Can you imagine being a 16-year-old and getting invited to play hockey in another country? Sophomore Chase Driskill is getting just that; an opportunity to play the sport he loves for a triple-a team in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada this summer.  

Driskill explained that in June he is going to play for a AAA team called the Vancouver Golden Panthers.

During a tournament in the East Valley, Driskill explained that all of the players had to sign a waiver acknowledging that there would be scouts in attendance at the tournament. This waiver allowed scouts and teams to reach out to players they had interest in.

“We were playing in the Cactus Cub Tournament in Arcadia, before the tournament,” Driskill said. “A team saw me, and about three or four days later after the tournament was over I got an email setting up a zoom meeting with the coach in Vancouver.”

Driskill said that during that zoom meeting the coach of the team explained all of the details and what would happen in the coming months.

“Once the meeting was happening the coach explained everything, where I was going to go etc.,” Driskill said. 

Driskill explained that while he is in Canada he will be living in an apartment with his family and he will be there playing with the team for about three to four months. Once this experience is over, Driskill will be able to return to Arizona and rejoin his club team, Arizona Mission.

With such an exciting opportunity people might wonder what Driskill’s experience with hockey is.

“I started playing hockey at the end of seventh grade, I started playing because my stepdad was very into hockey because he was in North Dakota,” Driskill said. “We went to a couple of NHL games, and I was like wow this is really easy, I wanna keep doing this,” Driskill said. 

Driskill said that he expected to pick up the sport quickly, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.

“So I decided to start playing thinking it was going to be easy. It was the difficultness that made me wanna keep playing,” Driskill said.

Driskill said he plays left-wing, but sometimes plays left-wing center or right-wing. Now that Driskill has been playing for a few years, he shared where he thinks he is at in terms of his hockey playing career.

“Right now I think I’m at a pretty okay spot,” Driskill said. “I have also improved on my speed and my hockey awareness and know where the puck is going to go.” 

Driskill said he does still have some areas he hopes to focus on and improve.

“I still need to put pressure and physicality into the way I play,” Driskill said. “Also, keeping my stick down, because I have a really bad habit of putting it up while I play.”

Currently, Driskill plays for the Arizona Mission hockey team.