While many Redwood students choose to play more traditional West Coast sports such as football or basketball, select athletes veer towards a less common sport: ice hockey. In Marin, there is no ice hockey team or rink. Thus, players have to travel great distances, whether that is San Francisco, Southern California or the East Coast, just to play.

Senior Max Oppenheim has been playing hockey for 14 years and started playing in Philadelphia at the age of 3. Oppenheim recognizes that it is much easier to find a team on the East Coast versus the west. When he moved to Marin, his selection was scarce, but he ended up joining the San Jose Junior Sharks and played there for six years. Now, Oppenheim is on both Golden State Elite Hockey, located in San Francisco, as well as the Sonoma County Flyers, where he practices and competes in tournaments at least five days a week. Oppenheim has had to learn how to balance his time between hockey and academics, as he has taken 13 Advanced Placement classes.

“It’s very difficult to manage my time, so much of it is completely devoted to hockey. Trying to keep up with my schoolwork is super difficult. There are sacrifices I have to make,” Oppenheim said. “I’ve had to give up spending time with my friends on weekends just to do what I love [which is] hockey. I don’t regret anything and I’m happy to go anywhere across the country just to do what I love.”

With all the time put into hockey, Oppenheim has earned an abundance of titles. After winning the California Amerature Hockey Association State Championship in both 2017 and 2019, he was picked by top coaches throughout that league to be on the California Selects team, consisting of the top 25 hockey players in California for his respective age group. Oppenheim says his teams always compete when traveling across the country for tournaments, despite having fewer teams available to compete against. 

“We absolutely match up with East Coast teams. We’ve done very well when we’ve traveled across the country,” Oppenheim said. “Yes, there are fewer people here in Northern California playing hockey, but the development programs here are more centered. We don’t have to spread out as many resources between teams. Better coaches are available in one place so that makes it easier to get better development.”

Also starting the sport at a very young age, junior Ava Dubow grew up in Hong Kong and learned to play hockey from her Canadian neighbor. She joined a team in 2010 and fell in love with the sport instantly, despite being the only girl on the team. When she moved to Marin three years ago, her coach from Hong Kong told her about her current team, the San Jose Junior Sharks.

“I used to play on a guys’ team because there weren’t enough girls in Hong Kong. When I came to the U.S., it was so much better because I started playing with girls. When playing with guys I didn’t feel like I was on the team because the guys talked to each other and I [felt excluded]. I only played for the sport [and] not for the team,” Dubow said.

Ever since the move, Dubow has not looked back, traveling across the country with her all-girls team. The team’s chemistry has given her an opportunity to build close relationships with her teammates. 

“Because we travel so much, we spend a lot of time together both on and off the rink. [During a tournament] in Alaska, we went dog sledding which was really fun. Activities like that really build up our team chemistry,” Dubow said. 

While participating in similar activities, freshman Charlie Pickart has met several of his closest friends through the sport. Like Oppenheim, Pickart is a part of the Golden State Elite organization on the 14U team, where he started playing at the age of 6. He has grown to appreciate the game at an even higher level. 

“What made me really love hockey was the community created. I could see people come together from very different strokes of life. I came to a sense that everybody loves each other, even if you’re not on the same team,” Pickart said.

This has led Pickart to have high aspirations for the future. As a goalkeeper, he has worked extremely hard in order to be the best version of himself. He knows his motivation will get him to where he wants to be in the future.

“I want to play at a level where I get paid. It doesn’t matter if it’s the National Hockey League (NHL) or a minor league team, [but] I just want to make a living off of it. I want to be the best that I can possibly be. A lot of situations that I’ve lived through have pushed me to be better, [and] I have something inside me that knows I will get to the one percent,” Pickart said. 

Despite the scarcity of rinks and teams in the Bay Area, Redwood hockey players are excited about the rest of their hockey careers – whether that’s playing in college or playing in the NHL. Although Marin players have to go to great lengths to play the sport they love, the sense of accomplishment and community granted by playing makes it all worth it.