RIO RANCHO — Zack Stortini wasn’t naive. Certainly not to the business of professional hockey.
Before the 2018-19 season came to an end, the right-winger, the one who made his livelihood as an enforcer protecting his team’s best player and punishing whoever was across the ice, knew his playing career was coming to an end.
“More days behind you than ahead of you,” reminisced Stortini, the 40-year-old who was introduced Saturday as the first coach of the expansion New Mexico Goatheads, the East Coast Hockey League minor-league affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche at a fan event hosted by The Block in Rio Rancho.
Experience — 14 professional seasons of it — taught him that. From the parts of the six he spent in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers and the Nashville Predators to the hodgepodge of American Hockey League stops that had him crisscrossing North America.
He spent time in Des Moines, Iowa; Milwaukee; Hamilton, Ontario; Springfield, Massachusetts; Oklahoma City; Norfolk, Virginia; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Birmingham, Alabama; San Jose; and Charlotte, North Carolina and countless other cities in between.
Before the 2018-19 season came to an end, the right-winger, the one who made his livelihood as an enforcer protecting his team’s best player and punishing whoever was across the ice, knew his playing career was coming to an end.
“More days behind you than ahead of you,” reminisced Stortini, the 40-year-old who was introduced Saturday as the first coach of the expansion New Mexico Goatheads, the East Coast Hockey League minor-league affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche at a fan event hosted by The Block in Rio Rancho.
Experience — 14 professional seasons of it — taught him that. From the parts of the six he spent in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers and the Nashville Predators to the hodgepodge of American Hockey League stops that had him crisscrossing North America.
He spent time in Des Moines, Iowa; Milwaukee; Hamilton, Ontario; Springfield, Massachusetts; Oklahoma City; Norfolk, Virginia; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Birmingham, Alabama; San Jose; and Charlotte, North Carolina and countless other cities in between.
3 months ago
