Name's Benny Fiorentini. Hockey was not the plan, by any stretch of the imagination. My old man played in the Mets system way back in the day (never got higher than AAA, no need to really bother looking into it) and my nonno was a footballer, played on the Italian national team long time ago. I do not, under any circumstances, come from a hockey family. Born and raised on Long Island, so I got to watch the Manhattan Rage growing up. Old man wanted me to play baseball, and I tried for a bit, but it never really came to me. I grew up watching Luke Thomason play and uh, that was influential. For sure that was influential. He made me think that maybe I could do it too, y'know? So, I wound up getting involved with the sport much to the distaste of my folks, but once I hit the ice and got my skates under me, I was off like a fuckin' rocket. After that, they didn't have much choice to start supporting me. I made an immediate impact in my midget team, was making kids look silly, but I didn't really start taking myself to the next level until I got invited to a training camp with some USHL guys. I got asked if I was going to declare for the U17 draft that year, but I wasn't really looking to relocate out of the New York/New Jersey area. Eventually, I settled and got a spot with the New Jersey Titans in Middletown, the NAHL. I went down there and lived with one of my cousins. My coaches were trying to figure out why the hell I wasn't competing in the USHL--so when my parents told me they wanted me to go play in college and enter the draft later, all I could think was about how my coaches were telling me that they believed that I had the talent to make it.

I declared.