Athlete of the Week: Raythan Robbins of the Anchorage Wolverines
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - The Anchorage Wolverines are the new hockey team in town, but their goalie Raythan Robbins is no stranger to the Alaska ice.
Robbins grew up in Anchorage and went to Dimond High School. He played for the Triple A Oilers and other youth teams before going down to the Lower 48 to pursue his hockey career further.
“I never thought I’d be playing back here again,” Robbins said. “After I left I just thought I was going to be pretty much gone all the time.”
Now he is back where his love for the game started. Most kids want to be the players scoring the goals not the one tasked with stopping them but for Robbins it just seems right.
“Back to like, the Aces games, we always had season tickets every year,” Robbins said. “... We’d sit in the first row so like, the first thing I’d see is just the goalie because that was the closest to me and right when I got on the ice I just gravitated towards the net, and next thing I know I was putting on pads being the goalie.”
The Alaska Aces of the old East Coast Hockey League helped him develop his love of the game, and now Robbins is the player that the next generation is looking up too, yet he is only 19. His path to this point has been anything but straight, trying out for many teams, making a few of them and getting cut from a few of them. However, he seems to have found a home playing in his childhood home.
“I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs, cuts, make teams and stuff like that and so just the fact that I’m here now is unbelievable,” Robbins said.
Robbins has a record of 8-0 with one overtime loss. He also has an incredible .929 save percentage while only allowing 1.98 goals per game so far this season.
“You know that he’s back there and he’s going to stand strong for you,” defenseman Danny Reis said. “So it’s, when you get beat you’re always like, OK, I trust Ray to save this and, you know if he doesn’t it’s like, yeah, that’s on me.”
Robbins is a humble player who never really lets on just how good he is playing, but don’t let his demeanor fool you. He is one of the top goalies in the North American Hockey League.
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