Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Raising Arizona: Matthews goes from desert to top of draft (Yahoo Sports)

FILE - In this May 15, 2016 file photo, United States' Auston Matthews, left, fights for the puck with Germanys Torsten Ankert during a Hockey World Championships Group B match in St.Petersburg, Russia. About a year before Matthews was born in Arizona, professional hockey descended on the desert. Learning to skate might never be a top-of-the-bucket-list item for the youth of the American Southwest, with a prohibitive climate and a scant tradition, but hockey has been on the rise in the Phoenix area since the franchise relocated from Winnipeg in 1996. The embodiment of the sports expansion, though, will be on stage Saturday, June 25, 2016at the NHL draft. Matthews is expected to be the first pick. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

About a year before Auston Matthews was born, professional hockey arrived in Arizona. The team has struggled financially, with attendance at the suburban arena in Glendale frequently landing near the bottom of the league, but the embodiment of the sport's expansion will be on stage Friday at the NHL draft. ''It's what you think about since you were a little kid,'' said Matthews, a 6-foot-2, 210-pound center who joined the U.S. national team development program three years ago and spent the past season as an 18-year-old with Zurich in Switzerland's top professional league.


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