state.

"Everywhere you go you’re still a ‘California hockey player’ and you still a feel a little bias because of that," Potter said. "But the only way to change that is to go out there and prove we can play and beat everybody else . . . it acts a lot like motivation for us to play better because we’re always coming in as the underdog."

Ackerman said the fact that local players know they’re getting less than half the ice time than players in colder regions of the country makes them even hungrier.

"We know we have to work twice as hard as everybody else and have to overcome some obstacles, but we also know the guys that make the excuses are going to be the ones that don’t make it," the senior at Viewpoint School in Calabasas said. "It’s the guys that show up and do it and don’t say anything that will succeed."

Mariners’ club president Lisa England said that in recent years California’s status in the hockey world has increased thanks to the success of state teams in international and national tournaments.

"The last couple years hockey in California is gaining notoriety—we’re sending a lot of players to USA teams, to semi-pro teams and to colleges," said England, whose son Bradley plays for the Mariners. "We’re sending kids to USC, Colorado, Colorado State, Cal Poly, Notre Dame and others."

A few have even earned spots on Division I programs, players like Justin Cross, a forward who currently plays for Niagara University in New York. He was given a scholarship after his performance in a junior league.

Examples such as Cross, keep the dreams alive for SoCal players like Potter and Ackerman, who like so many other high school athletes, just aren’t prepared to walk away from the sport they’ve grown to love.

"Almost every on a (18AA) team like this one is looking to go on," Ackerman said. "If you’ve put in the time and commitment and money up to this point than that means you are pretty serious about the game, and many of us are. It’s what we love."

Familiar with this passion for the ice, Beausoleil said in the end, if players have the skill they will achieve their goals.

"Let’s put it this way, if you’re a good hockey player, the bottom line is, no matter where you are from in the world, someone will be there to find you," he said honestly. "Whether you’re in Florida or Montreal."