North Belle Vernon’s Sokol eyes pro hockey career
Bobby Sokol takes a shot during a Hobart College game against Stevenson University Online. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Colton)
Bobby Sokol (10) goes to a knee in celebration after scoring a goal for Hobart College. This photo ran with wrong information in Wednesday’s editions. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Colton.)
Bobby Sokol (left) celebrates the ECAC North Conference championship with a few of his teammates from Hobart College. It was Hobart’s third conference title in Sokol’s four seasons there. (Submitted photo: Photo courtesy of Kevin Colton)
Just a few days after his Hobart College team lost a tough 4-3 game to Endicott in the first round of the NCAA Division III ice hockey championships Bobby Sokol was still a little bit out of sorts.
Sokol was asked what the immediate future held for him, but he didn’t give it enough thought at first.
“I’m trying to go professional,” the 5-9, 163-pound Sokol said.
He certainly didn’t like the sound of that, so he gave it a second and maybe even a third thought.
“I’m going to play pro hockey,” he asserted. “It’s just a matter of where the contract is better.”
Now that’s the Bobby Sokol friends, teammates and even opponents have come to know and love.
Born and raised in North Belle Vernon and educated at Greensburg Central Catholic High School on his way to Hobart, Sokol is the son of R.J. and Lynn Sokol, also of North Belle Vernon.
His story is so typical of guys his size who dream big.
In this, his fourth and final season at Hobart, Sokol and his teammates won the ECAC West Conference championship and just last weekend played Endicott in the NCAA Division III playoffs. It didn’t turn out the way Sokol had dreamed it would.
“We lost in the first round, 4-3, last Saturday night,” he said. “It was a tough game, a good battle, though. No bounces went our way.”
Endicott played Trinity (Conn.) last Saturday in the DIII quarterfinals. As Sokol explained, the NCAA has Division I hockey, but skips down to Division III. There is no such thing as Division II ice hockey, at least not in the NCAA.
Still, it’s a far cry from Sokol’s North Belle Vernon roots. It’s even pretty far from his Greensburg Central Catholic hockey days, not to mention his Southpointe Rink Rats days or those spent with the Rochester Stars in the Eastern Junior Hockey League.
“There’s not much ice hockey in North Belle Vernon,” Sokol said, yet he knew he wanted to be an athlete. He grew up with the likes of football star Dorian Johnson, who went to Pitt and will be drafted into the NFL this April.
Sokol, instead, made his way to Southpointe and to the Carbon section of Greensburg, where GCC is located, and started playing hockey for the Centurions.
Everywhere he went, Sokol kept hearing the voices telling him that he never would make it as a hockey player. After all, there aren’t very many 5-9, 163-pound hockey stars.
Then again, there aren’t many athletes, regardless of size, with the talent and will of Bobby Sokol. So he persevered. He became a star for the Centurions and, after a few other stops, landed at Hobart, where the hockey is almost as good as the education.
Now, exactly 100 college hockey games later, Sokol leaves Hobart having scored 29 goals, with 41 assists for 70 career points.
Even after posting those quality numbers and proving that he can play this game, Sokol still is told he can’t make it as a hockey player. When he was done at GCC, he said he would have loved to have gone to Robert Morris and kept his talents local, but the Colonials showed no interest in him.
So off he went to the Rochester Stars of the EJHL and from there, he landed at Hobart. His next stop could be anywhere, but it likely will not be the National Hockey League.
“I have to start small and ride as far as I can,” Sokol said. “Hope I don’t peak for a while, hopefully be an inspiration for someone else at some point.”
He explained that his ability to get drafted into the NHL has come and gone.
“The hockey draft is different than most other drafts,” Sokol, 24, said. “There is only one year when you can get drafted and that was when I was 18.”
But there are plenty of other options and he will take the next few months to explore them all.
“I have hopes that I can make it pretty far,” he said. “I play right wing and I am exploring a lot of different leagues in a lot of different countries. There are teams in France and teams in Hungary. There’s also a possibility I could find a place in Slovakia or the Czech Republic and there are also leagues here in the USA.
“I really have no preference. I have already looked at a lot of leagues and they are all unique in their own ways.”
He has been and will continue to explore his hockey future while he finishes his degree at Hobart, located in Geneva, New York.
“I have about two months left of college,” said Sokol, who will get a degree in public policy with a minor in political science. “I’ll get my degree in May.”
Sokol hopes to have his plan for professional hockey sewn up by then and hopes to be playing hockey by next August. He said all hockey contracts are guaranteed. He said NCAA rules prohibit him from securing an agent, but added that he just recently decided to go pro.
“I’m hoping that by May 10, I have an official place to play next year,” Sokol said. “Money is obviously a big deal in the world. I’m only going to be 24-25, so I want to give this a good shot while I still can.”