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SFresh3 · 05-14-2020, 11:40 PM

Quote:Media Double Bonus. Word Count: 634 (709 from SHL Site)

Ryu Jones - The Long Road

The Path that brought Ryu Jones to the SMJHL Draft is not one that many have treaded before him.

The son of American born Conner Jones and Japanese born Hitoka Aoi, who met when Conner was working as an English Teacher for the school that Hitoka also working at. Ryu Jones was born in the Kansai region of Japan in the city of Kobe, where he spent the majority of his youth.

While living in Japan, Conner found ways to watch his favorite SHL team, the Calgary Dragons, which drew the attention of young Ryu. He would always love the times when he could watch the games with his father, learning every facet of the game. From all of the positions in the game, to the strategy involved in the offensive and defensive zones, to the penalties.

It was at that moment that he became hooked on the game of hockey.

During his middle school years, Ryu was playing many of the normal sports for boys of his age. He was on a regional youth baseball team, and was on the school’s football (soccer) club, but none of these really appealed to what Ryu truly yearned for.

After his seventh year of school, Ryu asked if he could join the youth hockey team. This request was rebuffed by his mother, Hitoka, who feared that he was still too young to be playing such a “rough sport” at such a young age. She did however let him start taking lessons in skating, which led Ryu to begin lessons in short track speed skating. He continued to take the speed skating lessons and compete in local tournaments where he did quite well in placements.

While taking those skating lessons, he would come home and take his hockey stick that his father bought him and use a rubber ball to practice handling an analogous to a real hockey puck. He would spend hours out in the street, running up and down while maneuvering the “puck” around, imagining that he was playing on the Calgary Dragons, on a breakaway with only the goalie in the way of him and a goal.

In the middle of his ninth year of school, his family moved to the Americas, back to where Conner grew up; Seattle, Washington. Ryu started going to school in the winter semester. He had missed the deadline to sign up for the school’s hockey team, but he was in attendance for all of their games that year.

It was during his tenth year of school that his mother finally allowed him to join the hockey team. During the tryouts, he looked like a natural out on the ice, skating around with such speed that it was hard to keep him contained. He was a bit unpolished, but the coaches saw something special with him and knew he just needed training and direction to make him into a great player.

His first year of hockey had a bunch of hiccups along the way. His vision on the ice was thing that the coaches had to work on, as there were many instances where he would be on a breakaway and try to do everything himself, not seeing a teammate trailing behind in the slot, unguarded waiting for the pass for a shot on the open net. He improved upon this for the rest of his high school years.

His senior year he finally breached the top line and was given the accolade of being an Assistant Captain. He led the team in points that year and the team had made it to the state finals, where they were defeated 3-1 against the team from Spokane, Washington.

Now Ryu takes this drive to play hockey and desire to win a championship into the SMJHL.

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