Canadian brings chill to ice for Aggie hockey
It couldn’t get any better than this.
Stepping on the ice for the first time as a freshman in 1999, Utah State University hockey club left wing Aaron Burrell felt a flash-flood of adrenaline as thousands of fans – the majority of them in support of USU – cheered and screamed until their voices went hoarse.
The Aggies ended up tying the Weber State Wildcats that night 9-9. Of course nobody likes to tie, but to top the night off, Burrell had a five-goal game.
“That was amazing,” Burrell said. “The place was just ram-packed [with] 2,200 people screaming at the top of their lungs. I could barely move [and] skate out there. I had played in front of 50 people before, but not 2,200.”
Burrell said the Ogden home games were always sold out, claiming USU’s fans out numbered Weber’s fans three-to-one every time.
Those were the days when the Aggies shared home ice with the Wildcats at the Ogden Ice Sheet. And there was nothing easy about that arrangement. The team would have two practices a week – Monday and Wednesday – at 10:30 p.m. in Ogden. Yes, that’s right, p.m.
“We’d get home at 2:30 in the morning and try and get up for class at nine,” Burrell said. “It was pretty tough to do. You can tell by my [9:30 a.m. class] grades. I don’t think I would have handled driving down through Sardine Canyon too much longer.”
But the addition in January of the new Eccles Ice Center in North Logan gave the Aggies a new home.
The five-goal night was a moment Burrell, a senior this season, said he will never forget when his hockey-playing days are done at USU.
His performance during his freshman season was due in large part, he said, to a steamy plate of pasta-roni he downed before every home game as part of his pre-game ritual for good luck.
“That was my thing with Marlo Marquez – the Mexican on the team,” Burrell said. “I remember we cooked it once at my parents’ house in Layton and then that night I had three or four goals against Weber. So [Marlo] told me I had to eat it [before] every game. So I started doing that and it worked.”
Burrell grew up in Thunder Bay, Ontario. So, of course, he was born with hockey in his bloodstream.
“Everywhere you go, every park will have a little sheet of ice on it and kids will be out there playing,” he said. “It’s pretty cool. We’re born with skates on up there.”
Next in line to hockey was the outdoors, which Burrell said his family did a lot of. When they weren’t around the house or on a rink, camping, fishing and hunting were at the top of the list.
When he was 14 years old, his family moved to Layton and he has been in Utah ever since.
Burrell said he knew most of the guys on the Aggie hockey team, so he decided to give Logan a try.
“I knew all the hockey guys coming up [to Logan] so I decided, ‘What the hell. I might as well go to school and learn something while I play hockey.'”
Burrell said he plans on majoring in geography and minoring in French. Growing up in Canada, he said French was a second language for him as school was split half-and-half between English and French. So he learned math and science the French way.
“That’s probably why I’m terrible at math,” he said. “I had to learn it the frenchy style.”
A few of the young freshmen on this season’s team have nothing but good things to say about Burrell.
“Basically, we call it ‘Burrell’s house’ whenever we step into the rink,” said forward Roberto Leo. “The reason is because he owns that rink and we know we’re gonna come up on top if he’s on his game.”
Center Jacob Guttormsen said, “Every time we see Burrell, we go – ‘Who’s house? Burrell’s house!'”
Don’t even mention the idea of living a life without hockey to Burrell because he doesn’t want to hear it. The thought is just downright scary.
“I don’t know what I would do without hockey during the winters. It would probably scare the
s— out of me, I guess,” he said.
-samhis@cc.usu.edu