Published: December 21, 2007 12:12 am         

Hockey dreams pave road to Canada

Rockwall’s Nick Lazorko goes north to pursue professional opportunity

By Leslie Gibson

Herald-Banner Staff



It’s a family tradition — leave home at age 17 to pursue a dream.

Just as his mother and father did, Rockwall’s Nick Lazorko has left his home this school year to pursue hockey excellence in Canada.

“If you are gonna do it, just do it and don’t look back on it,” is 17-year-old Nick’s advice to others who may have to leave their home to find their way in a particular field.

For his father, Jack, it was for baseball. For his mother, Brenda, it was for college.

For Lazorko, it is hockey, which he has loved since he started roller hockey at age 6 in Garland.

“I played in a league every year and I started to get good at it. I switched to ice at age 13,” said the young man in a phone interview in October from his host parents’ home, 2,000 miles away from Rockwall, just across the border from North Dakota.

He lives in Winkler, Manitoba, with a couple who provide the practical and emotional support needed to help him and their own three children pursue athletic professionalism.

“They help me likey they are my own parents,” he said of Kamino and Wendy Sofiolas. “I coudn’t get better ones.”

Lazorko’s tone of voice and clearly-stated comments show confidence in his committment to a professional hockey future, which he is furthering by playing on the elite Winkler Flyers. He is the second-leading scorer on the team which includes Dayne Belfour as goalie, son of Eddie Belfour, former Dallas Stars goaltender. The Flyers are the oldest Junior A hockey team in Canada, the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL).

“I decided to start in Junior A and open up some doors,” he said. That’s why he left home and a team from which he learned so much, the Alliance Bulldogs for which he played for two years. In that metroplex team he was noted for extreme speed, quickness and stick-handling ability, which earned him the title of Fastest Skater and Puck Relay Champion in a competition during the national championship tournament, according to the Alliance Bulldog website.

“I was one of the weaker guys on the team when I first started,” he said, “and by the end of the league I was top guy.” I had such great coaching and I worked like crazy,” he said. Chris Gestapos was very helpful to him. “There was so much I didn’t realize, but he really showed me a lot.” While on the Alliance Bulldog 18U Prep team, the team advanced to quarter-finals of the 2007 USA Hockey National Championships.

The hockey in Canada differs from Texas. “It is really fast-paced, with a lot of hitting, a lot of skill; it’s really solid,” he said.

“Our league is a little more rough and intense as far as fighting,” he said of the MJHL. He was in his first fight in October. “It was no problem. It was fun,” he said. “I got his number,” he added. Being one of the youngest Americans in the league and one of the youngest players, he has been a “guy the team protects. I’m not built for fighting,” he said.

However, he has grown taller and gained weight on the regimen of diet and workout required to play up to 13 games a month.

“In Texas, there is a lot less hitting, more individual work.”

“I like pressure,” he said, noting especially “when the game goes into a tie and a three-man shootout.” He did just that to end the tied-game on Sunday. He was the only one to find the net in the shootout, and with Balfour preventing the three attempts by the Steelers, that one goal gave the Flyers the 5-4 victory. He also had given his team one point leads twice earlier in the game.

“Scoring always give a nice little rush,” he said.

He loves the intense time of being down by one with only one minute left, he said when asked to describe pressure situations he likes.

“Most of the guys up here — we know where we are supposed to be and we know what our job is,” he said. “When we do stuff for practice, we go hard.”

The Flyers are a sponsored team, formed in 1980, in a league which began in the 30s and has developed a strong tradition. The large crowds expect a lot from their team which plays in a state-of-the-art facility.

The team practices five hours a day, six days a week. Lazorko follow his own pre-game routine, eating pasta, nothing heavy like hamburgers, so many hours before a game. On the way home, the team stops for food.

Wendy Sofiolas helps keep that routine going not only for Lazorko, but for her 17-year-old daughter who plays curling on ice, in which granite stones are moved about, and 18-year-old daughter in college who is a figure skater, and 14-year-old son playing hockey. The Sofiolas’ hosted another hockey player last year.

Lazorko is expected home as of today for an eight-day visit. Though he does get home sick, he does not let it bother him. “I told myself I want to do this so I’m completely going to do it. I’m not coming back,” he said.

He is one of very few metroplex 17-year-olds in hockey who have left home to pursue a professional preparation in Canada.

“If you are going to do it, just do it and don’t look back on it,” he said.