Mayville’s Connor Nowicki has big goals of someday playing professional hockey and getting drafted to the National Hockey League.

Getting to any of the Big Four professional sports leagues in North America is no easy feat and often it goes above and beyond just playing where you grow up. Football players attend summer camps, basketball and baseball players often play on travel teams along with their high schools, but hockey players have to take a different route — most often the junior route.

Nowicki and his family have realized that, so this weekend he is making the big move north of the border to play junior hockey in Canada.

“It’s nerve-racking,” Connor’s mother, Julie Nowicki, said about playing junior hockey in Canada. “But the opportunity we couldn’t take away from him, so it’s pretty exciting.”

Connor Nowicki poses on a Hartfield Volunteer Fire Department truck after his send-off parade before he moves to Canada to play junior hockey this season. Submitted photo

After a successful training camp in May with the Meaford Knights in the Greater Metro Hockey League, Nowicki earned himself a spot on the junior squad competing with players in the 16-21 age group.

“We got an invite from a scout to go to a camp up there,” said Connor Nowicki’s father, Shawn Nowicki. “It was an invite-only camp, so we decided to go. The whole trip up there was to see where his level of play was and then he was lucky enough to be chosen as one of 15, out of 77 kids trying out.”

Earning the spot is one thing, but then it comes down to the big decision to move away from home at 15 years old. Lucky for Nowicki, he has the full support of his parents in his hockey endeavors.

“It’s very exciting and I’m very nervous,” Connor Nowicki said about moving to Canada to play junior hockey. “I’ve talked to other kids from the team. It’s schooling all through the week and then it’s games both during the week and on the weekend.”

This is not the first time that Nowicki has ventured outside of Chautauqua County to play hockey, while he has played with the Dunkirk-Fredonia Steelers program, when COVID made it difficult to play he joined the Erie Junior Otters.

“He played for the Steelers in Fredonia,” Shawn said about Connor’s career trajectory. “Then his bantam year we did not have enough players to put a team together, so we moved him to the Junior Otters out of Erie. He was there for three years and then this came about.”

Playing for both of those clubs have allowed Nowicki to grow into the current player that he is.

“With the Otters he was captain for two out of the three seasons,” Shawn added about Connor’s career. “We played AA and AAA level. With the Steelers he played varsity at 9th grade level. He has a sports mindset, he’s been on the ice since he was three.”

While it is not impossible to eventually be drafted from anywhere — even the Sabres once selected a fictitious player named Taro Tsujimoto in 1974 — if you are going to be taken seriously in your professional hockey career, going the path of juniors is a must. In the 2023 NHL draft there was just five high schoolers selected, four from U.S. high schools and one from a Canadian high school, but each of those are boarding schools with a hefty tuition.

It’s a long shot to get drafted no matter what, but sticking around to play locally creates almost insurmountable odds, especially since North American kids have only three chances to get drafted from 18-20.

Nowicki won’t have to worry about the draft for a little over two years now, but all the work he’s been putting in to prove that he’s good enough to play junior hockey in Canada is going to be put to the test. Nowicki stated that he skates about three times a week up in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Some of the people that inspire the 5-foot, 8-inch, 140-pound, right-shot defenseman include coaches, but he doesn’t really model his game off anyone and plays how he plays.

“He looks up to one of his former coaches,” Shawn said about Connor and how he has shaped his game. “Coach Miles Gates who was an 8-time deaflympic medalist. He kind of does his own thing, he watches it when he can, but Crosby growing up was his idol. ”

Even if Nowicki doesn’t reach the goal of being drafted, he will still be able to chase the goal of being a professional hockey player. Other examples of undrafted athletes making it to the top from the area include Jamestown’s Stephen Carlson who has played for the Cleveland Browns and is currently with the Chicago Bears in the National Football League and then Jamestown’s Jaysean Paige making it all the way to the National Basketball Association with the Detroit Pistons.

If Nowicki wants to achieve those goals it will take him continuing the hard work he has already put in and it starts this weekend making the move to Meaford, Ontario, Canada to play in the Greater Metro Hockey League.

“His goal is to be a professional player,” stated Julie Nowicki. “His goal is if he can get drafted out, he wants to get drafted to the NHL.”

Not only will he have the support of his family and friends, but his whole community. On Thursday evening, Nowicki received a send-off through the village of Mayville by the Chautauqua, Mayville, Hartfield and Dewittville Fire Departments as well as the Chautauqua County Sheriff’s Department.

“He just pours his heart and soul into every sport that he’s played,” Shawn Nowicki said about Connor. “Hockey from a young age is the main sport that he chose. He’s just excelled at it.”