After three years as the starting goalie on Rowan’s street hockey team, senior computer science major Nick Walker will soon hang up his stick and let another teammate take a shot as goalie.

Walker would describe himself as a “late bloomer” when finding his love for the sport. In his youth, he began playing street hockey outside with his neighbors. By the time he was 11, he joined his first summer league team in his hometown, West Deptford.

“Basically how the hockey career kind of all started was sort of me playing hockey outside with my neighbors for a few years,” said Walker. “Some people start hockey, or any sport, at like three or five, or however young. For me I was a late bloomer I would say.”

His enthusiasm for street hockey advanced in high school playing for the All-Hockey League at Gloucester County Institute of Technology (GCIT) and on travel teams for West Deptford and Belmawr. After graduating from GCIT with the class of 2021, Walker stumbled upon Rowan’s club team on ProfLink and found his mentor. During his freshman year, the club president and starting goalie at the time, Jake Collins, helped Walker discover his passion for being a goalie.

“He gave me all the details, I started popping out to every practice,” said Walker. “Jake at the time, he was their starting goalie so I learned a lot under him. Sophomore year came around, he graduated, and all the pieces kind of fell into place for me to take over the starting role.”

Since joining the team, Walker has become close with his teammates. Walker believes his teammates would describe him as resilient, calm, and collected. The players spend time off the court at their team house.

“We had a couple teammates that all rented a house and we pretty much just dubbed it Rowan Street hockey house. We get to have get-togethers every so often and watch a sports game or two,” said Walker.

Walker began this season in high spirits coming back from last season. After six years as a team, the Profs reached the championship round for the first time in history. The players won the championship series games and secured their first-ever title in program history.

“That junior year we were all motivated to bring our absolute best one hundred percent to get to that goal,” said Walker. “Ultimately that season did end up in our club’s first championship and then we moved up another tier in that league. We’ve been keeping the standards up high.”

As a tier 2 hockey team playing in Tansboro with a record of 4-1, this club team is pushing for a second title. With Walker’s stats sitting at 2.62 GA, he is gearing up to take on the next team they will play which will be released in their schedule soon.

“When you are looking at what to take away from every game, it’s like, ‘Okay, what did I do well, what did we do well, what could we improve upon?’ That’s like the focus that we try to attack each week of practice,” said Walker.

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