USA Hockey has proclaimed this “Hockey Weekend Across America.” And that means from sea to shining sea, from Maine to Southern California; and from Alaska to Florida. One of the underplayed aspects of the sport is that for all the talk about how the NHL’s Sun Belt strategy isn’t working, the popularity of the sport itself on the participatory level has been greatly enhanced by the league’s increased reach.
And, yes, that includes in Colorado, where the sport’s footprint and impact have expanded in the 14 years since the Avalanche gave the area a second chance in the NHL.
It just takes a look at the University of Denver roster to confirm this, with the Pioneers now having seven Colorado natives on their roster — a notable total for a program that not long ago didn’t have any.
The Penguins began play in Pittsburgh 42 years ago in the six-team expansion, so the trickle-down wave of popularity has been going on through a couple of generations in Western Pennsylvania.
Today, I’m going to tell you the story of one player affected by that popularity, and in the coming years there will be more stories like this one, whether in Pittsburgh or Denver or Los Angeles or Dallas or . . . yes, even Nashville and South Florida.
Center R.J. Umberger is the Columbus Blue Jackets’ third-leading scorer, behind Rick Nash and Kristian Huselius, with 16 goals and 29 points heading into the weekend.
He was born in Pittsburgh.
“It was easy for me,” Umberger said last week in Columbus after a morning skate. “There was a generation of hockey starting to develop there in Pittsburgh. It kind of picked up steam with my generation and right after me, and it was because of what the Penguins were doing in the early ’90s with all their success.
“I was watching them as a kid, and then one day, I was out with my parents and we drove by the local rink. My mom asked me if I’d like to skate. It was something I was interested in, so we went to a public session and I loved it. I could skate right away and I said right away that I wanted to play hockey. I went to the ‘Learn to Play Hockey’ sessions and it took off.”
Umberger, now 26, said he was 6 when the family made that drive past the Golden Mile Ice Center in suburban Monroeville, Pa., and that he played his first game at 7. That’s actually a late start compared with many of the others in the NHL, including Canadians.
“I don’t think at that age it’s a big disadvantage,” he said. “I mean, the passion was there. I know some players who started a little younger but I developed fast when I was 7 and caught up right away. I got into the travel ranks two years later and was playing against kids from Michigan and Canada.
“I played baseball and football, too, and I love all three, but there’s just something about hockey — how fast it is, with the constant moving around. It’s a thrill to play.”
Umberger, now listed at 6-feet-2 and 200 pounds, chose to specialize in hockey after his sophomore year of high school. That didn’t please, among others, his potential high school football coach in football-mad Western Pennsylvania.
“My cousin was the star quarterback there for four years,” Umberger said. “But I was pretty big on hockey by then.”
He went to the National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich., and then on to Ohio State for three seasons. The Canucks took him with the 16th overall pick in the 2001 draft, but he never signed with them. The Rangers acquired his rights, but he became a free agent in 2004 and signed with the Flyers. After one season in the AHL and three with the Flyers, he was traded to the Blue Jackets last June.
And how did the Jackets acquire him?
They used the No. 1 pick in 2008 that they had obtained for Adam Foote from Colorado. The Flyers sent Umberger and a fourth-round pick to the Blue Jackets for that No. 1 and a third-round choice.
So Umberger is back in the city where he also played college hockey for the Buckeyes.
“This is a good fit for me,” he said. “It’s a comfortable place and a great city.”
Spotlight on …
A Wild sellout streak
When the Wild-Avalanche game drew a standing-room-only crowd announced as 18,568 on Wednesday, it was Minnesota’s 317th consecutive regular-season sellout. The Wild billed the streak as 354, including 24 exhibitions and 13 playoff home games.
Any way you cut it, there hasn’t officially been an unsold seat in the downtown St. Paul arena since the team began playing in 2000.
There is a lot of hockey going on in Minnesota, and virtually always has been. There has been a rink explosion in the Twin Cities and other regions of the state, but the interest in the sport is far from new.
Years ago, the competition from other levels — even if that meant driving the kids to the rink and slicing up oranges — was cited as one of the reasons for empty seats for North Stars games in Bloomington. The hockey passion now is viewed as a complementary element rather than competition, and the Wild has played into that with its “State of Hockey” slogan.
Canadian-born Lou Nanne played for the University of Minnesota Gophers and the North Stars, and also coached and served as GM of the NHL franchise.
“When I spoke with a group of prospective owners when they were trying to put this deal together, they asked, ‘Why will it work now and not before?’ ” Nanne said at the Xcel Energy Center the other night. “For one thing, I said that when you had the North Stars — and I was with them right from the beginning — we never had more than 12 percent of our season-ticket holders from St. Paul.
“There was a feeling that people from St. Paul won’t go across to Minneapolis to do anything. Whereas the people in Minneapolis don’t care, they’ll come over to Ordway (Center for the Performing Arts) and to St. Paul for other things. I said, ‘They’re building the arena in St. Paul, and now you’re going to have the people in St. Paul interested.’ Plus, I told them that the fastest-growing suburbs are Woodbury and Eagan, and they’re both near St. Paul and affluent. So now, you still have the Minneapolis people coming, but now you have the St. Paul people coming.
“Plus, no one’s marketed a team better than these guys.”
The Wild is in the hunt for one of the final playoff spots in the Western Conference, but team management has announced a freeze on ticket prices for next season.
Other teams might need to do more than that to keep their season-ticket bases from shrinking significantly.
Terry Frei, The Denver Post
