I’ll be honest I thought I was eligible for the bounty task and thus completed it. Upon realizing that I am indeed ineligible I figured to just post what I wrote in media instead to at least mean that my quick work didn’t go for naught. So here’s a little background on your up and coming goaltender, Travis Coates!

It’s tough to grow as a hockey player in Florida. Sure, the Panthers and Lightning are on top of the NHL, but youth hockey resources are few and far between. This makes it difficult to get off to an early start in your hockey career. Kids from Canada, New England, the Northern US and even the midwest have access to better facilities, more exposure in tournaments and the like. For Travis Coates, he had to carve his own path. It is difficult enough to start out as a goaltender, and couple that with being from Tallahassee, Florida, he needed to work hard.

Before we talk about what he had to do to get noticed and eventually signed, we can mention how Coates fostered a love for this game on ice being from a warm place. His father is Canadian, and during a visit to relatives north of the border, they attended a hockey game and saw free skate when he was just three years old. Travis was captivated right from the very beginning, and thus began his love for everything puck. As he began elementary school, he begged his parents to be taken to a rink and taught the game of hockey. From there, he decided to put away the slapshots and slick dekes and instead settle for the game that occurs within the crease, choosing to be a netminder instead.

From there, Coates quickly became a household name in the youth circuit in Florida, and rumors of his prowess spread far and wide. A recent high school graduate, it didn’t take long from the day of his declaration to get signed by an SMJHL team, beginning his chapter of junior to one day professional hockey. It won’t take long for Coates’ name to be called in the upcoming SHL draft if he continues at this pace! It will be interesting to see which team takes a flyer on this kid, because he has gone from turning heads in Florida to turning new heads all across the nation!

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