Undrafted, right wing Stefan Owens(24) makes a somewhat late commit to UMass-Lowell for 2021/2022 after posting career high and team leading numbers with 2nd year junior club, Maine Nordiques.
The 5’10” 170 lbs. forward scored 24 goals and 27 assists in 56 NAHL games with a +15 rating as the team’s assistant captain.
He worked himself up to this level through 4 seasons for USPHL lower leagues to come to an agreement in upper New England to continue his progress.
The 21 year old hasn’t received anything easily and will rightfully have to fight for his spot on the Riverhawks lineup.
We did another Twitter player interview with Stefan:
cHp: You grew up in Virginia. What spiked your interest in hockey growing up there? You did have some minor league teams in close by Richmond, where you played your early junior hockey in the USPHL.
Stefan: What spiked my interest was having older brothers playing the game and watching NHL. Closest team is Carolina and we would go to the game a lot when we were younger so I really started loving it back then.
cHp: You started pretty much at the entry, pay level for Richmond Generals at what looks like an early-ish age of 16. I don’t see any high school hockey credits. Did you play somewhere or go straight for the junior route?
Stefan: I just played local single A/AA teams until I was of age for juniors. Then I began playing for the junior team in Richmond. My older brother played for the team before me so I saw his path and thought it’d be fun too.
cHp: Was that just where it started and you wanted to commit to giving it a shot?
You had a breakout scoring season ’17/18 and got promoted to Premiere, where you also did decently. When did Maine Nordiques enter the picture and was that super exciting to have played your way up to that level or was that always something you were thinking about.
Stefan: Maine entered the picture after my Premier season. I was originally trying out for Aberdeen’s NAHL team but got cut at main camp. My coach reached out to the Maine staff and got me an invite to their camp and it took off from there.
My goals were always to climb the levels of junior hockey. I always believed I could and wanted to see how far I could go.
cHp: Same goes for UMass-Lowell Riverhawks, which you just agreed to head there for school. Were you talking with them some as the season went on for the Nordiques or did it sort of come out of nowhere, and again what were your feelings when all this was starting to occur. Was it always in the thinking for you to make a D1 commit playing hockey and see where it takes you from there being an undrafted 21-year old?
Stefan: Once I got to Maine, I knew I always wanted to play D1 and I think I realized I could achieve when I got here obviously with a lot of work. I learned a lot and felt like I got a lot better over my first year and wanted to come in stronger for the second season here. When this year started it was a goal of mine. I had some talks with other D1 teams in the beginning of the year but those didn’t work out unfortunately.
Coach Pinchevsky does a lot for us so he was pushing for teams to give me a chance. Lowell came in late in the season. I had some good calls with their staff and knew it was a no brainer if they gave me a chance. They’re a top program in arguably the best conference. But also it’s a school that has a lot to offer education wise so it was an easy decision to go there. I’m just excited it worked out.
cHp: Thanks so much, Stefan. Oh, yeah, how did that nickname come about from Stephen?
Stefan: Stephen is a typo of my name. My name is Stefan, it’s just spelled wrong in a lot of places.