Stansson's Career Pre-VHLM: A Synopsis

[ahockeyguy 110]

               Wolf Stansson is now 17 years old. He stands six-foot-two, and his parents, at least, are not sure if he’s done growing. After falling in love with hockey as a young child, his parents sacrificed what they could to be sure Stansson could play. “I wanted to play forward; score a bunch every game,” Stansson recalls, laughing. After a few seasons of rec hockey, the Stanssons could see that Wolf wanted to become more serious about the game.

 

               They had him complete a tryout for a spot on an Icelandic junior team. At the age of 13, he found himself dominating the tryouts. “He would just skate circles around them,” claims Jan Stansson, Wolf’s father. “Back then, everyone just wanted to play in the IHL [Icelandic Hockey League]. That was Wolf’s dream, too.”

 

               Stansson’s coaches at the time (the leaders of the tryout) got together and decided there was a lot of potential there. But they couldn’t simply let that potential languish a year playing with other kids his age. He had his skill, to be sure, but he wouldn’t develop the needed areas of his game. For example, Stansson didn’t play defense. Whenever his team didn’t have the puck, he would circle center ice or, if he had to, near his own blue line, waiting for either a pass or a loose puck to collect, power into the offensive zone and either try out a new deke or blast it from the faceoff circle. While he could get away with that in his current context, the coaches knew it would only be a matter of time before it caught up to him.
 

               “In some cases, it’s worse for a player to be so much better than his peers,” said one of the coaches, who preferred to remain anonymous. “Because then they don’t work. They don’t work, they don’t develop, and no matter how talented they are, eventually they reach a point where the others—who have been working hard every day—are now at or beyond their skill level.” The decision was made: Stansson was going to play with 14-year-olds.

 

               They were, on average, bigger, stronger, faster—they had more facial hair. “They also didn’t want to be shown up by a 13-year-old,” Jan laughs. His new coaches didn’t let Wolf play forward—they moved him to defenseman to teach him to play two-way hockey, and would penalize him when he didn’t. At first, Stansson struggled. But he learned, appearing in 18 games and scoring 12 goals with 19 assists. He finished with a +7 and 30 PIMs. Perhaps most impressive: he didn’t record a goal in his first four games, registering just three shots on goal. This was due to his coaches hammering home that defensive philosophy. “Once they felt I had it,” Wolf casually says, “They let me shoot again.”

 

               But with the next season came a new challenge for the 14-year-old: blocking shots. After getting control of the fundamentals of two-way hockey, he learned he needed to sacrifice his body. Now playing with 15-year-olds, that could often hurt. This would be his final year before playing major junior hockey. He once again played in all 18 games, this time scoring 14 goals and dishing for 21 assists, while recording a +/- rating of +11 and only 14 PIMs.

 

               During his two years of Icelandic major junior hockey, Wolf learned not only discipline, but when he needed to fire up his team. Playing for the Ísafjörður Warriors, Stansson appeared in 71 of 72 games, scoring 37 goals and 43 assists to go with 40 PIMs across two seasons. His final season, the Warriors went 30-5-1 and undefeated in the playoffs to win the Icelandic Major Junior Hockey championship. Stansson captured the Defenseman of the Year Award, and the sky’s the limit for the young D-man when it comes to the VHLM.

[bigAL 2,176]

This kid's got potential!