Lee starts pro career with Indy tryout
A lot of players had to deal with the same experience, former Sacred Heart defenseman Mike Lee said, but the Hamden native weighed his options to start his pro-hockey career in this pandemic year.
The option he landed on was a tryout in the ECHL with the Indy Fuel in Indianapolis. The Fuel started training camp on Tuesday.
“I was looking in the AHL, but they’re not starting until February,” Lee said Wednesday, and that league’s plans to start aren’t firm yet, either.
“I got some advice to go to (Indy) and try to play games.”
While the NHL talks about targeting Jan. 1 to begin the new season, and while the AHL waits as well, the ECHL has 13 teams preparing to start next week. The Fuel open Dec. 11 against Kansas City. Eight have opted out, including the entire North Division, and five have yet to make a final decision on starting up in mid-January.
Lee played two years at Vermont before coming to Sacred Heart; he has known coach C.J. Marottolo, a fellow Connecticut native, a long time. He arrived on the ice for the Pioneers at the same time as assistant coach Paul Kirtland, who moved on to Yale this summer.
“(Kirtland) taught me a lot, not only on the ice but as a person, striving to become a professional, not just showing up at the game but doing the right things during the week to prepare,” Lee said.
“The team was also great. The team had a lot of success that allowed me to put up the numbers I did.”
The American Hockey Coaches Association named him a second-team All
American after he scored 33 points in 33 games for the Pioneers, who tied a program record with 21 wins before the pandemic ended their season in the Atlantic Hockey quarterfinals.
“In the past two years, Mike’s game has taken a big jump in terms of how he can impact a game,” Marottolo said.
“Mike has always had a very high hockey IQ with the puck,” he added. “His game grew tremendously on the defensive side, and with that, Mike became a 200-foot defenseman that can be counted on to produce offense and get his team out of the defensive zone.”
Lee said he spent the summer at home, skating a couple of times a week with Sacred Heart teammate Jason Cotton and Cotton’s brother, David; the Cotton brothers signed with the Carolina Hurricanes in the spring.
“It was a tougher offseason because I didn’t know when I was going to start,” Lee said. “It was a little tougher to keep your mind right and stay after it, but everyone was in the same boat.”