Ice hockey is becoming more popular among high schoolers but seems unlikely ever to be a varsity sport.
By STEVE LEE
Published February 10, 2004
Much like the Tampa Bay Lightning, born in 1992, area hockey players are growing up.
And akin to the maturation of a franchise coming off its second playoff appearance and first postseason series win, the future holds promise for the state's skaters, who are getting older and better.
That can be traced, in part, to the Florida Panthers' remarkable 1996 playoff run that landed the third-year team in the Stanley Cup final. Two years after Florida lost to the Colorado Avalanche, the state's first high school club ice hockey game was played on the Panthers' home rink.
On Nov.5, 1998, in Sunrise, Boca Raton Pope John Paul defeated Fort Lauderdale Pine Crest 8-1. That season, those teams were joined by Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas and Boca Raton Spanish River in the Florida Scholastic Hockey League.
Today, 36 teams in the state compete in the Lightning and Panthers conferences. In the Tampa Bay area, 16 teams (Lightning conference) participate at two rinks: the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon and Tampa Bay Skating Academy in Oldsmar.
Including 20 teams in Broward and Palm Beach counties, about 700 players are skating on teams vying for state championships in two classifications: pure (skaters from one high school) and combined (more than one high school is represented).
"It's been a pretty pleasurable run," said Peter Pearlman, one of the FSHL's founding fathers.
"The quality of play has improved tremendously," Springstead coach Jim Fisher said. "You have a lot of kids moving down from up north, and the kids who come up around here are doing tremendously."
John Finney, hockey director of the Ice Sports Forum where 10 high school teams - up from four in 1999-2000 - play, agrees.
"I would say three-quarters of the players are from up north," Finney said. "But each year kids grow up playing hockey here."
To see better competition, the FSHL has put together Team Florida, essentially a statewide all-star team, for the third straight season. That team, which plays in out-of-state tournaments, includes seven players from the Tampa Bay area.
While it's a new level of play for Florida, no one is claiming it can match established programs in New England and the Midwest. Daniel Vranek, a River Ridge sophomore, plans to transfer to a high school in Eden Prairie, Minn., to play hockey.
"It really is to further his dream of playing professionally," said Vranek's father, Dan. "You can't get the competition down here."
Bill Burgess has firsthand knowledge. Burgess, a travel team standout as a St. Petersburg High student, went to a prep school in Stanstead, Quebec, for his senior year. He helped lead that team to a 1996-97 division championship.
"Bill was able to dominate the Tampa Bay scene," said Stanstead coach Mike McNamara, who recruited Burgess after seeing him at a hockey school in Oldsmar. "He was a good skater with speed and puck control."
Burgess, now 24, tried to walk on at Dartmouth, but did not make the varsity and formed a club-level travel team. A 2001 Dartmouth graduate, he is a second-year law student at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I thought the NHL was out of reach, but at least I could try to play college hockey," Burgess said. "I knew it was a long shot, but the best chance I would have would be going up north."
As Vranek's father ponders sending his son away to play hockey, Burgess' father, William, offered some advice.
"It was difficult to let him go," Burgess said, "but I thought, in the last analysis, it was good to put him in an environment where he'd learn to be self-sufficient.
"In hockey, you have to be a thinker and a doer."
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The players who stay see the tougher ompetition at tournaments such as the Chicago Showcase, where Team Florida has twice placed third at the club level. National tourneys, along with the increasing numbers, lead some to predict that hockey eventually will become a full-fledged high school sport in Florida.
"Sure, absolutely," said David Cole, the Tampa Bay Lightning's director of fan development. "It's grown immeasurably."
But the roadblocks, mostly financial, are huge.
"It's going to be a challenge," Florida High School Athletic Association association commissioner John Stewart said.
At least two local athletic directors do not envision the sport being sanctioned any time soon.
"If I was a gambling person, and I'm not, I would say the deck is stacked against it right now," Pinellas County athletic director Walter Weller said.
The trend is in the other direction, as tighter budgets result in fewer games in many sports. Weller said money for startup costs for something that is not a mainstream sport is nowhere to be found.
Equipment costs alone approach, and sometimes exceed, $1,000 per player. Include travel, officials and renting ice time, and the number mounts.
"It's an expensive sport and with budgets the way they are, I couldn't add another sport if I wanted to," said Hillsborough County athletic director Vernon Korhn.
Korhn has fielded inquiries for bowling, roller hockey, lacrosse and even paint ball.
"We get beat to death with those things, but every time you add a program it costs money," he said.
Plus, Korhn said, not all 23 schools in the county have hockey teams. And more rinks would have to be built.
"If we're going to fund a sport, we're going to fund it for all 23 schools," Korhn said. "And I don't think that's going to happen."
Neither does Leo Grossman, who has coached Durant since that school's team, with Bloomingdale, Riverview and Plant, formed in the 1997-98 season. "It'll never happen," Grossman said. "It's a club sport. I've come to accept that."
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So without the formalities that come with being a sanctioned sport, athletes play for the love of the game and not much else.
Some, such as Nick Correa and Nick Sullivan, made the jump to a club team in college. Correa, who played at Springstead, is a sophomore forward for South Florida. USF teammate Sullivan, a sophomore goaltender, played at the IMG hockey academy in Bradenton.
Correa helped lead Springstead to two state championships (in the combined class since some players were from Central). Like many players, he excelled at roller hockey before switching to ice, which unlike roller allows checking.
"I was getting too aggressive and I was getting thrown out of games," said Correa of his primary reason for making the change at 13. "My dad was like, "I'm not paying all this money to have you not be able to play."'
Correa, whose high school participation included football, baseball, weightlifting and track, said, "Hockey's at the top, definitely. When I was younger I played everything, but hockey's the one I chose. I like that more."
"He was very good (in high school), but he's a third-line grinder," said USF coach Mitch Brauzer of Correa, who plays on a checking line.
As for Sullivan, Brauzer said, "He's a guy I feel if he stays with it and takes it seriously could get a minor-league tryout."
Sullivan, who played in youth leagues at TBSA and Sunblades Arena near Largo, has stopped pucks in amateur leagues in Winnipeg in 2002. That taste led him to believe a Floridian might one day play professionally.
"Realistically, it'll happen," Sullivan said.
Vranek, 14, hopes to be the first. At least some of his classmates think so.
"They think I'm going straight into the NHL," said Vranek, chuckling. "I just say, "Okay, whatever you think."'
Vranek played in Italy in November with an elite team from Sunblades organized by former Lightning winger John Tucker. Vranek hopes that, and going to high school in Minnesota, will help him achieve his dream.
Nick Wichmanowski does not share that dream but that does not dampen his passion. An accomplished roller hockey player at Ridgewood, Wichmanowski crossed over to ice hockey in college, where he is a founder of the fourth-year Florida Gulf Coast team.
Wichmanowski, a 21-year-old senior who leads his team with 10 goals and 15 assists for 25 points, played basketball and Little League baseball in west Pasco, but dropped those sports soon after he began playing roller hockey as an eighth-grader.
"Once I started playing hockey I lost interest in all other sports," Wichmanowski said. "Once I got good, I was hooked."
"He brought some of the skills he had as a roller hockey player to the ice," said Don Awrey, Florida Gulf Coast's coach who was a defenseman on two Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins teams.
Florida Gulf Coast is the most recent addition to College Hockey South. At the other end of the spectrum is USF, founded in 1989 and a five-time CHS champion, including last season.
No one has seen USF players develop more than Rich Wasilewski, owner of Sunblades, the area's oldest rink (opened in 1986). USF practiced and played there, later moving on to TBSA and the rink in Brandon.
"College hockey, no matter what level the play, is a very good brand of hockey," said Wasilewski, comparing the CHS-leading Bulls to a Division III team.
As with any sport, more and better players can only improve leagues throughout the state.
At tournaments in northern states, Correa said, "Some people are like, "You're playing hockey in Florida?'
