ASU’s Newmeyer Among Arizona’s Rising Stars

Arizona State University defenseman Drew Newmeyer doesn’t come from a traditional hockey background.

His father grew up in Pennsylvania, but didn’t start playing hockey until he was in his twenties.

Drew himself is born and raised in Arizona; he’s not a displaced northerner, and he doesn’t have a family with a storied tradition of getting their first stick before they can walk.

Drew developed his love for the game, instead, from a dad playing rec league and a new team in the desert; the Scottsdale, Arizona native still remembers seeing his first Coyotes games live when he was just five or six.

“I remember being like five or six and being able to watch Coyotes games. That’s how I fell in love with the sport – watching good hockey. There’s a big difference between watching on TV and watching in person; it’ll draw more kids to see where they could be in 15, 20 years instead of thinking of it as maybe a fantasy world.”

He worked his way up through the Arizona youth programs – first playing Bantam AAA with the Firebirds, then heading to the Phoenix Jr. Coyotes to play both U16 AAA and U18 AAA as a part of the program’s tier I elite rosters – before playing for the USHL’s Indiana Ice.

Although playing USHL outside of the desert was always the dream, the blue liner didn’t downplay the rapid development of Arizona’s own programs. Youth hockey has become totally different, just in the handful of years from when Newmeyer started to play to now.

As a product of Arizona’s youth hockey system, Newmeyer – who became a part of ASU’s first Division I NCAA hockey program in the 2015-16 season – has watched as the environment surrounding the game has grown from year to year.

In his opinion, seeing the team go NCAA DI will only help that.

“My decision making process to play at ASU was a little unique,” he said. “I still had two years of junior eligibility where I could have played, but I was ready to go to school.”

To him, ASU was the …

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