The dream for James Hagens continues to be very a lot to play for the Boston Bruins in the future.
However proper now, it’s a dream deferred, at the least for the size of the school hockey season. And the 18-year-old Hagens doesn’t appear in the slightest degree crestfallen at going again to Boston Faculty for an additional season.
Hagens has been skating at Warrior Ice Area this week with some Bruins gamers. On Thursday, he chatted with the Herald about going again to the Heights this season.
“It was type of a choice I made by speaking with my household and the employees right here,” mentioned Hagens. “I believe there’s a variety of unfinished enterprise, in the event you take a look at it that approach. It’s a terrific alternative. It’s thrilling and I’ll be capable to play with my brother (Michael, a defenseman), so to have the ability to be there, be with him, it’s such a terrific faculty and to be part of the group we’ve got there, it’s powerful to not need to return.”
The concept Hagens would head again to BC for the 2025-26 season is hardly a shock. B’s GM Don Sweeney made it fairly clear proper from the evening that Hagens dropped to the B’s on the No. 7 choose that the popular route for the participant was to return to highschool. The membership and the participant talked it out after final month’s Growth Camp.
“It was a terrific discuss, a terrific dialog. It was as much as me. And (they mentioned), ‘in the event you come right here, you must make the staff.’ That’s how it’s. Nothing’s given to you. Every part’s earned,” mentioned Hagens. “It’s simply taking it day-by-day, understanding what level you’re at. You by no means need to rush it, so it got here right down to sitting down and speaking to my household, and speaking to them and determining what the trail was for me. Nevertheless it’s simply pure pleasure to be round this, to be part of it.”
As he was going via Growth Camp in July, simply days after being drafted, Hagens had mentioned he wished to be a Bruin as rapidly as he might.
“I imply, I nonetheless need to be a Bruin actually dangerous,” Hagens mentioned with a chuckle. “Nevertheless it’s simply the time-frame of it. I believe there’s no rush. Going again to highschool, it’s a terrific alternative and I’m actually grateful that I’ve that possibility. It’s simply ensuring that you simply’re taking the chance in hand and also you’re in a position to do loads with it. I’m tremendous grateful that I’m in a position to be there with Coach (Greg) Brown and all of the teaching employees and be taught from actually sensible individuals. They make you the participant they usually assist you get to a spot like this. It’s enjoyable, it’s thrilling and I can’t wait.”
The summer time has been a wild journey for Hagens. He was a high 10 draft choose, performed within the World Junior Summer season Showcase in Minnesota for Group USA final week, and he even acquired to fulfill his favourite actor, Adam Sandler, on the Comfortable Gilmore 2 premiere. Sandler, who’s had a connection to the B’s since donning a Bruin jersey within the first Gilmore film, made the Hagens choose official on the draft, albeit in a canned video.
“It was a loopy expertise. You develop up idolizing him. Nonetheless to today, I like all of his motion pictures. I grew up watching him and the truth that I acquired to fulfill him and shake his hand and you discover out he’s only a real, regular man,” mentioned Hagens.
Hagens will probably be again to enterprise quickly sufficient. The Eagles, who’ve six Bruin-drafted gamers on their roster, will start staff exercises later this month. And Hagens will probably be returning to varsity hockey at an attention-grabbing time for the NCAA after the restriction towards Canadian main junior gamers has been lifted. Gavin McKenna, anticipated to be subsequent June’s high choose, will go away Drugs Hat to play at Penn State. Nearer to house, Roger McQueen, whom the Anaheim Geese drafted with the tenth choose in June, introduced his dedication to play at Windfall Faculty.
“It’s actually thrilling. You don’t play towards these guys, until there’s worldwide hockey. And it’s thrilling for these guys as properly, to get a really feel for what school hockey is basically like,” mentioned Hagens.
The non-public objective for Hagens is to proceed so as to add energy to his 5-foot-11 body. He’d placed on 10 kilos from the top of the BC season to the draft and, on the Summer season Showcase, he mentioned he felt some great benefits of it in puck battles.
“Placing on weight has positively helped,” mentioned Hagens. “I’m preparing and ready for the season. It’s going to be powerful. Faculty hockey has simply gotten higher and higher, particularly with the brand new rule change. It’s going to be exhausting. It’s not going to be straightforward. Nobody has the mindset of it being about themselves over at BC, it’s all about what can we do as a staff, what can we win. We take it day-by-day, game-by-game, practice-by-practice. It’s about ensuring and emphasizing it takes loads to win a Beanpot, to win a nationwide championship, to win all these items. You need to be sure everybody’s collectively and everybody’s pulling the identical rope.”
For now, he’s absorbing his style of the professional expertise whereas skating with the likes of Charlie McAvoy, Jeremy Swayman and Pavel Zacha.
“To have the ability to be surrounded by that is actually useful,” mentioned Hagens. “It’s a studying expertise. You find out how these guys go about it day-by-day, even when it’s within the offseason. It’s been actually useful.”
Quickly sufficient, he’ll be pulling on the spoked B for good. However all in due time. He’s nonetheless acquired enterprise to deal with at BC.
