Chavira rolls out of town, ponders hockey future

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

On the day he was leaving town, it might have taken less time to ask Mariner Itan Chavira what he wouldn’t be doing now that his time with the junior A team has ended, rather than asking him what his upcoming plans are.

Although where hockey falls into those plans, he was still unsure.

Chavira only joined the Marines after a trade in January, but his impact on the team and in the MJAHL will be felt long after he’s gone. He ended the season with the most goals scored in the league, with 41, and at 85 points was one point off being on the top of that stats list.

And to many fans what was as remarkable as his flashy presence on the ice was that he only started playing ice hockey three years ago. Most of his young life had been chewed up by roller hockey, a sport he started playing at the age of eight, when many of his other Mariner teammates would have been lacing up for novice hockey.

For the immediate future, roller hockey was what Chavira was going to be involving himself with. After a short visit home to California, he was flying out to England. From there he’s off to Buffalo for a roller hockey tournament, with another visit home after that. Then it’s off to northern California for another roller hockey tournament and then a camp in Hawaii. A lot of this travel has to do with a new company the 20-year-old has started up – Dangl Productions – which will involve photography and filming at roller hockey tournaments and camps.

Filming is no stranger to this youngest of nine siblings, his father and a brother are both involved in the film industry in California.

But what about hockey?

That will come in late August Chavira says.

“Right now I have a scholarship to go to Alaska Fairbanks to play Division One, or I can go to Texas and play in the CHL,” he says. “I’m not sure what I really want to do. I don’t know if I want to go to college. I have to talk more about it with my parents.”

Chavira finds himself in the same boat as many of his Mariner teammates who are moving on from junior A hockey. Some are contemplating university choices, others are exploring other hockey options, others pondering whether to just join the workforce.

For his part, Chavira says his hope is to one day head to Europe to play pro hockey.

Asked if has a preference – roller hockey or ice hockey? – Chavira says it’s more about setting new goals than choosing one sport over the other. And in roller hockey he has already achieved the pinnacle he sought, winning goal as part of Team USA.

As for his time playing hockey in Yarmouth, Chavira admits it was all very new to him.

“I’m used to an environment where you don’t know everybody in a big city, so coming here and going to town to hang out, and seeing your fans, they talk to you, everybody know each other, I really enjoyed that,” he says, adding he didn’t get as much of the ‘which one are you’ question his teammates got when they were spotted out of uniform. Maybe because he still had that big city look in a small town.

“A lot of people came up to me and said, ‘You’re Chavira, right?’” he says with a smile. “I just had a great season here, it was really fun to play here.”

QUICK GLANCE

Yarmouth Mariners whose junior A careers have come to an end:

Jamie Klie

Brendon MacDonald

Matt Rhymer

Ryan Penney

Steve Pearson

Matt Duff

Jocelyn Morrissette

Alexandre Soucy

Justin Saulnier

Itan Chavira