Ike Bennett's early career

[Caboose30 152]

This is a true story

  

  

   Hello VHL, so first and foremost this is my story growing up playing hockey. This player is "me" so to speak. The only difference between me and him is I'm a goalie as my primary position and LW is my second position. I will spare all the details about all the different people that I encountered throughout my journey in youth hockey due to some of the graphic things that occurred. But without further ado, let me take you through my life and experience.

 

Early Years

 

  

 

   I started out at the young age of 5 years old. Back then I hated hockey, I wanted nothing to do with it. But my parents pushed me out onto the ice for a learn to skate one day and it was instant love.  By the start of the next season I was playing for the LA Hockey Club Mite B team. I was terrible to say the least. I scored 1 goal all season and could barely skate. Looking back it's kinda funny because I was a total liability in every facet except for maybe covering my point on defense. That year I also got myself a skating coach named Germond. I really dont remember much about him other than he was German and I think he played in some European league at one point. Either way he helped my skating go from cant skate to terrible skater, but my real weapon that I developed were my hands. More on my hands later as they wont come into effect for a while.

 

   The next season I played for the Anaheim Jr. Ducks Mite B team under coach Berkeley. Berkeley is/was a 250+ pound black man who had a charismatic attitude and cracked jokes that would be considered extremely racist in today's society. The thing was though with him, when he started making fun of you for being white, you made fun of him for being black and everyone laughed and had a good time. Again that season I only scored a single goal against the (What I remember being) Bakersfield Bruins. They had Boston's jersey more or less and were called the bruins, but I think they had to rebrand. We as a club won multiple tournaments and almost won the league we played in (SCAHA) but lost 3 to 2 in the finals for our ONLY loss that season. Fun fact here I played alongside Levi Selanne, Teemu Selanne's son so I got to see Teemu all the time. he was an awesome guy and was fun to talk to, but at the end of the day he was just another father coming to watch his son. At this point in time it was 2008 and I was tired of being a failure on the ice compared to all my other teammates who could skate and shoot. So I transitioned to a goalie.

 

   For the '08 - '09 season I played in-house and got myself a goalie coach who taught me the basics. I will never forget learning how to do my T-pushes out in Westminster. I got put on the worst In-house team I could have ever possibly imagined. Every game was played exclusively in our half of the ice and I got a lot of shots. I set my all time saves record of 72 saves in one game (My dad was counting saves from the stands) and I wouldnt break that record until 2013. Needless to say all I got out of that season aside from a participation trophy was a LOT of practice.

 

Middle Years

      

 

      For the '09 - 10 Season I didnt play, at the time I was on a year long RV trip across the country and Idaho, nor did I play in the 10 - 11 season except for in one tournament where I received my nickname Ike. Since there was another kid on that team who had my name my coach, Coach Berkeley from the Jr Ducks, started calling me Ike and I've kept it ever since. That one tournament I scored a couple goals and had several helpers, I even earned a game MVP award. But sadly that was the last I would ever see of Coach Berkeley. 

 

   During the spring of 2011 my family packed up and moved to Idaho, I started playing In-house here in Boise for the 11 - 12 season and for the 12- 13 season I played JV for Eagle High School where I got my first ever Shutout. During the 12 - 13 season I found a goalie coach named Mark Sample. Awesome coach, very rough around the edges kind of guy. I would make a 10 hour round trip drive to Salt Lake once a month for a 2 hour 1 on 1 session with him. Those drives sucked let me tell you. But it was all worth it because for the next season I earned a spot on the West Coast Renegades inaugural U14 team.

 

   Now this U14 AAA team was trash. There is no hiding it. It was such a bad season that I cant even find it on the archives anymore. We lost every single game in every single tournament we ever attended by at least 6. In that same time span I believe we scored like 4 goals. In an entire season's worth of tournaments. This is excluding friendlies we played against A level teams. Not to mention I played forward one game against  Hockey Club Dallas in which I assisted on one of those goals and was actually top 5 in points on the team in tournament games alone. It was also here that after being put into the game in relief of my partner, I shutout the SJ Jr. Sharks for the rest of the game racking up around 12 saves in that time. It was also on this team that I set my new saves record with 86, the final score being 9 to 0. So while yes I set a couple of awesome milestones for myself it was still a pretty bad experience due to the terrible team morale among other things I will not get into.

 

   After that season I knew I had been scouted, there was even one scout who asked me my name but I think due to some extensive injuries I obtained that season I never got drafted into the WHL. Instead the following year I played for the now defunct Boise Hawks AA hockey club.  Now travel hockey in Idaho is sadly dictated by politics and who your dad was mattered. This has gotten better now, but at the time it was annoying to  deal with. It was due to this I never made the Jr Steelheads program here, and is the reason I was put on a team that already had 2 goalies and was forced to rotate. So the rotation looked like this. 1 game starting, 1 game backup 1 game forward. That way you at least got to play. After that year on the Renegades though AA was easy peezy and I was able to win almost every game I started, sadly due to the team not existing anymore I cant look up my records there. It was fun though because of my natural ability to stick handle and use my silky smooth hands that I had as a little kid, I had a lot of people amazed at my ability to skate, shoot and most importantly stick handle. I even scored my first ever hat trick that year.

 

High School Era

 

      

High school tournament champs                                                                           District Champs                                                                                              State Champs

 

      After that season, I went back to playing for my high school, Eagle high. It was here that nepotism got in my way to having fun on the ice since the other goalie was the coaches kid. I never got to play in a championship game despite making it to the High School tournament final in October, District Finals in February and then State Finals which we won in March. It is sad that I will forever have my State Championship tarnished by that memory but at least we won state. My Junior year I was the best goalie in the entire state at the High School level. I wish Idaho would send goalies to the district camp, but they havent sent one in years since no one had paid them off to pick their goalie in years. Despite all that though, I started getting offers to go try out for the Middlesex Black Bears in Massachusetts, scholarship opportunities from Princeton and University of Tampa. But my senior year would change my outlook on my professional career.

 

   My senior year a new hot shot young freshman goalie came in. We also got an addition to our coaching staff which was this kids good family friend... what amazing timing. I lost my spot as a goalie that season, despite being the senior and despite still being a better goalie than the freshman and the other senior goalie. Nothing on the freshman, he lived up to the hype and is now the best goalie in the state. But needless to say I was unhappy with the position change. Playing LW all season that year I probably scored around 20 goals and near 30 points in 14 regular season games and was even named captain of the team for my troubles. This year though we lost districts to our biggest rival Boise High, but since we were the defending State champs we were allowed to attend the State tournament and took 2nd, losing to Christeros High. Unfortunately I never was able to go pro, though I do still get emails asking me to try out here or there for some team or school Ive never heard of out east. Maybe I should take one of those opportunities up, but at this point I probably wont which makes me rather sad to think about.

 

 

Current Day

 

 

   So after high school I did a year of beer league at LW again, but that wasnt really the story anymore. I tried attending a local community college to no avail, it just wasnt for me. I began to coach as well. Starting in my Senior year of high school I started coaching my brothers team. At the time the U12 AA Jr Steelheads and now the U14 AA Steelheads. I have been coaching everything that my old goalie coach taught me to the young goalies that come through the Jr Steelheads organization, the first goalie I ever coached is now off playing U14 AAA and is doing amazing. I tried to pursue a career in the military, but was unfortunately medically discharged. My plan now is to get my welding certificate and hopefully go back into the armed services in spring of 2021. Every picture you see here is a picture I took, unfortunately my cheap ass high school took my jersey's away after I graduated but whatever, I have the hoodies. This last picture here though is of my current day coaches jacket as well as the few things I still have from my service.

 

   But for the alternate timeline, where I as my player here goes off into the sunset playing pro hockey, after graduating high school, I would have gone back home to Southern California for a little while to visit friends and family down there. While I was there, I would have been out at a local stick time, when I would get approached by a scout for the San Diego Marlins who offered me an opportunity to try out at the LW position. I accepted and now the rest is history.