Missing days of school, less time with friends and family, and playing really tough teams across the whole country; these are typical days for 7th grader Zuma M. who holds a coveted spot on the Little Caps junior hockey team, and it isn’t easy.
Zuma talks about the Little Caps program as something easy to get into but it’s not. Only the best of the best in the travel teams can make a junior NHL team. Zuma has only been playing Hockey for 3 years, so being on a Junior Hockey team is a huge achievement, but also a huge commitment.
“I had to sacrifice a lot of time to hockey, but my parents put education first,” said Zuma.
Putting education first is also important considering how many days of school junior hockey players miss. In total Zuma missed 20 to 30 days of school last year. Some other junior players miss even more. But his focus has paid off. He is in the Advanced Academic program and he has A’s in the majority of his classes.
He’s going to need all of that focus and ambition to consider a career in Hockey. According to a 2013 Bleacher Report article “NHL Hockey: How Much Are a Child’s Hockey Dreams Worth?” young hockey players have a 1 in 1,000 chance of playing even one game in the NHL. The good thing for Zuma is that East Coast youth players, at least according to the ABC news report “Just how tough is it to reach the NHL?”, have a higher chance. The report estimates that in any given Junior or College team, 1 player makes it to the NHL.
ABC reporter, Ken Campbell, also claims that there is a better chance that a youth player’s family will win the Powerball than there is for the player to make it to the NHL.
A promising career deserves ambitious goals. Zuma has just that.
“My goal is to get to a prep school like Shattuck St. Mary’s, and from there, I’ll go to a college and hopefully get drafted,” Zuma said.
With Shattuck St. Mary’s having some incredible players throughout NHL history, it’s a very good goal for Zuma. After that, he’ll have many great colleges wanting him. It’ll be a hard road, but it’s very possible.
He’s also planned on what he’ll do after college. He has an Idea to join a new franchise so he can help them out.
“I might pick Seattle because they’re new,” he mused. “Them or the Philadelphia Flyers because my dad is a fan.”
The Seattle Kraken would be a great choice. In their first season in 2021-2022, they didn’t make the playoffs, but success soon followed. Already in the 2022-2023 season they made the Western Conference semi-final and lost to the Dallas Stars in an exhilarating game seven.
Zuma deserves a round of applause for all his hard work and effort to get to the peak of junior hockey this fast. He inspires me and if he makes the NHL I bet he will inspire a lot of others.
