A trip to Portland, Maine last month to play hockey left a big impression on a North Kentville boy.
Ryan Clarke, 13, of North Kentville, was the only Kings County player chosen to the Atlantic Hockey Group’s Nova Scotia Peewee Young Guns team that represented the province at an Aug. 15-17 tournament in Portland.
Clarke not only got to travel outside Canada to play hockey for the first time, he and his teammates returned home with gold medals after a 5-2 victory over the host team from Maine in the tournament final.
Clarke and Kyle Garde from Bridgetown were the only Valley players on the Nova Scotia team, which lost its first game at the tournament, then didn’t lose again.
A centre who says he “likes to score goals and set up my teammates,” Clarke had a goal and had three assists in his team’s four games at the tournament. In one game, he was his team’s Game MVP.
Asked if he had tried out for the Nova Scotia team, Clarke, who played in the AHG’s spring league this year, said, “they came to our games and practices and scouted us.” Then, in early August, he and Garde were told they had made the team.
Clarke, a Grade 8 student at NKEC who enters his first year in the Acadia Minor Hockey bantam division this fall, has played hockey since he was five years old. He has participated in the AHG spring league two of the past three springs.
He had tryouts this past two weekends “to see which team I’ll be playing on this year.” He had not heard, but said he was setting his sights on the Bantam A rep team.
The Peewee Young Guns, Clarke said, “was put together to play in this one tournament,” and had since disbanded. Another team will be chosen next summer, by which time he will be too old for peewee.
“(The tournament was) the furthest away from home I’ve ever been to play hockey. It was fun, and the hockey was the best part,” he said.
His mom, Michele Josey, accompanied him on the trip.
“It was very exciting, and quite the experience, for both of us,” she said. “There were 195 kids in total (in the spring league). They chose 17 for the team, and Ryan was one of them.”
She was pleased – and a bit surprised – that her son was chosen.
“He loves hockey, but he’s not really an aggressive kind of player. I was quite nervous for him, as it’s a different kind of hockey. It was great to see him out there playing.”
The Nova Scotia team, she added, “was awesome, especially for a bunch of kids who hadn’t really played together. Ryan and Kyle played together in spring league, but he hadn’t met any of the others before.”
A trip to Portland, Maine last month to play hockey left a big impression on a North Kentville boy.
Ryan Clarke, 13, of North Kentville, was the only Kings County player chosen to the Atlantic Hockey Group’s Nova Scotia Peewee Young Guns team that represented the province at an Aug. 15-17 tournament in Portland.
Clarke not only got to travel outside Canada to play hockey for the first time, he and his teammates returned home with gold medals after a 5-2 victory over the host team from Maine in the tournament final.
Clarke and Kyle Garde from Bridgetown were the only Valley players on the Nova Scotia team, which lost its first game at the tournament, then didn’t lose again.
A centre who says he “likes to score goals and set up my teammates,” Clarke had a goal and had three assists in his team’s four games at the tournament. In one game, he was his team’s Game MVP.
Asked if he had tried out for the Nova Scotia team, Clarke, who played in the AHG’s spring league this year, said, “they came to our games and practices and scouted us.” Then, in early August, he and Garde were told they had made the team.
Clarke, a Grade 8 student at NKEC who enters his first year in the Acadia Minor Hockey bantam division this fall, has played hockey since he was five years old. He has participated in the AHG spring league two of the past three springs.
He had tryouts this past two weekends “to see which team I’ll be playing on this year.” He had not heard, but said he was setting his sights on the Bantam A rep team.
The Peewee Young Guns, Clarke said, “was put together to play in this one tournament,” and had since disbanded. Another team will be chosen next summer, by which time he will be too old for peewee.
“(The tournament was) the furthest away from home I’ve ever been to play hockey. It was fun, and the hockey was the best part,” he said.
His mom, Michele Josey, accompanied him on the trip.
“It was very exciting, and quite the experience, for both of us,” she said. “There were 195 kids in total (in the spring league). They chose 17 for the team, and Ryan was one of them.”
She was pleased – and a bit surprised – that her son was chosen.
“He loves hockey, but he’s not really an aggressive kind of player. I was quite nervous for him, as it’s a different kind of hockey. It was great to see him out there playing.”
The Nova Scotia team, she added, “was awesome, especially for a bunch of kids who hadn’t really played together. Ryan and Kyle played together in spring league, but he hadn’t met any of the others before.”
