Three Alaska Nanooks entered a desired territory as part of their summer training — they worked with National Hockey League teams.
Defenseman Joe Sova and wings Ryan Hohl and Andy Taranto aren’t trading in their college careers for livelihoods in the world’s top professional league. They are taking some things they learned earlier this month at NHL prospects development camps into the upcoming season with the Nanooks of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association.
“Probably the biggest thing for me was it helped my speed get a lot better,” Taranto, the 2009-10 CCHA Rookie of the Year and the Nanooks’ second-leading scorer last season, said by cell phone of his participation in the camp of the reigning Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks on July 7-12.
“The biggest thing for me,” the right wing and 42-point scorer continued, “is to have speed to adjust in creating time and space for myself and my teammates, and to be able to read certain situations.”
Hohl, a left wing, was among the prospects in the Detroit Red Wings camp on July 8-13 and Sova was a participant in two camps — he trained with the Toronto Maple Leafs’ prospects on July 3-10 before heading to the Blackhawks’ camp.
All the players benefitted, too, from the camps being near their hometowns. Taranto, who’s entering his sophomore season, is from Woodridge, Ill., and Sova, a junior this coming season, is from Berwyn, Ill, a fellow Chicago suburb. Hohl hails from Northville, Mich., which is about a 15-minute drive from Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, where the Nanooks senior left wing recently got to wear his favorite NHL team’s red practice jersey with the wheeled-wing logo.
“It was just a great experience for someone in the college game,” Hohl said, “and especially someone who’s grown up in the Detroit area and been a Detroit Red Wings fan, to be able to throw on that jersey for a week, no matter the outcome. It was almost surreal.”
The trio of Nanooks received invitations to the camps, which NHL clubs tend to use to get early looks at their draft picks. None of the Nanooks was drafted, but the camps were ways for NHL executives who watched them during the college season to see how they would fare in a team’s environment.
Each player was responsible for any expenses, such as travel, that he incurred before or during the camps.
“You get to experience how they work and you get your name out there,” Sova said. “They get to know you better on the ice and you get into an environment that shows you how things are done professionally.”
Taranto and Sova were invited to the Blackhawks camp by Ron Anderson, Chicago’s player recruitment director, who watched them play for the Nanooks during the 2009-10 season. Sova also got an invite to Toronto’s camp from Jim Hughes, the Maple Leafs player development director.
Detroit assistant general manager Jim Nill invited Hohl to the Red Wings camp after the Nanook participated in a tryout for extra players from Detroit area that the team needed for the camp.
“I learned some stickhandling things I had never seen,” said Hohl, “and they also broke down power skating.”
Sova learned more than on-ice skills during the camps in Chicago and Toronto.
“They just opened up doors on different ideas of what to do off the ice, in the weight room,” he said, “all way down to nutrition — how you’re eating, and what you’re doing day in and day out off the ice.
“... I wasn’t competing for a spot, but it makes you know what need to do to get better.”
Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586.
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