Alexa Johansen was born to an immigrant father from Norway and an American citizen mother in San Diego, California. The city is not the kind of place one might expect to produce a burgeoning hockey talent, but if one knows where to look, they can find the opportunity to grow. And Nils Johansen, being a hockey nut, knew where to look, or else found out.

This was how Alexa grew up playing a unique kind of hockey; street hockey. As she got older, she moved on from the type of running around on foot game most street hockey players did, though, into her first taste of real glory, roller hockey. She was already roller skating at just seven years old, and by ten she’d mastered inline skates, and by twelve she was on a youth team, tearing up indoor and outdoor rinks alike.

By thirteen, she had been noticed by a coach on a youth ice hockey team, one of the few in Southern California, and recruited into that world. Here, even more than roller hockey, one could find her grinning, flying, soaring as she played. Speed became the name of her game, and then as she kept growing past other girls and even several boys, so did strength. Combined, she dominated in her age bracket, pushing her way through checks and hits, flying past craftier defenders, and scoring goals or grabbing assists from deep in the opponent’s territory.

By sixteen, it all changed. Alexa’s mom passed away, cancer taking her, and the teenaged girl found that suddenly she only had her father and her sport. Some of the joy and fun went out of her game then, but what replaced it might have been even better for her future chances; she gained a fire, a burning desire, to honor her mom in the only way she knew how, taking the number 16 on her back and carrying it to the highest heights. The SMJHL isn’t the goal. The SHL isn’t the goal. The only goal is to be the very best, to crush the competition, and to prove a SoCal girl from the hardboard has what it takes to cut up the ice.