DIFFERENT WORLD

PALMER — Alaska hockey players know all about the lure of leaving the state to pursue all of their academic and athletic goals. Some travel thousands of miles, others across the country.

But few will go the distance Alaska Avalanche forward Wehebe Darge has. Darge, a native of South Australia, has traveled across the world.

And Darge’s journey began with a pair of roller blades.

Probably not much of a surprise to most, but hockey is not exactly the most popular sport in Darge’s home country.

“It’s a very small sport,” Darge said recently. “We have maybe nine or 10 rinks in the whole country.”

Sports such as soccer, tennis, cricket and Australian rules football easily trump anything with a puck and a stick. Like most Australians, Darge doesn’t come from a hockey family. His father favors soccer and his siblings don’t play. But little did they know that a gift from his mother would mark Darge’s first stride in a trip to another hemisphere.

When Darge was young, his mother took a vacation to Queensland, Australia, and returned with a gift for her son — a pair of inline skates.

“I never took them off when I was young,” Darge, 19, said.

When Darge was 5, his parents saw a sign advertising a tryout for an inline hockey club.

“They put me in it, and I kind of tore it up,” Darge said.

Darge accelerated quickly with his inline hockey club. By the time he was 10, Darge was traveling with a U-12 inline hockey team. When he was 12, Darge’s inline coach urged him to try ice hockey.

“I fell in love with ice hockey,” Darge said.

It wasn’t long before Darge joined Australia’s ice hockey elite. Even though his skating hadn’t quite reached North American standards, he was among the best of his age group and his coaches thought it was time for Darge to take a long look at hockey outside of Australia.

Darge’s coaches said, in order for him to improve, he needs to explore opportunities outside his country.

At 15, Darge moved to North America for the first time, choosing to attend a prep school in Quebec, Canada. His parents were on board, so he made the move.

“My parents have always been 100 percent supportive of my decisions,” Darge said. “I wanted to go overseas to start playing with better people.”

Darge said a coach of his in Australia was French Canadian, and that was the primary reason he initially chose to attend a prep school in Canada.

The transition from his home of South Australia to Canada was initially tough.

“It was a big change,” Darge said. “I barely knew how to skate, but they told me I had a lot of potential.”

He missed friends and family and it took time to adjust to attending an all-boys school, he said.

“I was really homesick and wanted to go home,” Darge said.

But things improved.

During his second year with the school he graduated from the midget to the junior team. His skills improved and Darge finished as the team’s second leading scorer.

Darge intended to return to the Canadian prep school for a third year, but a week into the new school year, Darge said he opted to play Junior B hockey in Florida.

Darge skated in 29 games for the Florida Eels of the Metro Junior Hockey League. He averaged more than a point per game, tallying 22 goals and 14 assists.

Prior to the 2010-11 season, Darge had made plans to return to Canada to play in a Junior A league. Darge finalized his plans, but said his status as an import player (an athlete born outside the country) was denied.

But once again, Darge found somewhere else to land.

“By that time it was August, it was too late to try out anywhere else,” Darge said.

Luckily, a former coach of Darge knew Dimond High hockey coach Dennis Sorenson and Sorenson was able to arrange a tryout with the Alaska Avalanche.

Darge said he really didn’t know what to expect when he arrived in Palmer to skate with the Avalanche. Not only was Darge still adjusting to the North American style, but he was also making the leap from Junior B to Junior A.

“The coaches really liked me,” Darge said. “The boys were really welcoming.”

In 44 regular season games with the Avs this year, Darge has collected eight goals and 16 assists. He’s a plus-3 and has three goals and five assists on the power play.

Darge said it does take a few weeks to adjust from the style he’s accustomed to playing in Australia to North American hockey. The speed of the game is the biggest difference, Darge said.

“You don’t have to use your speed as much to beat people,” Darge said of hockey in Australia.

Hockey is physical in Australia, but there’s also a great deal of finesse, he said. Overall, Darge said, the sport has yet to develop in Australia.

Not many players from Australia have had the chance to play in North America, Darge said.

“There’s a couple right now,” Darge said.

One player from his country is playing in Saskatchewan, and another is skating in the Greater Metro Hockey League in Canada.

During the past two years, Darge has spent the North American offseason playing in the Australian Ice Hockey League. Last year, he averaged a point per game for the Adelaide Adrenaline, tallying 8-14-22 totals in 22 games. In 2009, Darge skated on an Adrenaline squad that captured the league championship.

Darge has also skated in international tournaments. In 2009, he led the Team Australia U-18 team to gold in the Division III World U-18 Championships in Tapei, China. He scored 17 goals and 10 assists in just four games.

In 2010, he was on the Team Australia squad that won silver at the Division II World Championships in Mexico City. He posted 4-2-6 totals in five tournament games.

As a 19-year-old, Darge has one year of junior hockey eligibility, and he said he hopes to return to Palmer for another season to play with the Avalanche. After juniors, Darge said he hopes to earn the opportunity to play at the college level in North America.

“I want to try to get to the highest level possible,” Darge said.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/matsu_sports.