Carlsbad hockey team latest to join Ducks movement – The San Diego Union-Tribune

Cadieux said he formed the team last fall after he grew tired of taking his kids to far-flung tournaments in Phoenix, Las Vegas, Detroit and elsewhere with the San Diego Jr. Gulls, an Escondido-based hockey club. Other local traveling teams include the San Diego Ice Arena Oilers and San Diego Saints Hockey Club.

“Do I want to travel to Anaheim three times a week for practice? No,” Cadieux said. “I don’t want to travel all over God’s creation.”

He said the Ducks high school league also emphasizes academics, with players practicing for just a few hours after school at Carlsbad IceTown.

“I’m here to have fun,” said Xavier Villeneuve, 16, and an 11th grader at Sage Creek with a 4.56 GPA. “This feels more like a high school league as opposed to a traveling league where anyone can join. There’s considerable more pressure in the traveling league. I never dreamed of becoming an NHL player. I just want to play.”

Nick Shoman, a 15-year-old ninth grader at San Marcos High School, feels the same.

“I don’t like the super-intense stuff,” he said. “I’d kind of like to play in the NHL, but it probably won’t happen.”

Cadieux credits the relaxed atmosphere of the team with a teaching philosophy called Positive Coaching Alliance that’s promoted by the Anaheim Ducks league. It’s designed to transform the culture of youth sports so that athletes can have a positive, character-building experience, and nixes the notion of a “win-at-all-cost” mentality.

The league is full of coaches like Cadieux, who grew up playing hockey in suburban Detroit, and even entertained the possibility of playing at the collegiate level or professionally. Though he never made the cut in the NHL, Cadieux, 54, continued to play in adult leagues and has provided his kids — Alec, 14, a freshman, and Jack, 12, in seventh grade — with a healthy diet of hockey since they were toddlers.

Three years ago, Cadieux was sidelined by two serious operations — one to remove a tumor from his spine and the other to treat skin cancer — forcing him to hang up his skates.

His slowdown coincided with a push by the Anaheim Ducks high school to offer an alternative to the traveling youth hockey teams, and the opening of new ice rinks in Poway and Carlsbad to try to meet the youth hockey demand.

Another selling point for joining the league has become the fact that the Ducks subsidizes its youth teams, charging roughly $3,000 per player.

“You get more bang for the buck,” Blanchart said. Traveling teams can charge $10,000 or more for plane trips, hotels, renting a practice facility, equipment and uniforms.

The Los Angeles Kings have taken note of the Ducks move and this past year created its own high school league in Los Angeles County.

The professional hockey teams are seeing big growth opportunities in California, one of a handful of states experiencing a surge in youth hockey. There were 26,383 players in California during the 2014-15 season, up 57.4 percent in the last decade, according to figures provided by the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based USA Hockey National, the governing body for amateur and Olympic ice hockey in the U.S. For youth between the ages of 8 and 18, there were 10,983 youth players, up 19.3 percent in the last decade.

“It’s a real dog fight for ice time,” said Fred Nelson, general manager of the Carlsbad IceTown, of the demand for his facility by youth hockey teams locally.

So why are the Ducks pushing a high school league?

“They are doing this to grow their fan base,” said Laura Cahn, an official with the California Amateur Hockey Association, and who once headed the Jr. Gulls club team in Escondido. “They are building support in the local community.”