Trevor Bodie, a 16-year-old Saugerties High School senior, was drafted last month by the New Jersey Rockets of the National Collegiate Development Conference (NCDC), a high-level junior league of the United States Premier Hockey League (USPHL).
Bodie was taken seventh in the first round during the mid-May draft, during which over 200 players were chosen by the NCDC’s 18 teams, spread across three divisions. The Rockets, which has served as a collegiate-level developmental club since 1970, call the Bridgewater Sports Arena home, and are among six teams in the Atlantic Division. Conveniently for Bodie, the Rockets are a little over 25 miles southwest of the Prudential Center in Newark, where his favorite National Hockey League team the New Jersey Devils play.
“I’ll be like literally 20, 30 minutes from there,” said Bodie.
Bodie has been on skates almost as long as he’s been able to stand, playing hockey “basically since I was three or four years old.”
Since he first began skating, Bodie has been a fixture at the Kiwanis Ice Arena in Saugerties, one of the only indoor rinks in the Hudson Valley. Bodie’s dad, Shawn Bodie, was president of the Saugerties Youth Hockey Association when he was growing up, and Trevor spent Saturday mornings with the SYHA’s Learn to Play program.
Later, Bodie played for the Saugerties Mustangs travel teams until he was 12, when he transitioned up to the AAA level. Prior to being drafted by the Rockets, Bodie was most recently a member of the CP Dynamo out of Clifton Park, though he has always kept a hand in with the Mustangs, helping out at practices and playing drop in games. He also recently captained a team in the 13 Strong charity tournament in honor of Ethan Burke.
While Burke loves hockey, he’s also a very strong student, graduating a year early as a member of the SHS Class of 2024. He’ll spend the next year with the Rockets in the NCDC, a tuition-free junior hockey division geared toward NCAA Division I collegiate development placement and more.
“Our goal is to move players directly to high-level college opportunities or to advance them to that tier one USHL level if they’re young enough,” said Matt Morrow, Rockets’ head coach and GM. Morrow and Bodie first crossed paths in Canada West Elite, a summer program that bring national and international players together in the Boston area. Morrow was Bodie’s coach in the showcase tournament, and he was impressed.
“When I coached Trevor, before any of his hockey abilities, it was the interactions on the bench,” Morrow said. “He was a high energy player. You could tell that he loves the game. He’s a good teammate, he’s coachable. I mean, all of the things that are sort of your stereotypical things that coaches look for in players.”
Morrow also saw that Bodie was not intimidated competing against older players.
“He was very successful playing up, you know, with players two to three years older than him,” Morrow said.
Bodie said he was fortunate to have the Kiwanis Ice Arena in his hometown, but the dearth of other competitive hockey programs growing up made him yearn for opportunities to play elsewhere.
“There’s not a lot of amazing hockey nearby,” Bodie said. “The nearest rink other than Kiwanis is probably Newburgh. That was probably the toughest part, trying to find a place to play outside of Saugerties to expand my game. But it’s always been great to have Kiwanis Ice Arena right there because they always let me practice whenever I need to, whenever I’m home.”
Bodie, a right defenseman, began showing an aptitude for hockey at a young age.
“My parents probably knew I was good around 7, 8 (years old) because I played up an age,” he said. “And then once I was playing with my own age, I did very, very well.”
Morrow said he anticipates Bodie will do very well with the New Jersey Rockets. Though technically drafted in May, NCDC rules allow teams to remove a player from the draft early by signing them to a contract for the following year if they use their highest draft pick. This allowed the Rockets to bring Bodie in for practice and a couple of games last season. It’s a risky move, but one Morrow and the Rockets felt comfortable making.
“We committed a lot of assets to signing Trevor for the coming season because again, we feel that he not only is a really good player now, but he has a very high ceiling for his growth and development as both a player and in academics. He’s incredibly mature for his age. He knows what he wants. He’s driven, and he obviously has a really strong support structure around him with his family and the hockey community in his hometown.”
Bodie will stay with a host family from late August of this year through next March, from training camp through the regular season. He will play hockey full time with the expectation of moving on to a college program. Bodie has his sights set on the Ivy League, where he’d like to study computer programming.
“If I can get a good education while playing high level ice hockey, it’d be great,” he said. “That way I’m set up for my life after hockey.”
While Bodie is very driven, both on the ice and in the classroom, he hasn’t lost sight of hockey being a game. Asked if he had any advice for younger players, he focused on fun.
“The big thing is ultimately it’s for fun,” he said. “Everyone’s competitive and everyone always wants to win, but in the end it’s for fun. And as long as you’re having fun with the game, then you’ll keep going back to it.”
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