The Kid is Alright

Jan. 26, 2008

By Robert Mangelsdorf
Staff Reporter

Excited murmurs and whispers run through the small crowd of parents gathered in the Gold Rink at the Pitt Meadows Arena to watch their sons play hockey on a chilly Thursday night.
Number 10 is on, and the second his skates touch the ice, what local hockey dads and WHL scouts alike have been saying for months, becomes apparent.
The kid is good.
He takes off, and after only a couple of strides he’s skating at full speed down the boards, chasing after the puck. He glides calmly, and his movements are efficient, showing none of the teenage awkwardness most 14-year-old’s experience.
As the defence collapses in front of the Coquitlam net, he picks up a rebound and wrists it through traffic, somehow finding the back of the net.
It’s not the prettiest goal, but it counts. So did the other 70 goals Connor Sanvido has scored so far this season with the Ridge Meadows Rustlers.
“He’s a special player,” says Tim Knight, coach of the AAA bantam team.
Although Sanvido is only in Grade 9 at Archbishop Carney Catholic School in Port Coquitlam, he is already on his way to career in hockey.
Sanvido first started raising eyebrows last season as a rookie with the AAA bantam Rustlers, when he led them in scoring with 102 points in 67 games. This season, he’s already got 109 points in 46 games.
Jason Ripplinger, head scout for the WHL’s Vancouver Giants, first saw Sanvido’s potential at the Chilliwack Invitational Bantam Hockey Tournament in October.
“His competition level was very high, and he wasn’t scared to get into the dirty areas and fight for the puck,” says Ripplinger.
Which is not surprising, since Sanvido says the player he looks up to the most is the Washington Capital’s high-scoring and hard-hitting star forward Alexander Ovechkin.
Knight also remembers the tournament as being a break-out for Sanvido.
“With his offensive talent, he often gets labelled as one-way player. But in Chilliwack he was finishing his hits, getting in on the back-check, and playing some really good two-way hockey,” he says. “Connor is a hungry player, but he was even hungrier than usual at that tournament.”
But what really sets him apart on the ice is his speed.
“He’s got that second gear and that really helps him out there,” says Ripplinger. “And teams are always looking for someone with hands like that who can score.”
Ripplinger thinks Sanvido will go in the first two rounds of the 2008 WHL bantam draft in Calgary this May, which means he could be going anywhere from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to Seattle, Washington.
While the hockey player in Sanvido is excited about the prospect of playing in a high calibre league with 20-year-olds, the ninth-grader in him is nervous about the prospect of leaving home.
“It’s so early to be making these decisions,” he says. He wants to play with the Giants in the WHL, but that means forgoing the possibility of an NCAA scholarship and moving away from home. And while going to the BCHL might mean being a little closer to home, he could be hurting his chances of getting drafted into the NHL someday, his ultimate goal.
“I mean, I don’t want to commit to anything too early,” he says.
It can all be a little overwhelming for someone just two years out of elementary school.
For his parents, Bonny and Ray Sanvido, their son is still growing up, and now they are faced with the prospect of being apart from him for eight months of the year.
“Sometimes you feel like you’re losing your kid,” says Ray. “We just have to make the best of our time together before he’s gone.”
Bonny and Ray are at all of Connor’s games, and anything he’s needed along the way they’ve provided. Including giving him the skills to keep his ego in check, says Knight, and that might be his best selling point of all as potential professional hockey player.
“The kind of success he’s having can go to your head if you're not grounded, but Connor’s not like that,” he says. “He doesn’t celebrate his victories too long and he doesn’t mourn his losses too long either. Anyone who’s steady like that can handle adversity”
Knight, who has coached Sanvido for the past four years, credits the player's parents for bringing him up right, and instilling in him a down-to-earth sensibility that he thinks will keep him from getting swept away with all the attention lavished upon professional athletes.
His parents say they are more proud of the focus and hard work he has put into his goal of playing professional hockey than of any of his actual on-ice achievements.
But the one thing his parents have never done, Knight says, is push Sanvido.
“Everything he has ever accomplished is because he wanted it, and he put in the hours and worked for it,” he says.
Sanvido first realized hockey was his future when he was playing in his second year of peewee, and decided he was going to take it seriously. Still in elementary school, he decided to start doing push-ups and working out in his room just to get stronger.
The scouts first started showing up to his games last season, and this season Sanvido’s had to get used to playing in front of crowds who’ve come to see the phenom play.
“I like the crowds a lot, it really gets me pumped up” he says. “I just love playing and I love being on a team, and I love scoring and hitting.”
In addition to playing two to three hockey games every week, weekly practices, and playing on his school’s senior soccer team, Sanvido works out nearly every day, be it dry-land training or lifting weights, or cardio.
And of course, there’s high school.
“There’s not a lot of free time and sometimes my schoolwork suffers,” says Sanvido. “I don’t have a lot of time to study.”
Be that as it may, his parents say his grades are good and he’s doing well in school.
It’s a good thing too. On the Rustlers, poor grades get you a one-way ticket to the bench.
“Our philosophy is that school comes first,” says Knight. “But I don’t think Connor has to worry about being a healthy scratch.”
Having coached a slew of players now playing in the WHL – Garet Hunt, Mike Piluso, and Matt Ius among them – Knight sees similarities between them and Sanvido.
And while Knight says Sanvido’s scoring output and skill level is comparable, what really puts him in their company is his never-say-die attitude and his commitment to the game.
“He’s a game breaker,” says Knight, who was named the Rustlers’ MVP when he played for them in 1994. “When the team is down, he can lift you out of the mud and carry the whole team on his back.”
That attitude has helped the Rustlers to a 29-19-5 record overall this season.
For now, Sanvido will remain at home, with his family, and they are happy for that. He will find out which team he will be joining in the WHL at the bantam draft in May, but will likely start next season with the major midget hockey next season with the local Vancouver North East Chiefs.
In the meantime, he will be representing the Fraser Valley at the B.C. Winter Games in February, and enjoying the fleeting days and months of his childhood as he grows up, perhaps, a little before his time.