CALGARY – There’s a new generation of beach boys coming out of Cali, and for the first year ever – the Mac’s Midget AAA Hockey Tournament is showing their fans some California love.
Travelling all the way from the city of angels, the California Wave hockey team traded in their beach shorts for long johns and are grateful to be on the Mac’s round robin bracket this year.
“Because this tournament has a lot of exposure. In California, you really don’t have it and it’s really good to get all the fans too because we don’t really get that many fans – besides our parents,” said Guy Petrie, a defenceman for the Wave.
“All the teams here are very high calibre. There’s so many scouts here watching us play,” said Samuel Anzai, 17-year-old forward for the Wave.
The young players are also getting a taste of how the Canucks face off.
“Canadian hockey teams are usually a lot tougher and a lot meaner than the California teams. We’re kind of more skilled players and the Canadian guys … they hit a lot harder and they play mean. We’re not really used to it,” said Anzai.
The hockey club from down south isn’t use to the temperature and snow in Calgary either.
“We’re really cold, we wear shorts all the time in California, we’re never wearing pants or long sleeve shirts … so putting on jackets and a lot of layers is kind of an adjustment,” said Petrie. “We usually don’t see snow at Christmas or around the holidays, so the fact that we saw snow fall is cool,”said Petrie.
As for the level of play, 17-year-old Petrie said Canadians have some misconceptions about ‘his’ wild wild west.
“Well, they think we’re soft. They think that we like to surf all day, they also think that we just like to try and dangle but we also have some guys that are kind of goons,” said Petrie.
“We obviously do all the California stuff, we go surfing, we go to the beach..but we’re a lot more focused than people think. We have a really good team that can surprise people,” said Anzai.
Their state has been warming up to the game over the years. As we’ve seen with the L.A. Kings – two-time Stanley Cup Champions in justfive years.
Guy’s dad David travelled with the team to Calgary, so he could watch his son play. David said people across the country think California is almost like the outback of hockey, but times have changed.
“Since the NHL expanded there, what’s happened is that a lot of the players who have come there, have retired and become coaches now living in California. Scott Niedermayer is a coach, Greg Johnson is a coach and Rob Blake coaches a rival team,” David Petrie said.“They’ve brought a tremendous emphasis on skill development. So a lot of these kids have very good fundamental skills and puck moving skills that you see in these teams coming up.”
The Kings acquiring Wayne Gretzky in the late 80’s from the Edmonton Oilers definitely didn’t hurt to lay the hockey groundwork in L.A.
“They’ve become an integral part of growing hockey in California and what’s happened is, we’re actually starting to develop a lot of local talent that’s going on to play junior and college and the NHL,” David Petrie said.
More kids from down south are ditching the surfboards for skates these days, as California dreamin’ shifts to the good ol’ hockey game.
The California Wave played the tournament host team – the Calgary Flames Tuesday afternoon. The Flames took a 2-1 win.
Comments