FORT MYERS, Fla. — South Florida is slowly becoming a hotbed for really great hockey. The Lightning won two Stanley Cups in the past few years. The Panthers went on an impressive run in this year’s playoffs. The Everblades have hoisted the Kelly Cup in back-to-back seasons.
Now, our local area is home to some of the world’s best prospects. For the second straight year, Hertz Arena is home to the Matterhorn Fit All-Ivy Futures showcase.
“[There are] some great scouts here, great Ivy League colleges,” Tampa native Payne Riffey said. “[The] competition is amazing. It couldn’t be any better.”
The showcase event has brought over 200 players from around the globe to Southwest Florida. The participants range from 13-15 years old. They have traveled from different states, Canada, Russia, Czechia, and other countries.
“I love the international kids,” Riffey said. “A kid from our team is from Russia, which is pretty cool. He doesn’t speak any English.”
Despite the language barrier off the ice, the young players all know how to communicate on it. The participants get put on teams with other people they don’t know and play four games over a matter of a couple of days. The final scores of the games are less important in a showcase event like this. It is more about showing what they can do individually.
“When you can corral a number of top coaches and put together a player pool of really good players, usually a lot of opportunity happens out of that,” Founder of Matterhorn Fit All-Ivy Futures Ryan Vesce said.
There are plenty of coaches at Hertz Arena watching these games. Over 20 schools are represented. They range from high-level colleges to prep schools.
Some of the colleges include Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, UNH, and Northeastern. While the players are there to show what they got, the coaches are there to see who might be on their future rosters.
“There’s a couple names circled,” Yale assistant coach Joe Howe said. “There’s kids out here that maybe aren’t the best right now, but in two or three years, I’ll be really excited over.”
The showcase continues Monday night and then concludes Tuesday afternoon.
The post World’s best hockey prospects come to Southwest Florida for futures showcase appeared first on NBC2 News.
