As a kid in Kingston, Ontario, Ian Larocque grew up dreaming of one day becoming a professional hockey player. Ian Larocque shared that dream with legions of other hockey-obsessed Canadian boys, but unlike most of them, he finally realized that dream.

Like the rest of his peers, Ian Larocque played on frozen backyard ponds and in Pee-Wee leagues at the local community ice rink. He played and practiced with his friends contantly. Ian Larocque’s ability on skates and with a stick in his hand were clearly superior to most of the others, and by the time he was a teenager, Ian Larocque realized his pro hockey dreams had an excellent chance of coming true.

When he was nineteen years old, Ian Larocque entered the Metro Junior A Hockey League, playing for the Quinte Hawks in Deseronto, Ontario. In forty-four games played, he scored forty-seven goals and had fifty-seven assists.

That performance was good enough to get him on the Northern Michigan University hockey team, after enrolling at NMU. By then Ian Larocque had grown into a six-foot-tall, 170-pound center. He shot right-handed and grew into a team leader and a team player. Ian Larocque played in twenty-seven games his first season with NMU, scoring five goals with seven assists.

Ian Larocque finally became a full-fledged professional in the 1998-1999 season, playing for the Waco Wizards of the Western Professional Hockey League. He played for two years there before he was traded to the Amarillo Rattlers. At the start of the 2001 season Ian Larocque joined the WPHL’s Austin Ice Bats and stayed there for two years. In his first year there Ian Larocque played in fifty-nine games and figured into thirty-seven points.

By then the Western Professional Hockey League had grown to eighteen teams. But as an independent league, the WPHL could not sustain itself and merged with the rival Central Hockey League, and its teams have since operated under that name.

Ian Larocque is retired from hockey today, but still enjoys the game, although from an unlikely place among the spectators. He enjoys golf, and is the proud father of a daughter.