saturday april 11 | sunday april 12 2015 |
the north shore weekend
21
SPORTS
D-man earns all A’s K
yle Slovis was in his kitchen at home when he heard the super news. The news is kind of old now, but it still stuns him. The Glenbrook North senior defenseman had been selected as the 2014-15 JJ O’Connor Illinois Boys High School Hockey Player of the Year. A representative from the Amateur Hockey Association Illinois (AHAI) had called to inform Slovis of the news. Slovis, in disbelief, attempted to digest the honor at home, with a phone to his ear, with his mouth wide open. “It was a huge surprise, definitely huge,” he recalls more than a month later. “I wasn’t expecting it. Three or four other guys on my team could’ve won that award. Players from other teams … it was an honor. “I felt truly blessed.” His mother, Kellie, heard the news next. The sister of two former Glenbrook North Spartans hockey players, Bob and John, erupted. Pure joy makes people do that. Kyle texted the news to his father, John. Dad Slovis did not text back. He called his son instead. Probably way too excited to type a reply, probably way too overwhelmed with pride. “It wasn’t my goal, winning that,” the 5-foot-8, 155-pounder adds. “I was thinking only of winning something with my teammates — a state title.” Several weeks later, on March 22, Slovis and his teammates did just that, edging Benet Academy 3-2 in overtime at the United Center. Slovis and his teammates had played in the state championship game the previous two seasons. They lost to New Trier Green both times. Memories of the setbacks fueled the Spartans throughout their 63-12-2 season. “A horrible feeling, each time,” Slovis says of what gripped him as another team celebrated wildly on the home ice of the Chicago Blackhawks after the 2013 and 2014 title games. “But now, looking back at what we did [last month], it’s surreal, an unbelievable feeling. We’d been wanting to do that the whole year … our whole lives. It’s been great, amazing, being able to say, ‘We’re state champs.’ ” The assist Slovis provided in the state title game was his 74th point in his 74th game, a tidy and easy-
Glenbrook North senior defenseman Kyle Slovis will be competing in USA Hockey’s America Showcase in Pittsburgh this weekend. He will be joined by teammates Chris Zhang, Alex Merritt and Chad Yale. PHOTOGRAPHY BY joel lerner
to-compute 1.0 point-per-game average. The offensive-minded defenseman and third-year varsity member ended up with 23 goals and 51 assists in 2014-15. He never put offense before his primary duties on defense. But that approach never allowed opponents to relax whenever the skillful, dangerous Slovis sniffed an opportunity to generate a point. In an 11-2 defeat of Fenwick on Jan. 11, Slovis scored a goal and assisted on four others. Busy, productive. The captain ranked fourth among teammates in points, behind forwards Chris Zhang (53 goals, 66 assists), Alex Merritt (57, 58) and Logan Nein (40, 43). “[Slovis] has all the tools,” Glenbrook North coach Evan Poulakidas says of the all-state, all-Scholastic Hockey League and Illinois Showcase Team pick. “He sees the
ice like a center sees the ice.” Slovis’ deft, on-the-fly drop pass (on Nein’s close-in goal in the state championship game last month) was center-esque, forward-esque. Slovis sees ice — especially the rink ice at Northbrook Sports Center — as his second home, not too far behind that warmer place where he heard that super news. All three of his brothers know how to skate, know what do with a puck, know what to do without a puck. Former Spartan Ryan Slovis, a two-time state runner-up in hockey, is a freshman at Miami University in Ohio; Andrew Slovis led all JV players in scoring in the SHL in 2014-15; and Charlie Slovis is a seventh-grade puckster. “I think I was three years old when I first skated [at North-
brook Sports Center],” says Kyle Slovis, a honors student who might give club hockey a try at the University of Michigan. “Maybe I was four years old. I pretty much grew up on rinks. My mom comes from a hockey family. My dad played basketball [while growing up in Michigan]. My mom told my dad, ‘We’re having hockey players.’ I’ve been skating for so long; it’s second nature to me. Basketball, it just never worked out. When I’m at a rink, I’m happy. I have always been happy at rinks. I love hockey. “My mom likes to joke that I’d probably eat a hockey puck if she ever put one on a plate for me. I’d put hot sauce on it. I love hot sauce.” He will gobble up, using a stick, lacrosse balls as a Glenbrook North middie this spring. The Spartans reached the Elite
Eight, as the fifth seed, in the state playoffs last spring. Glenbrook North outscored its first two opponents by a combined 29-6 before falling 16-5 to Lake Forest High School. Slovis played Team ONE club lacrosse for three offseasons (eighth grade through his sophomore year). “We’re looking pretty good … we’re looking to go farther than [the Elite Eight] this year.” Slovis says. “Our defense is solid.” One of Slovis’ favorite pastimes, for years, has been playing pickup games with his close friends. Football games, basketball games, soccer games. If Slovis is not active, he actively seeks to do something active. Kyle Slovis sits still. He talks. His mind races. He had just been asked to recollect the moments following Glenbrook North’s
defeat of Benet Academy at the United Center last month. The state championship was Glenbrook North’s fifth in program history and first since 2008. “The locker room afterward … everybody in there was happy,” Slovis says. “Everybody was overjoyed. I remember seeing everybody’s happy face, and I remember realizing all that hard work paid off. That scene was the best. That feeling was the best. “Thirty minutes after the game, we still had our uniforms on.” Notable: Zhang, Merritt and defenseman Chad Yale (24 goals and 39 assists in 2014-15) also made the Illinois Showcase Team this year. The two-time reigning championship team competes this weekend at USA Hockey’s America Showcase in Pittsburgh.