Published: Feb. 13, 2014
Morbeck relishing fun times
Jackson native playing last year of junior hockey
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News
Finally, Trevor Morbeck got the chance to play a hockey game
in his home state. Yet, he wasn’t nervous.
“It was just another game,” the 20-year-old Jackson native
said.
It was really wasn’t just another game.
He was in his first game with a new team — the Muskegon
Lumberjacks — in a new league — the United States Hockey League. It was his
first “home” game in more than four years as the Lumberjacks played at the
Green Bay Gamblers on Sept. 21. However, this game came after three years of
junior hockey with the Ontario Hockey League.
What happened in the game became a life-long memory for him
and his family.
Morbeck scored a power-play goal at the 6:20 mark of the
first period to give the Lumberjacks a 2-0 lead. He celebrated the goal, but
got to do it with his family as they were sitting on the end of the ice he
scored on.
“To see them all there was one moment I’ll never forget,”
Morbeck said.
Afterward, he celebrated more, saying ‘hi’ to family and
friends, many he hadn’t seen in years.
“I didn’t know that many people were going to be there,”
Morbeck said, adding there were about 25 people in attendance to support him.
“They had a big poster and a big banner.”
It was a feel-good moment for the aspiring professional
hockey player.
“That was real nice,” he said, adding he was only expecting
five or six people he knew to be at the game. “It was hard to talk to all of
them because I had such a short amount of time.”
Morbeck moved away from home when he was 16 to pursue his
dream of being a professional hockey player. Not since then had he played a
game in Wisconsin.
Morbeck spent three seasons in the OHL, playing with Sault
St. Marie, Kingston and Oshawa. In 165 games, he scored 24 goals and 43
assists. However, while he was in that league, the teams there thought of him
to be more of a physical presence, instead of a goalscoring one. So he was
asked to be the team’s enforcer in most situations.
It was a role he was OK with.
“Being the youngest of four kind of made me physical,” he
joked.
That first year was an eye-opening experience for Morbeck.
“You had to be ready every game,” he said. “If you aren’t
ready and somebody else was, they’ll take your spot. You have to be ready to
go. You have to earn your role on the team.”
He settled into his role in the league and fared well,
eventually grabbing the attention of former NHL veteran Todd Krygier, the coach
of the Lumberjacks.
“I think he’s a real smart player,” Krygier said. “A hard
worker and has some good skills. He brings leadership on and off the ice. He’s
been fantastic with how he handles himself.”
Because of the rules, this will be Morbeck’s last year of
junior hockey. In most cases, players can’t play at that level beyond age 20.
Morbeck turns 21 in November.
Next year, he said he’ll likely attend a college in Canada
and play hockey there, hoping the NHL will still give him a shot someday.
Strangely enough to him, Morbeck is now one of the veterans
on the team. He still remembers quite well how he used to be the young guy in
the locker room.
“I remember sitting talking to guys saying it goes by so
fast and you’re like, ‘Oh yeah,’” he recalled. “They’re not kidding.”
Now he’s the one setting the example of how to be a
top-notch player at this level.
“He’s been a huge benefit to our younger players,” Krygier
said. “He’s very professional. He’s been real significant in helping our
younger players understand what it means to play junior hockey.”
With that experience under his belt, Krygier knew he had to
change Morbeck’s responsibilities. Morbeck plays on the Lumberjacks’ top
scoring line.
“Our management team felt he’d be a good fit for us,”
Krygier said. “He’d be a leader on this team. We sought him out.”
This season in the USHL, he is fourth on the team in scoring
with 10 goals and 15 assists in 38 games. His best season in the OHL was his
first season when he scored 10 goals and 10 assists with Sault St. Marie in 57
games.
He still hasn’t been shying away from the tough stuff,
accumulating 102 penalty minutes.
“I wanted to focus on him playing hockey and not fight,”
Krygier said. “We wanted him to play hockey and use his abilities.”
Morbeck took a similar path to that of another Washington
County native, West Bend’s David Steckel.
Steckel made it to the NHL and has played in more than 400
games. Morbeck used Steckel’s success as his motivation.
“If you see someone from our town succeed, that was cool to
see,” Morbeck said. “It really inspired me.”
While it hasn’t worked out like he had hoped, Morbeck is
still happy with the way it has turned out.
“I wanted to get a chance to make the NHL,” he said. “If
that didn’t happen, it wasn’t going to happen. I’m not going to lose sleep over
it.
“It’s been fun.”
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