The difference between Jake Boguniecki before and after he stepped onto the ice for Mid Fairfield tryouts was profound.
Boguniecki was coming up on the end of his first year of PeeWees when his father, Eric, got a call from Sean Haggerty, a friend of his, who was coaching Mid Fairfield’s top ’09 team.
“Why don’t you bring Jake down?” Haggerty asked.
Eric Boguniecki was hesitant. Jake had been playing for the Wonderland Wizards in Bridgeport, Conn. It was fine hockey, but not Triple-A like Mid Fairfield.
Hockey also wasn’t Jake Boguniecki’s primary sport. That was reserved for baseball.
When Boguniecki was little, his father regularly took him to the driveway, and they would play catch with a baseball. Over time, it was clear that Boguniecki had an arm.
“He would snap one back to me and I’m like, ‘Damn!’ You saw the arm and then I would throw it back to him and he would catch it,” Eric Boguniecki said. “You’d see the ability to throw and swing and all that. It was just a natural talent.”
It also helped that Orange, Conn., where Jake grew up, was all about baseball.
“It’s a big baseball town,” Jake said. “Everyone played. I got thrown in T-ball and then just picked it up and have loved it ever since.”
Hockey, on the other hand, was a different story. From ages 4-6, Boguniecki’s mother, Elizabeth, would take Jake to the rink, and he often would refuse to go on the ice.
He’d go on the ice with his father, too. But after five minutes, he’d utter, “All done,” and that was that.
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“We just weren’t sure where it was going to go,” Eric said. “I just never really pushed it.”
It would’ve been easy for Eric to push hockey on his son. Eric played four successful seasons for the University of New Hampshire in the mid-1990s before carving out a successful career in the pros. The highlight of his NHL career came in 2002-03 when he scored 22 goals and totaled 49 points in 80 games for the St. Louis Blues. In the AHL, he won MVP in 2001-02 after scoring 38 goals and finishing with 84 points in 63 games for the Worcester IceCats.
As his son grew up, along with his two older daughters, Eric was an assistant coach for the AHL’s Bridgeport Sound Tigers before recently becoming a pro scout for the NHL’s Utah Mammoth.
“I was just always worried about him hating the game or not wanting to play because he didn’t love it,” Eric said. “I’d tell him all the time, ‘Jake, don’t play this for me. You have to want to do this.’ ”
There even came an age when his parents thought Jake was done with hockey.
“The baseball was always easy to him,” Eric said. “It was an easy decision for him to go to baseball, and he had success. With hockey, it wasn’t easy for him.”
Which is exactly why that Mid Fairfield tryout was so eye-opening for Jake.
“It was like a different world,” Jake said. “I had to up my playing level to match them and not look stupid. The speed and then them scoring nasty goals and cheering — it looked fun.”
It inspired Jake. To skate on the same ice with them, sure. But to also be able to hold his own.
“That kid doesn’t back down from challenges,” Mid Fairfield coach Adam Delgado said. “He embraces them.”
Delgado saw heaps of untapped potential in Boguniecki during those tryouts.
“He was very raw,” Delgado said. “The kid always had compete, he played hard. But his skills were a little bit behind at the time.”
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That was easy to understand. The typical Mid Fairfield hockey player is skating, training and attending skills sessions all year. Boguniecki had been spending that time playing baseball.
“That’s when it kind of got serious,” Boguniecki said.
Along with a slew of games and practices, Mid Fairfield offers players an extra skills session every week. It’s optional, meaning most players go to some but not all.
That wasn’t the case for Boguniecki.
“He would be there every single time,” Delgado said.
Fortunately for Boguniecki, the hockey sense always was prevalent. In the early days, it was hanging around his dad while he was coaching the Sound Tigers.
“Jake would always come into the locker room,” Eric said. “In between periods, we’d come into the room and address the team and sometimes not in a pleasant way. All of a sudden, you see this little blonde head that would sneak in the back door and stick his head in.”
That evolved into attending AHL games with his dad to scout them. The father and son duo still go to local games and offer their critiques.
“That’s one of the only ways you learn your hockey sense — watching the games,” Eric said.
With Mid Fairfield, Jake Boguniecki’s game evolved. He always had size, but the little things in his game grew as he turned into one of the premier 2009-born defensemen in the United States. His skating, his stick, his puck-moving, his physicality. Even though he entered Mid Fairfield behind a lot of his age group, he quickly became one of the impact guys.
All the while, the baseball side of him never suffered. He has a five-pitch repertoire: fastball, curveball, slider, change-up and sinker. He also plays shortstop and second base and is a middle-of-the-order hitter.
Last year, as a freshman at Amity High in Connecticut, he threw a complete game in the CIAC championship game. Prior to that, he pitched a complete-game one-hitter in the quarterfinals.
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“I’ve learned how to treat every game like it’s just another game,” Boguniecki said. “Especially that championship game. I was just going and trusting myself and not stressing about it too much.”
Then came this hockey season — his 15O year. The 6-foot-2, 161-pound defenseman entered the season as a potential U.S. National Team Development Program Evaluation Camp candidate. On Jan. 1, he became eligible for Division 1 college coaches to reach out and make contact.
Mid Fairfield played 64 games. Many of those games, the team had only four defensemen, so Boguniecki was getting the maximum amount of ice time possible. So, too, were his fellow defensemen.
“Jake led the way,” Delgado said. “We don’t make captains and assistants at this level. But if we were wearing letters, Jake would’ve had a ‘C’ on his jersey. He led the team from the back.”
Mid Fairfield also plays an arduous schedule, consistently facing other top ’09 teams at different showcases. Add in Boguniecki’s stat line of 13 goals and 71 points in 61 games, and he was getting the most exposure possible to Division 1 coaches and the NTDP.
“It’s one of the most impressive seasons I’ve seen from a Midget hockey player in my coaching career,” Delgado said.
It was no surprise when Boguniecki got the NTDP camp invite. It also wasn’t much of a surprise when Eric got a text from NTDP director of player personnel Rod Braceful telling him to meet him in his office.
Eric and Elizabeth made the trek down to Braceful’s office. Soon enough, Boguniecki joined them to hear the news: He made the team.
“It kind of took me by surprise,” Eric said. “It was just a great experience. It was a great feeling knowing how far Jake has come and the work that he’s put in.”
The baseball side of Boguniecki won’t be dying, either. He plans on bringing his glove and some balls to continue throwing while out in Michigan. The plan, as of now, is to play on a travel team when he’s back in Connecticut for the summer.
As for college recruitment, Boguniecki is open-minded. Roughly 20 schools reached out to him on or around Jan. 1, and more have since, according to Delgado.
One thing being preached in the Boguniecki camp is patience.
“I’m a little bit old school where I believe at 16 years old, you’re still two, three and sometimes four years away from playing a college game,” Eric said. “What’s the rush? It’s about finding the right fit.
“Every year, I look at what’s the best place for Jake in his development. So how the hell am I or Jake going to know at 16 years old where that is?”
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There is a world in which Boguniecki shoots to play hockey and baseball in college. It’s still something that’s very much on his mind.
Whether or not he pursues both, he will be highly sought after by college teams. That will include NHL teams if his development continues on this track.
“He can do it all,” Delgado said. “That’s very rare. That’s why he’s going to be a top Division 1 prospect, and I can guarantee he’ll be a high-round pick in the NHL Draft in a couple of years.”
