TRENT VOGELHUBER

The following is an article on Trent Vogelhuber who was the first central Ohio player drafted by any NHL team. I noticed people were looking for him on here and well he deserves his own post. The link to the article will be posted at the bottom of the article.

Coach Ken Hitchcock noticed the surprise on Trent Vogelhuber's face when he saw a half-dozen reporters waiting to interview him outside the Blue Jackets' locker room. The coach smiled at the team's last draft pick, the 211th and final pick of the seven-round NHL draft, and quickly stepped aside.
"This is a big, big story for these guys," Hitchcock said. "As big as it is for you, it's just as big for these boys."
Vogelhuber grinned. They call the last pick of the draft Mr. Irrelevant, don't they?
Not today. Vogelhuber, 18, is the first central Ohio player drafted by an NHL team. Eleven years ago, he was playing on a house team at the Dublin Chiller. For the kids, coaches and parents of local youth hockey organizations, boy was this a moment.
"Awesome" was the way Vogelhuber described it. His father, Dan, said that when Trent was growing up, he "didn't even think it was a possibility." His mother, Dawn, said they have always been "realists" about his chances.
How's this for reality? A kid who grew up in Dublin, played as a freshman at St. Charles and went to school for two years at Watterson had his name called in the NHL draft.
"It's pretty hard to believe," Vogelhuber said.
Before you start saying this was a courtesy pick, squelch that thought.
"The kid is legitimate," Blue Jackets director of player personnel Don Boyd said. "We've been watching him for a few years. He's a real competitive kid, and if he stays healthy … "
Whoa. Hold that thought. There's a lot to think about here.
As recently as 14 years ago, the OSU Ice Rink was the only permanent ice-skating facility in town. Even after the Dublin Chiller opened in 1993, local youth hockey didn't take off until the Blue Jackets arrived in 2000.
If you've had any involvement in local youth hockey, you know what this means. Even for the best local players, there was always a feeling of, he's a good player here, but …
Columbus travel teams routinely would go to tournaments and come back feeling as if they had gotten stuck in a bracket with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings.
The Vogelhubers have been there.
"Oh, yeah," Dan said, "10-0, 12-1 … it happened all the time. I don't think it happens quite as much anymore."
Vogelhuber is proof that times are changing. After that year at St. Charles, he played for the Ohio AAA Blue Jackets in Dayton. There were no AAA teams in Columbus, so the parents of the three Columbus players on the team took turns driving.
"He was going to school at Watterson," Dan said. "(His team) practiced three times a week in Dayton, usually at 9 o'clock at night, so 6 to midnight was basically the commitment there. But that's what he wanted to do and he guaranteed us he would keep his grades up, so we OK'd it. Then, that team moved to Columbus the following year and it made it little easier on us."
Vogelhuber played for St. Louis in the North American Hockey League in the 2006-07 season but played only 30 games before having season-ending knee surgery. He will play for Des Moines of the United States Hockey League in 2007-08 after being selected fifth in the draft. Vogelhuber will play at Miami University in the fall of 2008.
Getting drafted is just a first step -- it's still a long way from the seventh round to the NHL, of course -- but it's a good one.
"It's the beginning, I know that," Vogelhuber said.
But the real beginning of this story came long ago.
"When we were playing on some of those travel teams, (the players) used to talk about it," Vogelhuber said. "We knew we were kind of paving the way around here, but not to this extent. I think most people thought it would probably take longer (for a local player to get drafted). Even I probably thought it would take longer."
Mr. Irrelevant?
Tell that to the kids who are playing here now.
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/sports/stories/2007/06/24/hunter24.ART_ART_06-24-07_C1_O073OQ1.html