Ice-Hockey, Baseball
Favorite athlete: Sidney Crosby
Favorite team: Pittsburgh Penguins
Favorite memory competing in sports: Winning the PIAA AAAA baseball state championship
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Stepping out on the ice while my skate guards were still on.
Music on iPod: Rap/Hip Hop
Future plans: Play junior hockey then try to play college hockey.
Words to live by: “Never give up.”
One goal before turning 30: Have an engineering degree and a master’s with a good job.
One thing people don’t know about me: I have played ice hockey in four different countries.
By Gordon Glantz
After Old Man Winter releases his wrath upon us, most people are aching for lovely spring days by the end of March and early April.
But North Penn High’s Alex Peterson is not most people.
An elite ice hockey player who dedicates himself to the sport on an almost year-round basis, the Univest Featured Male Athlete of the Week still relishes his place as an important contributor on the defending state champion Knight’s baseball squad coached by Kevin Manero.
But he is admittedly not quite in synch to work the different muscle groups required for baseball when spring arrives.
Hence, the rain dances.
“It gives you extra time to get ready,” said Peterson, who not only plays ice hockey for North Penn (usually one or two games a week) but for the Little Flyers (one or two games on weekends) and at all-star showcases that take him out of the region.
“The high school (baseball) team has been having workouts in the morning since, like, September or October. I try to get there when I can. I’ve gotten used to it, but when baseball starts, I’m rusty.
“I’m lucky my baseball coach works that all out.”
Manero “works it all out” because he knows the type of person he is dealing with, and it goes beyond pure skill. There is a level of maturity,
“Alex is a two-sport star who really defines the term ‘multi-sport athlete,’ in terms of how smoothly he transitions from one sport to the other,” said Manero. “He is naturally athletic and plays baseball with the same intense focus it takes to follow and pursue a puck around the ice.
“Alex is a quiet kid who leads by example. His consistently tough at bats, his ability to track down balls in the outfield, and his dogged intensity make him a player who needs to say very few words. His approach, his intelligence on the field, and his coachability all speak volumes. “
Among the Elite
Peterson, who plans to study engineering in college, says he pulls all-nighters because he “hates getting up early” to study.
“I have been doing well in school,” he said. “Mostly, school has always come easy for me.”
Ideally, he would love to attend Penn State, which now boasts a Division I hockey program, but he would not go directly to State College or any other campus, whether it has a Division I or III program.
His next step would be to play junior hockey on a hitch of 2-3 years in the NAHL – with teams as close as Aston in Delaware County and Scranton/Wilkes Barre -- or the USHL, which has teams in the Midwest and has had many players drafted by the NHL teams who then hold their rights while playing in college.
To put it in layman’s terms, the difference between the USHL and the NAHL is like BCS and FCS in college football.
“My coach knows a lot of coaches,” he said of North Penn coach Kevin Vaitis. “A couple of guys have contacted me.”
Peterson finds himself at showcases, like one he is attending this weekend in Minnesota, where scouts can evaluate the nation’s best on the same rink.
This is big-time stuff, and it was not by accident that Peterson found himself on a North American select team that played games in Sweden in Finland, where he got to use his finesse skills on Olympic-sized rinks.
“That was really cool,” he said. “It was something different. It was a great atmosphere to be in, and to learn what other people do.
“And the skill level (of the Europeans) was at a high level.”
Translation, in any language: Peterson was right in his element.
While he doesn’t possess great size – he is 5-9, 165 – Peterson’s skill level, including a wicked shot that strikes fear in opposing goaltenders, is his ace in the hole.
“I have been fortunate enough to coach Alex the last four years for North Penn Ice Hockey,” said Vaitis. “Alex was the Player of the Year for the SHSHL (Suburban High School Hockey League) last season as a junior. Alex is a four-year varsity player and currently is leading the league with 58 points (30 goals and 28 assists). He was an assistant captain his junior year and is a captain of the team this season, his senior year.
“Alex is an extremely talented player that works extremely hard on the ice. He knows the game very well while having tremendous hockey sense. He has an incredible shot which has made him a very dangerous hockey player. Many coaches in the league have commented on the quick release that he has.”
Past, Present and Future
Why not give baseball up?
Peterson has seen friends do it in favor of hockey, but he would not have wanted to trade experiences like last spring, when he was the starting left fielder and scrappy 2-hole hitter for the state-champion Knights.
“That was the best thing I have ever accomplished in sports,” he said. “It was a great feeling. It was just pretty hard to describe.”
And while he didn’t have a big game at the plate in the state-clinching game, a 4-3 win over Wyoming Valley West in extra innings, he knows he was a key cog in the wheel.
“In that game, I didn’t really do much at the plate, except move a guy over,” he said. “But, throughout the playoffs, I played pretty well.”
A standout on the ice, Peterson describe himself as a contact hitter whose “strongest point is my defense.”
Although he was born and raised in Lansdale, he followed the lead of his Pittsburgh-born parents, Rich and Denise, and grew up a Penguins fans and idolizes Sidney Crosby.
That stance doesn’t make Peterson real popular in Flyers’ Country, but anyone with an objection would have to catch him first to file a complaint.
“My strengths are my skating and stickhandling,” he said.
Peterson credits his parents for “providing a ton of support, both financially and morally” in his hockey quest.
He said his dad, in particular, is “always in his ear” and “always gets on me” to keep him focused. Peterson wouldn’t have it any other way.
“That’s how I got where I am today,” said Peterson, whose older sister, Taylor, recently graduated Purdue and is settling in Kansas. “My parents have been great.”
Aside from his parents, he extends gratitude to all his coaches, in both sports, and also his neighbor, Charlotte Bett for getting him interested in ice hockey.
“She is from Canada,” he said. “She has a kid my age (North Penn teammate Dillon Bett) and that’s what first drew me into it.”
He took skating lessons and age six – putting him about five years behind most Canadian kids and at least 2-3 years behind those born in New England or the upper Midwest – and then hit the ice about a year later.
“As soon as I started, I had a lot of fun,” said Peterson, the team captain of the North Penn squad that he hopes will play up to its full potential in the postseason. “I started to become good at it, and I just stuck with it.”
