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Torrey Mitchell enters pro hockey
“It was time,” says Torrey Mitchell. Selwyn House hockey fans have been watching this rising hockey star since he graduated in 2002, wondering when he’d take the step onto pro-hockey ice.
A fourth-round pick (126th overall) by the San Jose Sharks in the 2004 NHL entry draft, Torrey announced on March 19 that he had been asked to join the Worcester Sharks, San Jose’s AHL affiliate, and would be leaving the University of Vermont after he completes his junior year this spring.
By the time he graduated from Selwyn House, Torrey was already a star on the AAA Charles-Lemoyne Riverains midget team. While some of his teammates went directly into major-junior hockey, Torrey chose to put his education first and go to the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut.
After Hotchkiss, he won a hockey scholarship to the University of Vermont, where he became a pillar of the Catamounts, racking up 35 goals and 70 assists for 105 points in 110 games, tying for 35th place in the team’s all-time scoring list.
He was named to the Eastern College Athletic Conference All-Rookie team his freshman year, and was an Honourable Mention Hockey East All-Star as a sophomore. With 12 goals and 23 assists last season, he led the Catamounts in scoring and was ranked 14th (seventh in assists) in Hockey East.
“Torrey is the best two-way player I have coached to date,” says Vermont coach Kevin Sneddon. “[With Torrey’s move to the AHL] we lose a great player who really helped put our program back on the map,” Sneddon says. “We’re certainly not going to replace him.”
Sneddon also credits Torrey for showing a lot of team leadership both on and off the ice, something his teammates are keenly aware of. “The work ethic he puts out is the biggest thing he brings to this team,” says junior defenceman and assistant captain Mark Lutz.
Torrey played his first game on the road with the Worcester Sharks on March 23. Watching with great interest from the stands were his father, Selwyn House Athletic Director Steve Mitchell, and his mother, Sheila, who teaches physical education at Champlain College.
Steve says Torrey spent much of the first game getting used to the different feel of pro-level hockey. “There’s a lot of traffic on the ice,” says Steve. “It’s more difficult to move the puck.”
By his second game, the following night at home in Worcester, Torrey was already showing a lot of style and savvy on the ice, playing every second shift on the third line and doing a lot of penalty killing. His debut with the Sharks is garnering high praise on fan blogs.
With a bright future unfolding fast, it would be easy for a young man to be dazzled by being suddenly thrust into pro hockey. But Torrey has been planning this move since he was a boy, spending every free minute on the rink his father built behind their house in Greenfield Park. He knows he still has to work hard to win a spot in the NHL, and he hasn’t forgotten his pledge to complete his education by earning his business degree through summer and on-line courses.
“It’s my dream [to play in the NHL],” he says, “but I have to be realistic.”
