The Wolves’ mascot, Skates, charges onto the ice, hammers into the boards and starts throwing punches at an imaginary adversary at the Rosemont Horizon. Fireworks explode as the players skate between blazing torches.
What’s a Harvard man like Steve Martins doing in a place like this? Shouldn’t he be on the graduate school dean’s list at the University of Chicago instead of leading the Chicago Wolves in the plus-minus ratings?
Some will find it curious to see the Wolves center doing graduate work in the school of hard knocks known as the International Hockey League.
But what’s far more incongruous is the way Martins got to Harvard.
As a teenager from Gatineau, Quebec, Martins had been selected in the Quebec Junior Hockey League draft by Victoriaville, a town that didn’t have an English-speaking high school, which was important to Martins.
“But any kid growing up in a small town in Canada wants to have a career in hockey so I didn’t see any alternative,” he said.
One day, while on an errand for his mother, Martins ran into a Quebec League scout whose town had an English school. The scout asked if Martins had ever thought about going to a prep school in the U.S. to play hockey on scholarship. Martins hadn’t, but he took the scout’s advice and got in touch with Peter Miller, “a man in Montreal who was a go-between for kids from Quebec who wanted to go to school in the (United) States.”
Miller suggested Choate Rosemary Hall, an elite prep school in Connecticut.
“I didn’t even known what Choate was but I filled out the application,” Martins said. “I didn’t hear a thing–until the day before I was to go to Victoriaville when I got a call from Choate saying I’d been accepted.
“They told me if I did well, I’d get into Harvard. That’s all my parents needed to hear. They said: `You’re going to Choate!’ “
Martins did well at Choate. Harvard coach Ron Tomassoni was impressed and so were the people in admissions.
“Steve qualified academically,” he said, “and on the ice, every time he touched the puck he made something happen.”
In 1993-94, when Harvard made it to the NCAA semifinals, Martins was an NCAA East All-American and a member of the final four all-tournament team.
That summer Hartford chose Martins fifth overall in the National Hockey League’s supplemental draft. He returned to Harvard for his senior year, then turned pro and spent the last two seasons appearing in 30 NHL games with Hartford and 110 with Springfield of the American Hockey League.
“I didn’t do as well as I did in college and I got down on myself,” Martins said. “When the Hartford franchise moved to Carolina, my agent put out feelers with IHL teams.”
Wolves General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff acquired Martins on loan from Carolina and he has become a catalyst for the Wolves. In 22 games he has scored nine goals and assisted on 10 and has a plus-10 rating.
“Nice new people, nice new team and nice new coach,” said Martins. “The opportunities are coming. It’s been a good move.”
