The first time Utah Mammoth forward JJ Peterka saw hockey players hit the ice, he was immediately interested in the sport.
“I was with my parents ice skating,” Peterka explained about how he got involved with the sport. “The ice hockey players came on afterwards, and I just saw them and wanted to try it. Since then, I (have stuck) with it.”
Peterka was a busy kid. From balancing speed skating, hockey, and soccer, there was not a lot of free time. In fact, Peterka proposed a plan to his parents: he would stop going to school and just focus on sports.
“We told him, ‘that’s not possible,’” Peterka’s parents, Dennis and Natalie, laughed. “You need more years in school.”
Eventually Peterka went from playing multiple sports down to just one, hockey. Every time he hit the ice, it was an opportunity to focus only on the sport he loved.
“When I was younger and had tough times, or in school (if) things didn’t work out as planned, every time when I stepped on the ice, my mind was off,” Peterka shared. “My mind was just on hockey and how much fun it was. Since I was pretty young it was a part (of my life).”
That love turned into his future. Peterka joined the Red Bull Hockey Academy in Salzburg, Austria for the 2016-17 season. He stayed through the 2018-19 season before turning pro in 2019. For the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, Peterka played for EHC München in the DEL, Germany’s top professional hockey league. He also was drafted 34th overall in the 2020 NHL Draft by the Buffalo Sabres.
After two years of professional hockey in his home country, it was time for the next step. Peterka joined the Sabres organization and played in both the NHL and AHL over the next four seasons. From a promising prospect to a skilled, crafty forward that can put up major points, Peterka has made it in the NHL. However, all of this wouldn’t have happened without his family’s support and sacrifice.
“When I was younger, I just remember my parents were driving me to Czechia most of the time,” Peterka recounted. “It’s three-hours (away), to have a hockey camp to go on the ice for three-hours.”
There aren’t many ice surfaces available in Germany, especially during the summer. To help overcome this obstacle, Peterka and his family have decided to build a one-zone ice rink in the backyard of his family’s house in Buchbach, Germany that will be open to the public year round.
“When I was younger I always said I wanted to have my own hockey rink,” Peterka reflected. “When my parents moved to (Buchbach) we saw (the space) and thought, that’s going to be a perfect spot to fulfill our dreams. That’s how the project started and that’s how it’s going.”
