Metro Phoenix hockey player skates in NCAA Frozen Four
Apr 11, 2013, 9:28 AM
PHOENIX — Jeremy Langlois didn’t start his hockey career on the frozen ponds of the Midwest. Instead, he began playing on Rollerblades in the streets of his Tempe neighborhood.
These days, Langlois plays under a much brighter spotlight at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Now a 22-year-old senior, he’s the team’s top scorer, leading the Bobcats to their first Frozen Four, the equivalent of college basketball’s Final Four.
“After the Coyotes moved to Phoenix in ’96, I picked up ice hockey around the age of seven or eight,” Langlois said.
He didn’t play organized ice hockey until he was 9, when he entered a youth league at Polar Ice Chandler.
“I get a lot of ‘huhs?’ when I tell people I’m from Arizona. They usually say, ‘They don’t play hockey there,’ ” he said.
Langlois hopes to change the Valley’s reputation as not being a hockey town. He’ll have a little help Thursday night, when he faces off against childhood friend Joey Holka, who plays for St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.
The puck drops at 5 p.m. on ESPN2.
