Adam Ferreira has been playing hockey since he was six years old.
He played with the Kitimat Winterhawks from Grades One to 10 and loved the connection the small town allowed for between him and his teammates.
“Playing hockey out here was really fun, you know, because the benefit of playing hockey in a small town is that, you pretty much get to go to school with the same people you play hockey with,” Ferreira said. “So, you get to see them all the time, and when you see them all the time, it only improves the product on the hockey rink. You guys are spending all that time together, so the bond gets strengthened, not just in hockey but also in life.”
In the summer going into Grade 11, Ferreira got an email from the Kamloops Storm hockey team, inviting him to their camp in July. Ferreira figured, why not, and decided to go down for the camp.
Within a few days, the coaches told him they wanted to sign him for the team. He signed a few days later and moved down to Kamloops.
Ferreira said it was a strange experience moving to a bigger city for hockey, because he had grown up playing with the same familiar faces and was now suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar team and place.
“Moving to a new place, moving to a new team was definitely different, because, you know, growing up, you pretty much play with the same people every single year. So, when you go to the rink that first day and don’t see those familiar people, it’s definitely weird, but it’s exciting because you have the opportunity to play with new people.”
Ferreira said changing schools was even more of an adjustment than changing teams, especially given the population differences between Kitimat and Kamloops.
“That was definitely the biggest adjustment, you know, going from a high school here with probably around, under four hundred students, and then going there and you’re in a school with over a thousand kids, so many different people in the hallways and you’re like, wow, this is quite different.”
In Ferreira’s first year in Kamloops, he had a few other teammates that he was at school with. However, once his senior year started, he suddenly found himself the only one on his team at his school, which Ferreira said was a bit of a shock for him, especially growing up going to school with essentially his entire team.
“My first season, since we had a lot of out-of-town kids, I was at school with, I want to say four other of my teammates. My second year, I was the only kid at my school, because we had a lot more Kamloops kids on the team,” Ferreira said. “I guess it forced me to branch out a little bit and, you know, meet people who don’t necessarily play hockey.”
Ferreira said, during his two years in Kamloops, he came back to Kitimat to see his family and friends on Christmas break, and even got to come home for a few days for Thanksgiving this past year. He also came back to finish school in Kitimat when hockey season ended in his first year in Kamloops, but unfortunately wasn’t able to do so this year with the pandemic.
“Unfortunately all this coronavirus stuff happened and I wasn’t able to go back to school [in Kitimat], but that was okay. I was able to graduate [in Kamloops], which is what I wanted to do.”
Going forward, Ferreira was recently scouted by the Red Lake Miners, a Superior International Junior Hockey League team out of Red Lake, Ontario. Ferreira said the head coach for the Miners contacted him in July, after seeing Ferreira’s highlight reel.
“So, he got in contact with me and we had a great conversation about hockey, my game, and how I can help his team be successful in the future. It was a very productive conversation.”
The head coach wanted to see more of Ferreira before signing him, and invited Ferreira out to the camp happening Thanksgiving weekend. If everything goes well, Ferreira plans on going out to Red Lake for the camp, then hopefully getting signed and staying out there on the team.
“I would love to join. Just with what the coach told me about the program…it sounds very intriguing to me,” Ferreira said. “It’ll definitely be interesting because I’ve never been that far east. So, for me it’ll be a new experience and experiencing something new. It’s going to be like moving to Kamloops, you know, it’ll just be another big move and we’ll see how it goes.”
Ferreira said he’s fairly confident about going out for the camp, as the head coach previously told him he would be a very good fit for the team. He’s anxious to see how things go with COVID-19, but hopes he’ll be able to head to Red Lake and possibly stay there as of the Thanksgiving weekend.
“My short term goal is obviously to have a good season in Red Lake and from there, if I’m so fortunate enough to earn a scholarship to go play college hockey, that’s something I really want to pursue. And then after that, we’ll see where my future takes me.”
Ferreira said he’s unsure at this time whether a hockey career is something he’d like to pursue in the long-run, but that he’s willing to go with the flow and see how far he can get in the hockey world.
“I just want to go as far with hockey as I possibly can,” Ferreira said. “I can’t really say where I’m going to go, I just want to go as far as I can with it.”
clare.rayment@northernsentinel.com
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