Mountain
Man
by Kyle Leverone
For Excelsior's Drew Akins, a life of
hockey leads to Jackson Hole
t his cousin's birthday party, one-and-a-half-year-old Drew Akins got a hold of a plastic hockey stick.
Akins' parents were using the stick to hit a piñata, and when it was his turn to give it a whack, he took a couple of swings
and then wouldn't give the stick up. Soon enough, he started sleeping with the white and blue twig, and his parents signed
him up for youth hockey.
Little did they know, Akins would end up going on a lifelong journey following the sport he loved around the world, ulti-
mately leading him to one of the most unique hockey programs in the country in a small mountain town in Wyoming. All because he could
never let go of that stick.
M H J ON L I N E . C O M | J A N / F E B 2 0 2 4
22
A
