Elburn resident Stefanos Lekkas’ roots as a hockey goaltender were grounded in childhood innocence.
“I thought the goalie pads and helmets were really cool, and it kind of attracted me toward it,” Lekkas said.
Spoken like the 8-year-old that he was at the time. Now twice that age, the 16-year-old Kaneland sophomore still thinks the position is “really cool” – and he feels the same way about what happened Tuesday.
Lekkas, who has played hockey in the Chicago area at the Double-A and Triple-A levels since he was 9, was selected by the Sioux Falls Stampede on Tuesday in the fourth round of the United States Hockey League Futures Draft. Lekkas was the second goalie taken in the draft.
He and his family were monitoring the draft online while Skyping with out-of-state relatives, whose draft feed apparently was ahead of the one in the Lekkas’ household.
“All the sudden we heard them screaming, and from them screaming we went to see what was up, and then we heard my name, but we didn’t hear the team,” Lekkas said. “My mom was freaking out because we didn’t know what team it was, and then we had to go rewind to see.”
Though Lekkas knew he had a strong chance to be drafted, Sioux Falls was not one of the locations he’d been eyeing. Some swift research about the quality of the team’s coaching staff and fan support made the South Dakota team more appealing.
“It’s like a diamond in the rough there,” said Lekkas, who has missed Fridays at school semi-frequently while competing with the Chicago Mission from ages 12 to 16. “I had no idea, and now you realize it’s really great. It’s something I’m looking forward to a lot.”
How quickly Lekkas suits up for the Stampede is uncertain. Lekkas said he will try out with the team in June but, as a young prospect in a league that ranges in age up to 20, there is a possibility he might remain at Kaneland for his junior year and take another shot with the Stampede next year.
Lekkas, 5-foot-10 and 155 pounds, would prefer not to wait, saying the prospect of immersing himself in high-level junior hockey and attending school with his new teammates is intriguing.
“You’re basically living with them,” Lekkas said. “It sounds like something that’s pretty cool and on top of that, at school, everyone knows you’re on a junior hockey team [in the USHL], so you’re kind of top dogs at that school.”
Many of the successful players in the USHL attract Division I college hockey offers before taking a crack at the pro game, a trajectory Lekkas hopes unfolds for him, too.
Lekkas has a pair of brothers – older brother Stelios is a Kaneland senior, while younger brother Evangelos attends Harter Middle School in Sugar Grove. Both play hockey, with Evangelos following Stefanos’ path as a goalie. The brothers’ ethnic names are derived from their grandparents on their father’s side, who hail from Greece.
By now, Lekkas has found more to embrace about goaltending than the equipment. It’s a notoriously pressure-packed position, but Lekkas loves the influence a goalie wields on a team’s success.
“The best part about it is you can steal your team a game,” Lekkas said. “You can steal a game and kind of win games for your team just single-handedly. The downside is the [opposite], if you only face 10 shots and let a few in, you can lose your team the game. You’re under a microscope, but it’s something I’ve just become used to.”
Stopping pucks has become a way of life. The cool gear is just a bonus.
• Jay Schwab is sports editor of the Kane County Chronicle. He can be reached at 630-845-5382 or jschwab@shawmedia.com.