Unexpected introduction to hockey led to a career for Oklahoma City native

Nick Fleehart didn’t expect his first trip to visit his then-girlfriend’s family in Calgary, Alberta to be a life-changing experience.

But his future in-laws didn’t leave him much of a choice.

“They bought me hockey gear and said, ‘You’re going to be a hockey player,’” Fleehart said.

Fleehart grew up in south Oklahoma City, playing baseball at Westmoore and in college.

“The only hockey that I’d ever experienced was the Blazers, and then it wasn’t really for the hockey but it was more for the coin beer on Thursday nights,” Fleehart said.

A little more than a decade later, hockey consumes Fleehart.

Living in Calgary with his now-wife, Fleehart plays regularly and runs a company that puts on hockey draft tournaments across North America.

This weekend, the tournament comes to Fleehart’s hometown for the first time.

The event begins Friday at Blazers Ice Centre.

The tournament format was tweaked a bit to make events safer.

While drafts are normally held at a bar or restaurant, now they’re being held outside where social distancing is easier. The number of participants was cut by about 60%, body temperatures are checked upon entry and masks are required to be worn everywhere but on the ice.

“We want to do what we can to keep everyone safe,” Fleehart said.

When Fleehart returned from that first trip to Calgary, he had to find a team.

He recruited a couple friends to start their own.

“I just wanted a place for us to play and I didn’t think anyone would want three brand new players playing for them,” he said.

Kyle Young, who had been good friends with Fleehart’s brother and had grown close to Fleehart after the pair started working together, was one of the players Fleehart recruited to give hockey a try.

“I never played when I was younger other than just in the street because my parents didn’t have enough money to afford it and at the time he asked me, I was making OK money, so I said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Young said. “The second he said it, I was all in.”

They recruited a couple of other friends who wanted to play. The rest they recruited through Craigslist ads.

Fleehart got some help from a group of players he’d met in Calgary who sent him a few boxes of hockey gear to get the group started.

Eventually, Fleehart and his wife moved to Calgary to be close to her family.

In Oklahoma he had to create a team to get on the ice initially and eventually organized a private game so he could play twice a week.

In Canada, Fleehart could play every day if he wanted.

Fleehart started off with another company that put on such tournaments before branching off to start The Tournament Company and the Beer League Players Association last year.

The BLPA is an online community for adult athletes that goes beyond hockey.

The Tournament Company is already expanding beyond hockey, adding softball with golf events planned as well.

Players enter individually, then are put on teams with a draft event the night before the tournament starts.

Goalies pick the teams, starting off the event by chugging a beer — or a non-alcoholic beverage — to decide who picks first. The players are divided by rounds based on their skill level. After each round of selections, the players selected do their own chugging contest to decide the selection order for the next round.

“I always wanted to create something that was more along the social aspect of hockey and not just the competitive,” Fleehart said. “It doesn’t matter what skill level you are, you can come out and take part in this event.”

Each tournament features jerseys with a unique theme, with most tailored to the city where the tournament is held.

Oklahoma’s uniform themes include one based on the state flag, tornadoes and oil drilling.

Fleehart wasn’t sure if this year’s tournaments were going to be able to be played.

Originally the Oklahoma City event was scheduled for mid-April, but the pandemic caused it to be postponed.

It wasn’t just about the availability of the rinks, though.

Fleehart, a diabetic, was concerned about doing heavy travel this summer and fall and he didn’t want to bring the virus home to his wife and 3-year-old son.

So he hatched an idea to buy an RV and travel around the country, tournament to tournament.

While his wife, Tanis, remains home in Western Canada with their son, Fleehart is driving around the country in a 32-foot RV.

He’s been in the Oklahoma City area for most of the last two weeks after the tournaments restarted in Colorado Springs in late July.

“Home is home and Oklahoma is home and to be able to bring something cool back home and to have all my friends that are still playing hockey involved in it is priceless to me,” Fleehart said. “It’s something that you dream about and we can make it happen.”