The Rise of Hockey on Long Island
The list of North American hockey talent hotbeds has long included St. Paul-Minnesota, Toronto, Ann Arbor, Montreal and Ontario, Canada. During the last five to 10 years, an area rarely thrown into this conversation has established itself as one of the newest hockey hotbeds of the Northeast.
Long Island.
“I’ve been coaching youth hockey for over 30 years, and recently, I’ve seen a huge jump in both participation and the level of talent for Long Island hockey,” said Anthony Ceccarini, coach of the St. John of God Catholic Youth Organization hockey league in Central Islip.
Ceccarini has coached the same team, the pee-wee Bruins, a 10-and-under youth roller hockey team, for over 30 years. He also runs the St. John of God CYO hockey league, which is predominantly roller hockey. He has been around roller, ice, and deck hockey for almost his entire life and seen youth participation skyrocket during his coaching career.
When he first took over the St. John of God hockey league in the late 1980s, it had around 50 kids. Today, somewhere between 400 and 500 kids play.
“I’ve seen almost 10,000 kids come through our league over the years and I’d like to think I’ve had my finger on the pulse of youth hockey,” Ceccarini said. “It’s been amazing to watch it grow the way that it has.”
Anthony Ceccarini
George Hinz, the commissioner of the Long Island Amateur Hockey League, acknowledged this recent trend and said he thinks this is only the beginning for hockey on Long Island.
“Hockey in this area is way bigger than it was 10 years ago,” Hinz said. “I am positive that this trend is going to continue.”
Recently, the younger generation has gravitated towards the sport. Jon Panetta, a 15-year old hockey fan from Kings Park believes the style of the game is a key reason.
“I see growth in the sport of Long Island and I think it is due to the intensity and speed of the game,” Panetta said. “The non-stop action alone is what intrigued me to start watching the sport a few years ago and learn more about the game.”
Panetta, who is just entering high school, does not play hockey himself, but is a fan of the sport and has a ton of friends who play. He is adamant that local participation in the sport will continue to grow.
“I have many friends involved with the Long Island Royals as well as the Saint Anthony’s hockey team and I think there’s real growing interest among kids my age and younger. In my opinion, the interest in the game will only strengthen over time.”
But why the increase in hockey on Long Island and the New York area and why now? It starts with youth hockey, and has trickled down to travel, in-house leagues, juniors, and even some semi-professional and amateur leagues.
For one thing, local stars like Charlie McAvoy from Long Beach and Sonny Milano from Massapequa have recently broken into the National Hockey League, inspiring more local kids to take up the sport.
While the success of local kids like McAvoy and Milano is extremely impactful, Hinz said he believes the biggest reason for this uptick in hockey participation on Long Island has been a shift in the style of play.
“In recent years, USA Hockey and the New York State Amateur Hockey Association have put more of an emphasis on individual skills, both skating and puck handling, rather than the old, traditional ways of dumping the puck into the zone and chasing it, which is a style of play that often bores people,” Hinz explained. “I think the style you see a lot more of today is fast, up-tempo skating with flashy stick play, which attracts a lot of the younger kids to the sport.”
The shift in play can be seen on a national scale, but is something Hinz sees in the play on Long Island and across the New York area that has been a contributing factor to the increase in participation.
Recent developments in the sport of hockey back Hinz’s claim. Young players such as Boston Bruins’ Charlie McAvoy, Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews, Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid, and New York Islanders’ Mat Barzal are quick and flashy. They speed around the ice, skating circles around their opponents while stick-handling and deking- feinting to draw a defending player out of position- exerting what looks like little to no effort.
Christian Hamlett, a 23-year old hockey player who recently graduated from the University of Tampa, grew up immersed in the sport of hockey. He started playing at 6, following in the footsteps of his older brother and father, who are both hockey players, and never looked back.
He played on his first travel team at 7. He played in-house and travel hockey at The Rinx and other hockey facilities in Suffolk throughout his childhood, mostly for the Suffolk Police Athletic League travel league.
At age 16, he started playing for the Suffolk PAL’s Junior Royals. Their team traveled all over, playing weekend tournaments in Boston, Canada, Texas, Florida and New Jersey. Hamlett has since graduated from the University of Tampa and is working towards his Masters degree. He currently plays in a recreational men’s league with some friends from high school.
Asked whether hockey participation on Long Island has been increasing, he was quick to answer.
“Absolutely. Over the past five to 10 years it has definitely increased,” Hamlett said. “I know multiple players, even friends of mine, who have younger brothers that are excelling on Long Island. Adam Fox, who was drafted last year by the Calgary Flames KJ Tiefenwerth, who went onto play at Quinnipiac, which is D1 and a big-time hockey school where scouts are looking to draft kids. It’s exciting to see the direction hockey on Long Island is headed.”
Until recently, kids from Long Island who wanted to pursue a collegiate and possibly professional hockey career had to leave the area.
Around age 14 or 15, elite young players would attend boarding schools and summer camps in Massachusetts, Canada, New Hampshire and other areas of the Northeast to attract notice of national scouts from high-level leagues.
Children born in 1995 or earlier “who were trying to play somewhere serious would go to a different league and maybe leave Long Island,” Hamlett explained. “When I was younger, they would probably need to get off Long Island and go play in a league where you can get noticed, a league where there are scouts. Recently, scouts have been coming to see the 1998 and 1999 kids on Long Island. There are a lot of younger kids developing quickly here and this area is truly becoming a breeding ground for young hockey talent.”
Christian Hamlett
The talent is here, and people across the country are finally taking notice. And it’s not just men’s hockey that has seen an uptick in success on Long Island. Women’s and girls hockey have also taken off over the last five years or so.
Just last month, the U.S. Women’s National team defeated Team Canada at the Olympics in South Korea to capture its second gold medal in team history. The U.S. Women have an extremely talented roster and a group of players who have been playing together for almost a decade.
Before the Olympics in Pyeongchang, the women had won two silver medals, losing to Team Canada in the championship match in back-to-back Olympics. These past 12 years, Team USA has been one of the most successful women’s hockey teams in the world.
Long Island has always had healthy participation in women’s hockey, but this string of national successes has inspired girls of all ages and all parts of the country to get more involved with the sport of hockey.
“The popularity in women’s hockey has increased with the Olympic success of the women’s national team and with the recognition of players like Hilary Knight and Amanda Kessel,” Lisa Wild, the academic advisor for the Lady Islanders, said. Phil Kessel, older brother of Amanda, plays in the NHL for the Pittsburgh Penguins and is a two-time Stanley Cup champion.
“Girls in the area who have older brothers that play now look at Amanda and say, ‘I can play this sport too.’”
The Lady Islanders is a women’s youth/juniors ice hockey organization based in Dix Hills, Long Island. The organization has several teams under its umbrella, ranging from 10 and under to 19 and under.
George Hinz, the amateur-league commissoner, said the Lady Islanders could quite possibly be the most talented women’s team on Long Island.
“Long Island has always had a decent amount of hockey talent on the girls’ side,” Hinz said. “But I’d say only recently have they taken that next step with the success of the Lady Islanders. They’re putting a lot of their girls into college, and I’d say they’re one of the most successful women’s teams in the northeast. They’ve truly put Long Island on the map.”
Certain challenges come with growing the game. Organizations including Hinz’s league, USA Hockey and the New York State Amateur Hockey Association have been working together to ensure the sport’s success in the area.
“We are working 24/7 to grow the game and make it better for everybody involved,” Joe Baudo, president of the state association’s board of directors, said. “We want the sport of hockey to flourish in the New York/Long Island area.”
One of the most prominent challenges is player safety. Preventing injury, especially at the youth level, is the chief concern for many of these local hockey leagues and organizations.
According to HealthGrove, a medical website that collects data on injuries in all major sports, ice hockey is responsible for 29,452 injuries per year, which places the sport 15th out of 33 sports in the websites database. On average, a single sport causes 28,301 injuries annually in the US.
Hinz explained that the local, state and national hockey groups have implemented several new rules and regulations.
“For example, checking from behind has always been a really bad penalty, and now for that offense, players will receive a suspension,” Hinz said. “We want to limit dangerous cross checks and more specifically limit injuries to the spine and head. That has become one of our main priorities in recent years.”
In hockey, checking is a defensive technique aimed at disrupting the opponent with possession of the puck, or separating the opponent from the puck entirely.
Concussions in football have been making national headlines for the last year or two, but concussions also happen in hockey. St. John of God’s Ceccarini is confident that his league is taking the right precautions and making the necessary changes to make youth hockey safe for his players.
“Equipment has changed drastically over the years,” Ceccarini explained. “We require everyone in our league to wear gear from the same two or three companies that we have determined are the best and have the most padding. We also require everyone to wear a mouthpiece, which no one used to do 10, 20 years ago.”
Although equipment for the sport has improved, prices have remained relatively steady over the last five years, with some slight increases. There is a lot of equipment required to play hockey safely, including everything from elbow pads and a helmet to a mouth piece and neck guard.
Ice time and league fees can be expensive, but the price of a full set of hockey equipment is sometimes overlooked. On average, a full set of hockey equipment can cost roughly $680.
$ 60.00
$ 12.00
$ 35.00
$ 20.00
$ 90.00
$ 15.00
$ 75.00
$ 30.00
$ 15.00
$ 55.00
$ 55.00
$ 55.00
$ 85.00
$ 80.00
*Prices listed in the diagram above are the average prices of each piece of equipment, according to Dicks Sporting Goods' online store (www.dickssportinggoods.com/ice-hockey)
One thing that hasn’t changed very much, however, is the racial mix of hockey players, even as the racial diversity on Long Island, and across the country, has increased significantly.
Val James, the first African American player in the NHL, signed a contract with the Buffalo Sabres in 1982. The number of black players in the league moved to 26 by the end of the 20th century. That number has moved to somewhere in the high thirties for the 2017-18 season.
African Americans make up a very small percentage of today’s NHL, but what about other ethnicities? Canadian, Russian and European born players dominate a decent chunk of the league. Outside of those, ethnicities such as Asian, Native American, and Hispanic combine for a miniscule percentage of professional population.
Despite the lopsided make-up of the NHL, the league has done a good job of reaching fans of all ethnicities, on Long Island, in the United States, and beyond. International tournaments like the Olympics and World Juniors are key ways to draw in fans from countries that may not be well represented in the NHL.
Youth and amateur leagues throughout the country are predominantly white. Today, hockey leagues on Long Island are seeing a slight increase in the number of non-white players participating compared to 10 or 20 years ago, according to Hinz.
The pace of the game has quickened in recent years. The style of play has slowly transitioned from positional, side-to-side puck movement with a focus on basic fundamentals to a game of finesse, with guys making sharp cuts, long passes, and awe-inspiring dekes. The rise of superstars such as Connor McDavid, Charlie McAvoy, and Auston Matthews has inspired the younger generation to become more involved with the sport.
Accessibility of the game, the number of facilities, diversity, and injuries are all contributing components to the recent rise of hockey in the area. By 2030, Long Island could be mentioned in the same breath as St. Paul and Toronto, some of the better-known hotbeds of elite hockey talent.