By Ryan Satkowiak

It’s the first game of his collegiate career and BGSU freshman Ryan Carpenter is skating his second shift of the night.

A shot from the blue line deflects wide of the net and into the left corner. A brief scrum ensues before the puck is dug out by a University of Connecticut defender. However, the UConn player doesn’t get far as BGSU forward Cam Wojtala strips him of the puck at the bottom of the left circle. He drops the puck to a well-covered Carpenter, who curls the puck slightly to the left and shoots.

RIIIIIIIIIIING

The sound of a train horn goes off, a red light flashes behind the net, the approximatly 1,300 fans at the BGSU Ice Arena spring to their feet in celebration. Just three minutes and 29 seconds into his college hockey career, Carpenter has scored his first goal, a quick wrist shot that beat Connecticut goalie Garrett Bartus six-hole — the area between the right arm and torso.

In the ensuing jubilation, Carpenter is mobbed by his teammates. The referee picks up the puck and skates it to the Bowling Green bench. He tosses it to one of the team’s trainers, who will later present it to Carpenter, a memento to forever remind him of that first goal.

While it was a moment he will fondly look back on, it still doesn’t change his opinion on how to play transpired.

“It was a pretty ugly goal, and I probably did the most embarrassing celebration after,” Carpenter said of jumping into the glass following the goal.

Carpenter added an assist later in the game and notched two more assists the following night for a four-point weekend. That effort was good enough to earn him Central Collegiate Hockey Association Rookie of the Week honors. But, it was just taste of what Carpenter would bring to the table for the Bowling Green hockey team.

Despite being a first-year player, Carpenter leads the Falcons in points and is fourth in the conference in freshman scoring. In fact, Carpenter is one of only two freshmen in the CCHA who leads his team in scoring.

His journey to get to where he is at is just as unlikely as his early-season success. Born and raised in central Florida, Carpenter grew up in an area crazed about high school football, not a hotbed for hockey players. What got him into hockey was his father, a New York native and hockey fan, even though he never played the sport.

“My cousins would always play roller hockey, and when I would got up to New York for Christmas, I would have a pair of roller blades and we’d be skating around in the basement,” Carpenter said.” That’s when I first started liking it.”

Carpenter said he started playing hockey on roller blades. Then, a semi-pro ice hockey team moved to town, opening up a sheet of ice in his area. He moved on to ice hockey when he was seven years old. That stroke of chance helped kick-start a career that would take him more than 1,000 miles away from home.

Ryan Carpenter skates with the puck during a game against Notre Dame earlier this season. Photo courtesy BGSU Athletics.

No matter what surface he was playing on, Carpenter has always been driven by being successful. In his case, success has been measured by scoring goals.

“Having that fire to put pucks in the net is something I’ve always had,” Carpenter said. “I always have that focus to try to get pucks to the net and help the team.”

That fire is something that motivates him to get better. Generally, Carpenter is one of the last players to get off the ice after a team practice ends. Whether it’s working on his shooting or doing extra conditioning, Carpenter has put in the extra effort in order to help improve his game.

Playing a cold-weather sport like hockey in a warm-weather state like Florida isn’t all that irregular. However, the level of success Carpenter has been able to achieve is rare. In the CCHA, the conference which Bowling Green competes, he is one of only 32 players, out of 289, who are from traditionally warm-weather states. These players range from states like California to Texas to Florida.

Carpenter knew the depth of the competition in the South was not as good as it is up north. To get recognized on a larger scale, he would have to make a move.

And move he did. When he was 16 years old, he went up to the Metropolitan Detroit area in Michigan to play Triple-A midget hockey for two years. While he said it was difficult to leave home and his friends, he was ultimately happy he made the decision.

And, according to Carpenter, the biggest adjustment for him was something most southerners have to deal with when first moving north.

“I had been up north but had never lived there, so the biggest thing for me was driving in the snow,” he said with a chuckle. “The first couple of times I got stuck, and there was drifting, almost hitting stuff. Luckily I didn’t get into any accidents.”

While avoiding accidents off the ice, he maneuvered his way up the competitive ladder on it. He played for the Victory Honda midget team in Detroit, before ultimately making the Sioux City Musketeers of the United States Hockey League, the premier junior hockey league in America.

In his final season with Sioux City, he was elected the team’s captain, an honor for any player. Serving as captain generally requires a high level of accountability, something that Carpenter’s coach sees on a daily basis.

“He’s got so many different layers that he brings to the table,” said Bowling Green head coach Chris Bergeron. “He’s a great student. He carries himself like a professional. This isn’t something that he does when he wants to. It’s a lifestyle for him.

“There is leadership in Ryan. I believe he is going to be a guy who is going to be a leader, officially, in this program over his time here. There are a lot of things that he brings to the table and we couldn’t be happier to have him here.”

Part of that leadership comes from being the oldest of three children. Carpenter quickly learned that his younger siblings — Kelsey and Chris — looked up to him as a role model. That helped shape who he was as he grew up because he wanted to make sure to set a good example for them.

“Sometimes growing up I wasn’t the best example for them,” Carpenter said. “Being the oldest one, you eventually learn that if you do something wrong your younger sister or brother might follow you, so I wanted to try to do the right things.”

Carpenter committed to play at Bowling Green in June 2010. He said he liked everything about the school and the coaching staff on his recruiting visit. Bowling Green’s rich history — winning a national championship in 1984 and graduating multiple alumni to the NHL — and the chance to help rebuild the program were also big selling points for him. He enrolled for the fall 2011 semester.

Adjusting to college life is usually difficult for any incoming freshman. Add in the wrinkle of being a full-time student-athlete, it’s easy to see how some players struggle to maintain good grades. However, academics have not been an area of struggle for Carpenter.

Majoring in finance, he maintained his grade-point average above a 3.0 during his first semester. He said the busier schedule of college has it’s advantages.

“It seems that there’s not much down time, which is good and bad,” Carpenter said. “You stay busy and the day goes by quick. Sometimes it lets you get your mind away from the rink, which is good.”

On the ice, Carpenter quickly proved to be a key player on the team. During the first 13 games of the season, he lead the team in scoring, putting up 13 points for the Falcons.

His quick start caught the eyes of his teammates. Even though he’s only a freshman, Carpenter’s teammates hold a level of respect for him that is often saved for an upperclassman.

“His work ethic is great; he’s always in there fighting,” said Bryce Williamson, a forward who has played the majority of the season on Carpenter’s line. “He’s hard on the puck and he creates good chances for your line.”

Despite the early season success, Carpenter has run into the type of inconsistency and adversity that is often synonymous with first-year college players. Even though he still leads the team with 19 points on the season, he has only accumulated six points over his last 17 games played.

Even though Carpenter is now no longer a secret to opposing teams, Bergeron feels the reason for his recent struggles is something that is typical among young players, not a result of opposing teams focusing more energy on shutting him down.

“You just get [inconsistencies] with young guys. It’s a long first year both academically and hockey-wise and regardless of how prepared you are, you aren’t prepared enough,” Bergeron said. “Ryan is one of those guys that when he’s on, he’s difficult to stop, whether you’re keying on him or not.”

A devout Christian, Carpenter participates in on-campus religious activities, such as the h2o church. His faith is strong, as he participates in the group’s Fusion bible studies, and he offers thanks to Jesus Christ following games, thanking him for being blessed with the ability to play a sport he loves.

A career in hockey is his first choice for his post-collegiate endeavors. But no matter what he ends up committing his life to in the long run, Carpenter said that he just wants to help people in whatever way possible.

“I’d love to get a job after college, but I think just helping people is a goal,” he said. “I’ve grown in my faith my first semester here, and that’s something I’d like to do, helping people day in and day out, showing the love to others.”