Move to County Hasn’t Kept O’Brien From Hitting the Boards

DANA POINT — Many Canadian teen-agers would have given anything to trade places with Jason O’Brien a couple of years ago. And O’Brien almost wished they had asked.

In 1990, his father was transferred to Orange County by his company. For many kids, the prospects of fun in the sun would have been, well, radical.

But Jason’s life revolved around hockey. He played in youth leagues in Toronto. He played in informal games with friends. He played at the drop of a puck.

O’Brien was happier than a cat in an aviary when he was on the ice.

He pictured his future home as a hockey wasteland. Or so he thought.

“I wasn’t quite sure if I was still going to be able to play,” said O’Brien, now a senior at Dana Hills High. “I thought my career was finished, basically. I thought I would have to take up surfing instead.”

Before he could invest in a board and some funky shorts, however, O’Brien got some exciting news. During a business trip to Burbank, before the family moved to Laguna Niguel, O’Brien’s father, David, went skating at an ice rink near the hotel where he was staying.

He asked the people in the pro shop if they knew of any youth hockey teams in the area, and they mentioned the L.A. Kings Jr. team (not affiliated with the professional franchise).

Soon after arriving in Southern California with his father--his mother, brother and sister followed a few months later--O’Brien joined the program’s midget team for high school juniors and seniors.

A 6-foot-1, 175-pound defenseman, O’Brien quickly established himself as one of the leading players and is now team captain. It’s the only organized sport he plays.

“He’s really a ‘stay-at-home’ defenseman. He plays his position very well,” said Bob Destocki, a former high school hockey coach in Chicago and the coach of the Kings’ Jr. program midget team since 1980. “He’s real serious about the game. He’s very intelligent and keeps things under control.”

The team features players from throughout Southern California. It uses several facilities for practices and a rink at Lake Arrowhead for home games during a season that runs from August to April.

Because the nearest midget team is in Phoenix, Ariz., Destocki said his team plays primarily in tournaments or against colleges such as USC and Stanford. The team will travel to Seattle and Vancouver, Canada, for a series of exhibition games Feb. 14-17.

All that traveling took O’Brien away from school for 34 days his junior year, but he kept up with his classes through an independent studies program and now has a 3.8 grade-point average.

“This year hasn’t been close to the amount of traveling,” O’Brien said.

Not that O’Brien is complaining. He’d go anywhere a hockey game might break out. It has been like that since his father steered him in that direction when O’Brien was about 8.

“We had a pretty good-sized pond in our back yard that would freeze over and we would spend all day out there when I was a kid, just playing hockey and different games,” O’Brien said. “We’d take peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with us and just play.”

The pickup games gave way to more structured competition as O’Brien joined the youth leagues and rose through the ranks.

“I’ve always played defense,” O’Brien said. “My dad started me there. I got programmed to that, but I’ve played some forward and wing on power plays . . . I love hockey. I like the fast movement and the way it gets your adrenaline going. It’s just a lot of fun.”

O’Brien, 18, said he doesn’t watch many games on television--”I can’t sit there and not play it”--but he heard enough about former Montreal Canadien goalie Ken Dryden and former Boston Bruin defenseman Bobby Orr to count them as his favorites.

“Ken Dryden went to school to get his master’s degree after he retired from the Canadiens,” O’Brien said. “I thought it was pretty cool the way he went about his education. He was my idol off the ice.

“Bobby Orr was my idol on the ice because I’ve always been a defenseman.”

O’Brien, who is considering hockey scholarship offers from several universities back East, including Notre Dame, also was a talented volleyball player who made the varsity team at Mayfield Secondary School in Toronto his sophomore year. But he now only plays volleyball at the beach.

He said he plays soccer and golf with friends but is not involved in any interscholastic sports at Dana Hills, which his brother and sister also attend.

And, yes, he rides the waves.

“I’m always down at the beach,” O’Brien said. “If it’s there, I’m going to use it.”

Although he has made a smooth transition to California, there are at least two things O’Brien misses about Canada--even if ever so slightly. One is the cost of renting an ice rink. In Canada, he said, that runs about $70 an hour. Here, O’Brien said, it’s about $250.

The other follows more sentimental lines.

“I miss the snow at Christmas,” O’Brien said. “It feels a little different here during the holidays. It’s hard to get into the spirit. But right now, I wouldn’t go back to Canada. I love it here.”