JMS Hockey

Growing up in Northwest Iowa, I didn't even know what hockey was until the mid 1990's. That's when the '94 Stanley Cup Finals between the Rangers and Canucks caught my eye. I didn't watch any of the playoffs leading up to the Finals that season, and I'd never watched hockey before that time, but for some reason I was totally fascinated by this new sport I had discovered. The following season is when I saw Mario Lemieux play for the first time. It was late in his career, but I was so amazed at the things I saw him do that I instantly decided from that point on that I would be a Lemieux fan, and a Pittsburgh Penguins fan for the rest of my days. I finally started playing hockey in the spring of 1996, and the last 14 years have been the best of my life. Again, since it was in Iowa (with hardly any hockey presence anywhere), myself and a bunch of friends formed our own team, the Estherville Starz. We played together from 1997-2007, and in those 10 years we regularly played host to other teams from around Iowa, as well as participated in and hosted our own tournaments. Team: AHA D1 Sled Dogs