LAKings.com feature: The Next Step

Kings alum and La Verne native Noah Clarke is hosting a seminar that lays out all the options of playing hockey past high school for Southern California-based players. It’s called The Next Step, and it will take place at L.A. Live on Thursday, November 20, prior to the game against Carolina. Representatives from USA Hockey, the USHL and Avon Old Farms (Jonathan Quick’s Connecticut-based prep school) are scheduled to attend and speak in seminars designed to educate young players and their families on collegiate eligibility, balancing schoolwork with hockey, finding representation and conditioning and how to earn a scholarship, amongst other subjects.

Whereas this information is more easily passed down in some areas of the country, the burgeoning hockey pool in Southern California has made Clarke’s outreach a valuable informational endeavor.

Via LAKings.com:

Because players are recruited to play for junior teams and receive letters from NCAA programs in their mid-teenage years, there is a path towards fulfillment in hockey that may seem more difficult to navigate in Southern California than it would in areas where hockey is omnipresent such as Minnesota, Michigan and Massachusetts.

“We don’t have that culture like when you grow up in Minnesota,” said Noah Clarke, the former King who experienced the immersion firsthand while playing for the dominant prep school program Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault, Minnesota.

“I think from the time you start playing, you end up wanting to be a Gopher. All those kids from Minnesota, it’s kind of ingrained in them.”

While California has experienced tremendous growth within the sport over the last 15 years, there aren’t any Major Junior, Junior-A or NCAA Division I programs close by. The closest D-I programs are in Colorado, there are Major Junior programs in Oregon and Washington, and the USHL, which boasts an array of California alums, is located in the Midwest.

In an effort to properly educate Southern California hockey players who may be considering the leap towards junior, collegiate or prep school hockey, Clarke is hosting a seminar at LA Live on November 20 called The Next Step.

“We want to provide information in a feedback form where they can ask questions as well and just present different options,” Clarke said. “A lot of kids think it’s the NHL or nothing, but there are still some great options. If you want to go to a really good school like an Amherst or a Williams and you have the grades to get in, or if you’re highly recruited, you can go play major junior – just having the information out there. When I was growing up, I didn’t have a lot of that information available.”

Read More: The Next Step (LAK.com feature)
Learn More: The Next Step (November 20 seminars)

I also consulted with one of my old Western Hockey League buddies about the path to professional hockey out of Southern California. Valencia native Shane Harper, a former West Valley Wolf and LA Junior King, scored the overtime game-winner at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia as part of an AHL outdoor game centered around that year’s Winter Classic. He’s now playing with former Kings Colin Fraser and Brent Sopel with the Chicago Wolves in his fourth full year in the AHL and shed some light on coming out of Southern California.

Those who have bought tickets have already been alerted, but today’s Business of Hockey seminar has been pushed back to the winter. The three Business of Hockey seminars, which include an impressive array of speakers, will now take place over two dates in February and March. I’ll share more information when it becomes available.