Words like “regionals,” “nationals” and “championships,” in the world of sports, are often regarded as hallowed. They are the reasons athletes compete.
It’s refreshing, then, to hear Eric Steinmann’s take on them.
“I just love to hang out with the guys,” Steinmann said.
Steinmann is going to show you just as much excitement talking about his other hobbies, like snowboarding, dirt biking and playing the guitar, as he will about playing forward for the Oregon club hockey team. He may get as much satisfaction spending time with teammates as he does scoring goals.
As uneventful as Steinmann may make team goals and big venues sound, the junior would be lost if he wasn’t pursuing them.
“I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t play hockey with a group of kids that all love to go out there,” he said.
Steinmann, a second-year player who transferred from the University of Wyoming after his freshman year, has recorded a team-leading 45 points and notched 17 assists in 19 battles for the Ducks. He also has a team-best 28 goals.
In the span of Oregon’s first four games, Steinmann recorded two four-goal games to guide the Ducks to three valuable Pac-8 victories.
Not a bad way to open the season though he won’t tell you that.
“It was ridiculous for me to have such a big part,” Steinmann said. “Even if you take me out (of Oregon’s first three wins), we killed them either way. My role maybe mattered a little bit.”
Steinmann will be the first to dispel any ideas about him being a sizable reason for it, but Oregon has been a threat in the Pac-8 for many weeks. The Ducks are 16-3 overall, 10-2 in Pac-8 play and second in the conference standings with 18.0 points – only three points away from USC’s number one position (10-3 Pac-8). Oregon is ranked ninth with 64 points in the American Collegiate Hockey Association West Region poll, again only trailing USC, ranked seventh, from the Pac-8.
Steinmann has helped cement Oregon’s place in the Pac-8 Championship in Los Angeles, Feb. 9 and 10, most likely as the second seed. The Ducks would also earn a birth into the regional tournament in Logan, Utah, Feb. 16-17, as one of the top 10 teams in the West Region if action started today.
“Eric’s pretty self-sufficient,” head coach Scott McCallum said. “He is really hard on himself if he is having a rough game or if things aren’t going his way, but for the most part if things are going well he is having fun and he does what he does best – He scores goals.”
Steinmann’s skills as a hockey player were honed in Colorado Springs, Colo., as a teenager.
Playing his sophomore and junior years for the Pikes Peak Miners, a Midget AAA U-16 club team, Steinmann and his teammates played in roughly 75 games and practiced every day. He craved change after a disastrous junior year that saw him break his leg in one of his first contests.
“It was kind of a bad year in every way,” Steinmann said. “I wasn’t doing what I really wanted to do. I mean, Jackson Hole is a ski town. Hockey was fun but I got burnt out.”
The kid from Jackson Hole, Wyo., continued what he always had done in his first year of college at the University of Wyoming: He kept playing hockey. He made it on the Division III club team his freshman year, but his old teammate from high school and current teammate, Cal Brackin, kept in touch with Steinmann from Oregon.
Brackin, then a freshman at Oregon, urged Steinmann to transfer and try out for the Ducks’ squad the following year. If anything, so that Steinmann could get out of his home state and see something new.
Steinmann couldn’t resist, ultimately deciding to make the change to meet new people – and play more hockey.
“I was born in Wyoming and raised there, and a lot of my friends went to Wyoming so I went there not really at will – I just wanted to go to school,” Steinmann said. “I wasn’t really enjoying the real college experience. I wanted to come to Oregon to meet new people.”
Steinmann’s role for the Ducks changed drastically from his sophomore year to his junior year. During the 2005-06 season, they called him a playmaker – Steinmann only had five goals and 18 points. This season, he is a binge scorer.
“Last year his role was as playmaker,” teammate and team coordinator Jeff Gibb said. “He was the one who would be fighting in the corner and digging the puck out, setting up the plays that would lead to goals. I don’t know what he did, but he has developed into a great scorer this year.”
Gibb added that Steinmann is very patient with the puck, preferring to move the puck around and examine the defense rather than automatically shoot or pass it.
“He sees the ice really well,” McCallum said. “He knows where the puck is going to go. Instinctively, he goes to where the puck is going to be. He is one step ahead and has a really accurate shot.”
Steinmann credits his increase in scoring to simply being more assertive. Last year, he said, he didn’t take shots when he could have. Steinmann himself couldn’t come up with a detailed explanation for why he is able to do what he does on the ice. He is certain of one thing though: Oregon feels like home now because the game is beginning to feel like a game again.
“I just do it for fun now,” Steinmann said. “Our team has fun all the time. You don’t know anyone coming to a new school and hockey players are the same anyway. All are awesome kids. We have so much fun now.”