Nobody in Mike Slowikowski’s family ever played hockey. As a kid, he dabbled in baseball, basketball and wrestling, but he never had an interest in the sport until he caught some highlights on SportsCenter with his dad.
So, at 6 years old, the Ewing native and his sister Krista started skating lessons at Mercer County Park. Once he improved, Slowikowski played with the Lawrence Flames for a handful of seasons and then progressed to the Mercer Chiefs. Now, he’s starting his professional hockey career with the Toledo Walleye, the ECHL affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Detroit Red Wings and the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins.
“I still remember that first day on the ice,” he said. “My sister was better than me. It’s funny how that worked out. It was different. That’s what stood out to me. You play most sports on your feet. In hockey, you play on one-sixteenth of an inch of steel. When I tried it out, I started to fall in love with the sport, and it took off from there.”
After a stint with the New Jersey Pee Wee Titans, the 2007 Notre Dame High School graduate returned to the Chiefs and then went on to play for the New Jersey Hitmen, an Eastern Junior Hockey League squad, along with the Notre Dame team.
It was playing with the Hitmen that caught the attention of Utica College scouts, which was a dream come true for Slowikowski. He played in 102 games in four years for the New York school, and he was named to the Eastern College Athletic Conference’s All-Conference Rookie Team in 2010. He also earned ECAC West All-Conference and All-Academic honors, and he racked up 42 career points as a defenseman.
Slowikowski signed with the Alaska Aces, an ECHL team, right out of college in 2014 after talking to a handful of other teams, including the Walleye.
“I’ve always had a really large passion for the game, but I started to get really serious about it when I was in high school,” he said. “I started to think about what I want to do when I got older. It was always my dream to play NCAA hockey, then maybe get the opportunity to play professionally. When that opportunity arose, I took it.”
But things took a turn on the first day of camp when he injured his back, sidelining him for a week and a half. Slowikowski squeezed in three days of practice time with the Aces, but it wasn’t enough, and he was cut before Opening Day.
Luckily for him, though, the Southern Professional Hockey League’s Peoria Rivermen scooped him up almost immediately after the Aces let him go.
“We went on the recommendation of his old coach,” Jean-Guy Trudel, Peoria’s head coach, said in an e-mail. “When we saw him skate, we knew we had something special.”
Starting in October, Slowikowski appeared in 27 games with the Rivermen, scoring two goals and collecting five assists along the way, all while playing stellar defense, Trudel said.
“From the team to the coaching staff, everyone here has been first class,” Slowikowski said. “Everyone wants to work and wants to get better. The coaches are amazing. They work with everyone individually so they can move up to the next level.”
Slowikowski’s 6-foot-6, 231 lb. frame is his strongest asset, and when paired with his speed and agility, he becomes a true tool on the ice, Trudel added.
“I think he is one of only a few SPHL players that can play at the AHL level,” he said. “He has a great work ethic, and you can’t teach 6-foot-6.”
Derek Lalonde and his Toledo Walleye staff noticed that, too. Lalonde, in his first year with the team, observed Slowikowski in the offseason, and the Walleye even came close to signing him, but they eventually chose a handful of veterans instead.
Lalonde didn’t forget about him, though. “We watched him closely. We went out earlier this season and saw him. We just had a feeling about him—if we had a need, he’d be the first call-up.”
When a Toledo defender got promoted to the AHL mid-January, then, Lalonde immediately called Trudel, who said Slowikowski had progressed in his few short months in Peoria. He “deserved the opportunity.”
Prior to his promotion, Slowikowski said three or four Peoria players might get the nod.
“It’s all relative on performance,” he said. “You have to be patient, and you have to keep working hard.”
His mindset paid off. Slowikowski found out he would be practicing in Toledo after Peoria’s Jan. 11 game against the Mississippi Riverkings. He practiced for a week, but was unsure whether he would travel with the team during its Jan. 16-18 road trip to South Carolina for games against the South Carolina Stingrays and the Greenville Road Warriors.
The team was set to leave at 10 p.m. following its Jan. 14 practice, and it was then that Lalonde told Slowikowski he was joining the Walleye for the trip. He was a healthy scratch in the first two games, but he played in the third, a 6-2 win over the Stingrays. He moved into the Toledo apartments when they returned.
“He played very well right from his first shift,” Lalonde said. “He kept things simple and transitioned the puck well. As the game went on, you saw his confidence grow and grow. He’s already made a great impact.”
Joining a 25-5 team with “a great leadership core” is the perfect situation for a young player, Lalonde added.
“There’s good character in the room,” he said. “They’ve all been through a situation like this somewhere in their pro careers. Everyone’s rooting for him. The first couple of plays he made were good and simple, and the whole bench erupted. I’m sure that was encouraging for him.”
Should he get called up again, Slowikowski’s next stop would be the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins. After that, the Red Wings. But he’s just enjoying the ride for now.
“This is just a start for him,” Lalonde said. “He’s got the God-given attribute, and that’s size. You add his instincts and some of his tools, and he’s got a chance to grow in pro hockey. For him, it’s just working on the process of getting better every day and just being able to compete at our level day in and day out.”
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