USA Hockey Adult Hockey

There are many reasons why the Barrow Blizzard fly 800 miles south to participate in USA Hockey’s Adult Classic in Anchorage. One of them is the weather.
 
“In Anchorage, it’s sunny and warm,” Blizzard goalie Z.J. Martinez says.
 
Compared with the weather in Barrow, sunny and warm isn’t an understatement.
 
“Our winters are nine months long in Barrow,” Martinez said. “The Pacific Ocean is frozen and blizzards are a regular occurrence. We don’t think of them as a blizzard unless it’s a whiteout. A whiteout is when we have six feet of snow and zero visibility.
 
“Most of the winter it’s 50 below and the on-ice temp is 20 below. We’ve played in weather as cold as 50 below. I’ve got chips in my helmet from playing in weather that’s 50 below. Pucks break when it’s colder than 40 below on a slap shot.”
 
According to Martinez, the temps dip so low that at times nets and frames break because the cold makes them brittle.
 
Martinez first played in the Anchorage Adult Classic in 2007.
 
“I just started skating in February and the Classic was in April,” he said. “When I first stepped on the ice, I fell on my wallet.
 
“I think we scored three or four goals in our three games. At that time, we’d go down, play our three games and then have a tee time on Sunday.”
 
Suffice to say the players’ attitudes regarding playing in the Classics have undergone a transformation.
 
“We’ve made it to the finals twice,” Martinez said. “Once we lost 4-0 and the last one we lost 2-1 in overtime. We actually scored a goal in the championship game.
 
“It was disappointing because we went there to win. Our team is progressing toward being able to play real hockey instead of just having fun.”
 
That’s noteworthy considering the Blizzard play in the Novice Division, which at face value indicates the team isn’t comprised of players who earned All-America honors in college.
 
“Just about everyone in Barrow started [playing hockey] as an adult,” Martinez said. “Austin Parkhill played Junior A as a goalie. He can’t play goalie in the Novice Division so he plays defense.
 
“Darryl Serino and his brothers grew up playing hockey because their dad made a rink and they played against their mom. He’s been our team captain forever. He coaches youth hockey so he’s on the ice several times a week. But there aren’t enough people for a league. We have an adult team and the high school kids and adults play on Mondays and Tuesdays. We split up teams and try to make them even until mid-March when we’re preparing to go to the Classics.”
 
In a sense, playing hockey is a family affair for Martinez because his son Solomon and daughters Jessica and Leah also are involved in various capacities.
 
“Jessica is a defender who played against the adults,” Martinez said. “Solomon is a forward who would referee a couple of games. Leah is a level one referee.
 
“Some players are new so they don’t know the sport. My kids would referee games so [the players] could learn the rules and take faceoffs.”
 
Ironically, Solomon Martinez uses his father for “target practice.”
 
“I built a small rink and Solomon is a sniper,” Martinez said. “He’s even scored a hat trick against me in a rec game.”
 
Initially the Blizzard practiced and played outdoors before they purchased a tent. Then they purchased a Zamboni.
 
“Gary Boen was our president for a very long time prior to this year and Tim Buckley was the treasurer,” Martinez said. “Those two got us the Zamboni. They also got us a new building that’s under construction and which will have locker rooms.
 
“Brian DellaBona handles administrative work and set us up as a non-profit organization so it would perpetuate itself. Jeff Brazil, the only player whose number (7) is retired, made it happen to get our rink permanently set in one place with a tent so we didn’t have to play in the wind.”
 
Martinez, admittedly, “fell in love with the game” after he played in his first Adult Classic. Now he has another reason for continuing to play goal for the Blizzard.
 
“They get a beautiful shot in front of the net and that big glove flashes out,” he said. “One reason I go out is to get hit with the puck and to make a grown man cry.
 
“The first time I got hit with the puck, I loved it.”
 
That’s spoken like a true goalie.
 
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.