In 2011, four players from the Pittsburgh amateur hockey system went in the first three rounds NHL Draft, products of the amateur hockey boom after Mario Lemieux and the Penguins won consecutive Stanley Cups in 1991 and 1992.
Liam Walsh, a local 1999 birth year, leads a second wave of Pittsburgh hockey talent raised on Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the homegrown players now in the NHL.
Walsh, a left winger, made the final roster for the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders of the United State Hockey League, the top junior league in the United States, at only 16 years old. The Bridgeville native picked up the game from older brother Matt, now a member of the Miami (Ohio) club hockey team, and watching the Penguins turn into one of the top teams in the NHL.
“It was mainly [Matt] playing,” Walsh said. “I kind of wanted to be like him. The Penguins obviously are a big part of it, too–their success over the past few years with Crosby and Malkin–just having that to watch and then an older brother playing, it just made sense for me to get into the game.”
The only 1999 birth year on the RoughRiders roster and one of only seven players under the age of 18, Walsh feels ready for the challenge of competing against older players.
“It’s been hard with everyone being bigger, faster, [and] stronger, but it’s definitely good for my development and my training knowing that I have to get bigger to be able to compete with them on a daily basis,” Walsh said. “You can’t really tell once you’re in the locker room who the older guys are or the younger guys are. It’s one unit.”
Before advancing to the Tier-1 junior level, Walsh led the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite U14 team with 18 goals and 33 points in 28 games in 2013–14 and finished second on the Bishop Canevin High School varsity hockey team with 20 goals and fourth with 38 points in only 14 games as a freshman, helping the team win the 2014 Class AA Penguins Cup. Hoping for better exposure to major junior and college programs, Walsh moved to Detroit to play U16 for Victory Honda in 2014–15.
Though still needing to earn playing time with the RoughRiders in the upcoming season, Walsh hopes longer, tougher practices and a slew of new mentors in Cedar Rapids lead to developing into a multidimensional player with the ultimate goal of earning a scholarship to a major NCAA program and a professional contract.
Photo credit: Cedar Rapids RoughRiders
