Adult program giving skaters another shot at hockey basics

BUFFALO, N.Y. — They might not be the Stanley Cup champions of tomorrow, but getting people on the ice and acquainted with the game of hockey is the goal of a new adult hockey program in Western New York.

“We teach any adult who has the urge to play hockey and never got the chance to play,” said Sabres Youth Hockey Coordinator Matthew Torres, who is working with a slightly older demographic this time around. “A lot of them, their kids play hockey or they’re just used to that as like kind of a social thing. Like you see people playing kickball or softball or anything like that.”

Torres and company give guys like Nick Green a second shot at being on a team.

“Before the pandemic, I wanted to get into it and I started watching a couple clinics,” said Green.

Two years in and he’s got some skills, with more of an understanding of how the game works on the ice and, most importantly, a new community.

“A lot of fun,” he noted. “And the environment here and all the different people you get to learn with, everyone is just very welcoming.”

As 40 or so participants in a class take the ice, you may be able to tell the difference in skill levels.

“It’s not easy what these adults are doing,” noted Torres. “They’re out here having fun. But some of them get a little frustrated sometimes with themselves.”

But drill after drill there’s improvement, even at some advanced ages.

“So this is one of the ones we use with our kids. With the kids, they usually have to move with their hands,” he said as he explained a drill where skaters ditch the sticks and kick a gym ball around, which is something more akin to ice-soccer. “But everyone here might have back problems tomorrow if we do that.”

The blue and yellow jerseys as part of the program may be the closest any of these players gets to a pro roster spot, but it opens a lot of doors.

“They can go practice with their kids or they can go play in a recreational league or they can skate around with their friends. Their perseverance is awesome and I’ve got a lot of these guys since 2021, honestly, and made huge strides bigger, literally,” Torres said.

The strides, he says, are leaps and bounds from where most of these players were before they even knew an adult hockey program existed.

“Growing up, I didn’t have enough money to play hockey and we didn’t know about, you know, all the different resources for like youth sports stars and all that,” said Green. “And now as an adult, I’m able to get into this program.”

“We’re teaching them how to play hockey, but we’re not teaching them how to be the next Wayne Gretzky, right?” said Torres. “They’re just having fun out there. And that’s all we want to do at the end of the day.”