North Stars newest addition has seen hockey grow in the South

But hockey has grown a lot in Texas, especially since the Dallas Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999.

“After the Stars won the cup is when it exploded in Dallas and then it kind of steadily kept getting bigger,” Allen said, a huge Dallas Stars fan himself. “Now that the Stars are huge and doing great, everyone wants to play it now.”

There has certainly been progress in minor hockey in Texas, with many more kids now interested in taking up the sport, but Allen said there are only a couple AAA teams.

What that meant is his team – the Dallas Stars elite U-18 team – had to travel some far distances to play all the time.

“Kind of every other weekend we’re on a plane going somewhere, missing school,” Allen said. “Minnesota, Boston, Michigan, everywhere you can name.”

Without the travel, there’d be next to no competition and no exposure, so there really was no choice.

While with Stars U-18 team last season, he also suited up for two games with the Aston Rebels in the North American Hockey league, a tier two junior league in the United States that is similar to junior A in Canada (junior A is the second highest junior level in Canada behind the CHL, just as the NAHL is the second tier behind the USHL in the States).

In June 2016, he was drafted by the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Knights of the NAHL in the fifth round but was ultimately cut by the team.

By then he had already been in contact with Fort McMurray Oil Barons coach and general manager Tom Keca of the AJHL.

“I’ve been talking to [Keca] since June and when I got cut from the team in the North American Hockey League I called him right away,” Allen said. “He was happy to have me up there.”

But this season, Keca just couldn’t fit Allen into the lineup on a regular basis, despite Allen putting up four points in four games.

“I’m a ‘97 so I’m a 19-year-old – and [Keca] wanted to put me in the lineup but you have to put so many 98s,” Allen said. “They were doing good so he didn’t want to kind of have me sitting out at my age.”

So Keca and North Stars head coach and general manager Nate Bedford came to an agreement, pulling the trigger on bringing in Allen to the Battlefords in exchange for a player development fee.

“He’s got a good attitude and works hard,” Bedford said after practice Wednesday. “It looks like he can do a little bit offensively and a little bit defensively and we like that. The more two-way guys you can have on your team that are capable of putting pucks in the net and of keeping them out, the better you’re going to be.”

Despite his 5’9” frame, Allen is known to be gritty, but without a game situation yet, it was hard for Bedford to come to the same conclusion, yet.

“Today wasn’t a great indicator of gritty,” Bedford said. “A lot of open ice stuff so you don’t really get the grit out in practices like that. Games tell guys’ character pretty quickly.”

Allen said he felt welcome today thanks to his new teammates. For now, he’s billeting at Taryn Kotchorek’s house along with teammate Levi Kleiboer, but that’s only for the next little while, before he likely finds new billets.

His goal in the near future, like many, is to play well enough to get a scholarship to a school in the States. After this season, he’ll have one more year to impress.

“I still want to get my education while playing hockey,” Allen said. “I’ve actually never looked into Canada [university], to me it’s only been American, but I always keep my options open.”

On the North Stars upcoming three-game road trip beginning Thursday, Allen will likely start on a line with Jeremy Velazquez and Connor McIntosh, two fellow Americans.

But Allen really is just as Canadian as he is American, despite growing up in the state of Texas.

Nathan Kanter is battlefordsNOW’s sports reporter and voice of the Battlefords North Stars. He can be reached at Nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca or tweet him @NathanKanter11

by Nathan Kanter

North Stars newest addition has seen hockey grow in the South

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