There used to be a time when you had to go to Minnesota, Michigan or Massachusetts to find the kind of American-born hockey talent that was good enough to play Division I NCAA hockey, and perhaps earn a shot at the National Hockey League.
These days you need look no farther than Peters Township, because local players are changing the perceptions of professional scouts about the kind of training players are receiving in the Pittsburgh region.
Consider this: Six players who grew up within a few miles of each other in Peters Township are now playing D-I hockey at four universities around the United States. You would have to look pretty hard through the traditional hockey-player producing states of Minnesota and Michigan, and probably into Canada as well, to find a similar concentration of players. In fact, Peters Township may be the only place on earth where six players from one small geographic area have arrived all at the same time.
The NCAA doesn’t keep statistics about players’ home towns, but even a spokesperson at the association’s hockey information office found it to be rather unusual. “I would say that’s really pretty cool,” she said. “The only thing that I think even comes close to something like that are the Flintstones, from Michigan,” a reference to four basketball players from Flint, Michigan who led the Michigan State basketball team to the national championship in 2000.
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Eric Trax and the Robert Morris Colonials will face Notre Dame at Mellon Arena in January.
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Making hockey history for Peters Township are forwards Matt and Chris Clackson, who are playing for Western Michigan; forwards Christian Hanson and Christian Minella, playing for Notre Dame; Eric Trax, who is a defenseman for Robert Morris University, and Tanner Fogarty, a forward with Holy Cross University. There would have been a seventh player this season, but Matt Schwartz transferred from playing D-I hockey at Bentley to attend Penn State University.
“I really think this says something about Peters Township,” says Hanson, 20, a sophomore at Notre Dame, and son of Dave Hanson, the former NHL player who came to fame for his appearance in the movie Slapshot. “There aren’t many D-I players in the city of Pittsburgh or even Pennsylvania. I think it speaks volumes about Peters Township, Pittsburgh hockey and [USA hockey’s Pittsburgh] Hornets organization,” where Hanson and most of the others played their amateur hockey.
The Peters Township group grew up together and learned the sport from their fathers and coaches. Hanson’s father was one of their first coaches, and fashioned a “shooter-tutor” in front of a goal net, where the group could practice scoring goals. Matt and Chris Clackson are sons of Penguins’ defenseman Kim Clackson, who served as a role model and teacher.
Matt Clackson, 21, a sophomore at Western Michigan, who was a 2005 draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, says that it was a commitment from all the parents that made the difference. “I think it was mainly the parents who took the time and invested the money to see that their kids could get the kind of training to make them better,” he says. “As we grew up, we all pushed each other to be better. Now we all push each other to be our best, but I think it was our parents at first who made the difference.”
Chris Clackson, 20, a freshman, was reunited with his brother this season after playing junior hockey with the Chicago Steel. He agrees with his brother. “A few of the guys, like Trax, Minella and Hanson and I didn’t meet until later, but we all helped each other along,” he says.
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Chris Clackson now plays at Western Michigan…
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Their paths also merged during high school, as all of the players, except for Fogarty, were part of the championship runs of the Peters Township High School hockey team. Fogarty, 23, chose to play Prep School hockey at Shadyside Academy, but believes that other factors played into the development of Peters Township talent.
“We grew up during the hockey boom in Pittsburgh,” he suggests. “Mario Lemieux was an inspiration for a lot of us to learn to play.
Fogarty, who credits his brother, Casey, for helping push him, won a spot on the Holy Cross roster as a walk-on from the Taft School, in Connecticut, which he attended after Shadyside Academy.
For most players, the opportunity for a hockey scholarship at a D-I school comes as the result of hard work, talent and exposure to the right scouts. Eric Trax, 23, a junior at Robert Morris, thinks it was being in the right place at the right time. “I think the exposure we got playing for the Hornets, and for coach [Joe] Gaul made a big difference,” he notes.
Christiaan Minella, 20, a freshman at Notre Dame, agrees. “We all played for the Hornets’ organization, and I think that had a lot to do with our development,” he says. Minella joined long-time friend Christian Hanson in South Bend, Indiana this season, after playing junior hockey for the Sioux City Musketeers.
“It was really because of our parents, and their commitment to us,” he says. “I remember them taking us to the rinks at five and six in the morning for practice. We’d fall asleep, and they’d be getting us ready to skate. When the cost of travel and equipment got more expensive, they could have easily told us we were going to play football or basketball, but they never did. They were really a big part of it all.”
Three of Peters Township’s six D-I players will come together on January 5, as Minella and Christian Hanson of Notre Dame, face defenseman Eric Trax of Robert Morris in a Pittsburgh Penguins college hockey showcase game at Mellon Arena. It will be the first time the former teammates have faced each other as D-I players.
“You always hear about all the Michigan kids, but they all come from different towns,” said Hanson. “But we’re all from Peters Township — that’s really something special.”
