Page 15 - Washington Little Capitals Season Program 2016-17

LITTLE CAPS IN EUROPE
LEFT: James Sixsmith recently scored his
200th goal for Lorenskog in Norway's
GET-ligaen. ABOVE: James as a Little Cap
at the Pee Wee Quebec tournament in
1997.

his last two years, and was drafted by the
Alumni are playing the game they love in pro Washington Capitals in the 3rd round after
his freshman year.
leagues from Norway to Germany, Austria,
After graduating, he says, ?I signed with
Denmark, Sweden, and Great Britain the Caps and played in their minor league
system for two years, but unfortunately
never got called up to the big club.? In his
?I played roughly 100 games in each third pro year, he went to training camp
W hen James ?Bubba? Sixsmith and league and could never quite establish with the Nashville Predators, and played
myself as a big NHL prospect,? he says. for their AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee
Stephen Werner tried out for the Little ?So I decided to head to Europe.? Admirals. There he found himself reunited
Caps back in 1994 as squirts, neither with his old teammate, James Sixsmith. ?It
imagined that making that team would be Sixsmith eventually moved to Norway, and was pretty cool to play with one of my first
the first step in a career that would one day signed a contract with Lørenskog where he and favorite line mates I had as a Little
find them playing professional hockey in put up 168 points in his first three seasons. Cap,? he says.
Europe. He then spent the 2014-15 in Sweden?s
Allsvenkan league, before returning to Unfortunately, Werner suffered two bad
Yet more than two decades later, Sixsmith Lørenskog last season, where he scored 50 concussions, and missed an entire season of
is a superstar in Norway?s premier league, points ? including the semi-final series hockey the following year. ?I thought at the
the GET-ligen, where he recently scored his winning goal that put Lørenskog in the time that my career might be over,? he
200th point ? a feat only accomplished by league championship. says. ?But I started to get healthy, and
three other players in league history. heard from a friend that European hockey
Meanwhile his former Little Caps His Little Caps teammate, Steve Werner, was a bit less physical than in North
teammate Werner is a dominant force in followed a similar path across the pond. America, and that a shorter schedule could
Austria?s elite Erste Bank Eishockey Liga ?Bubba was my line mate pretty much the give me a chance to stay healthy and
(EBEL). And they are just two of more whole time I played for the Little Caps,? continue my career.?
than a half dozen former Little Caps who Werner recalls. The two played together
are forging successful careers playing pro until ?I ended up making the National He asked his agent to help him find a
hockey on the other side of the Atlantic. contract in Europe. Werner spent his first
Development Program in Ann Arbor as a
Sixsmith played for the Little Caps from 16 year old and moved away from home three seasons in Germany?s Deutsche
Eishockey Liga (DEL), where he put up
squirts through bantams, before going on to and the Little Caps for the first time.? 133 points. He then moved to Austria to
play for the Canterbury School and then With Team USA, Werner won the U17, play for the Graz 99ers, where he?s scored
with Holy Cross, where he is still the U18, and eventually the World Junior 59 points in the past two seasons. Those
all-time points and assists leader. After Championship in Helsinki in 2003-2004. are impressive numbers considering that
graduating he moved up and down between He went on to star at UMass Amherst, European teams play half as many games
the AHL and ECHL.
where he played all four years, was captain as NHL teams a season. CONT.
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