The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, February 20, 2019 — 7A

Joseph Cecconi’s lifelong competitive drive is paying off

It was the night before the 
United States junior hockey 
team’s last exhibition game at the 
2017 World Juniors tournament, 
and 
Joseph 
Cecconi 
wasn’t 
nervous at all. He probably 
should’ve been.
The Michigan captain — then 
a sophomore playing for his 
country at the World Juniors 
for the first time — knew 
that the final roster spot for a 
defenseman was coming down 
to two players. Thanks to his 
upbringing, Cecconi was ready 
to fight for that last spot.
In that final exhibition game, 
coach Bob Motzko and the rest 
of the staff would be looking 
for one of two players to assert 
themselves as the right choice.
Cecconi knew what he had to 
do to make sure the place went 
to him.
“They pretty much said that 
it was between two guys, and I 
was one of them,” Cecconi said. 
“I just went out there and played 
my game and didn’t hold back 
and hoped for the best.”
As soon as the team arrived 
in Toronto after playing its final 
game in Oshawa, a city 40 miles 
to the east, general manager Jim 
Johannson told Cecconi that he 
had made the team.
“I called my grandpa right 
away, because he was at the 
game in Oshawa and he was 
driving back home,” Cecconi 
said. “I immediately called him, 
it was like 1 or 2 in the morning. 
He answered, then I called my 
dad. It was just — I mean, I was 
expecting to make the team. 
That’s what I wanted to do. I 
wasn’t going in there just hoping 
for whatever, I was expecting to 
make the team.”
Motzko wanted to add a 
defenseman with size to his final 
team and Cecconi — then 6-foot-
2 and 222 pounds — fit the bill.
It 
wasn’t 
the 
most 
glamorous reason to make 
a team, but Cecconi took 
his opportunity and ran 
with it.
He 
became 
an 
integral part of a team 
that went undefeated 
through the group 
stage and defeated 
host 
country 
Canada for the 
gold medal. 
“Joe was 
quietly 

probably one of our most steady 
competitors as a defenseman and 
just played a huge role for us on 
that team to win a gold medal,” 
Motzko said. “I remember after 
the tournament, he was one 
of the guys me and the staff 
members 
talked 
about 
like, 
‘What a great surprise,’ because 
he was such a calming force for 
us.”
The 2017 team boasted talent 
up and down the roster, which 
made Cecconi’s selection to the 
team a bit of a surprise. At that 
point in his sophomore season, 
he had only one assist and no 
goals.
Motzko told Cecconi that 
people were talking about him, 
and 
Cecconi 
responded 
by 
playing his traditional, steady 
defense. By the end of the 
tournament, there was no more 
conversation about why he was 
chosen.
Aside from winning the gold 
medal, a moment Cecconi will 
never forget, he took something 
else home from Canada after the 
tournament.
Confidence.
That changed his approach to 
the game when he came back to 
Michigan. Two and a half years 
later, at the end of his senior 
season, he now stands as the 
Wolverines’ 
captain, 
looking 
toward an NHL career — the 
Dallas Stars drafted him in the 
fifth round of the 2015 draft — 
when his time in college comes 
to a close.
***
When Cecconi first picked up 
a hockey stick at age three, no 
one ever would’ve guessed he’d 
come this far.

Youngstown, N.Y., is not a big 
place — in fact, it’s considered 
a village rather than a city or 
town. It sits a few miles north of 
Niagara Falls and mere feet from 
the shores of Lake Ontario. The 
best restaurant, according to 
Cecconi, is a former gas station 
that now serves pizza. The 
population is barely 2,000 and 
there isn’t a lot going on.
But what is going on is hockey.
“There’s 
like 
three 
restaurants, a Rite Aid,” Cecconi 
said. “That’s the type of town it 
is.”
Buffalo, home of the NHL’s 
Buffalo Sabres, is just over 
half an hour away. There are 
countless minor and midget 
teams in the area, which is 
where Cecconi got his start.
“His dad played hockey, and 
he was on his sister’s little inline 
skates, so he started skating 
around,” said Regina Cecconi, 
Joseph’s 
mother. 
“Hockey’s 
big in our area, so why not 
throw him on the ice, see what 
happens? He’s just been in love 
with it ever since.”
Even before his first organized 
hockey 
experience, 
Cecconi 
gravitated toward the game. He 
always picked the hockey stick 
over the basketball as a child and 
could always be found on skates 
in the winter and rollerblades in 
the summer — when he wasn’t 
playing soccer.
“Outside, inside, always had 
a group of kids in the driveway 
playing hockey,” Regina said. 
“Even the real little kids, he 
would let them play, too, with 
them. One of our neighbors’ dads 
used to dress up in the goalie 
uniform and bring his little kids 
over. Joseph would love skating 
with them.”
In middle school, Cecconi’s 
years of balancing hockey and 
soccer came to an end. Hockey 
was Cecconi’s first love and his 
first priority, and an Achilles 
injury that left him unable to 
run made the decision even 
easier.
He couldn’t run, but he could 
skate. The ice skate held his foot 
in place and didn’t aggravate the 
injury, allowing him to continue 
skating during his recovery. It 
was the only sign he needed 
to switch his full attention to 
hockey.
From there, the kid who used 
to spend his winter on the ice 
and his summer on the soccer 
field spent the entire year on 
skates. If Cecconi wasn’t playing 
for his regular season local 
team, he was playing on an elite 
summer travel team.
It was all hockey, all the time. 
Just how Cecconi wanted it.
But as he rose through the 
levels, it soon became clear that 
his talents may take him farther 
away than his small town or 

even nearby Buffalo.
After spending his whole life 
in Youngstown — where he knew 
everyone, played street hockey 
with his neighbors and was a few 
minutes’ walk from the lake — 
Cecconi had a decision to make.
“I didn’t want to leave home, 
but I was excited to move on 
from playing U16 hockey and to 
probably the best junior hockey 
league in America,” Cecconi 
said. “It was sad to leave my 
friends and family, but I knew if I 
wanted to take hockey seriously, 
I would have to leave. Once I left, 
I didn’t really look back.”
In early 2014, Cecconi moved 
to Muskegon and made his 
debut for the USHL’s Muskegon 
Lumberjacks. 
“That was difficult,” Regina 
said. “That was — Joseph’s a 
momma’s boy and that was 
difficult to let him go, but it 
was something that had to be 
done. We always knew that if 
he had the chance to advance 
and to move up and play the 
game with a higher caliber of 
kids, that he was gonna have 
to leave the area. So, when that 
opportunity came around, it 
wasn’t a lot of discussion as far 
as not going, it was just making 
the arrangements to get him to 
where he needed to be.”
While Muskegon isn’t a huge 
city, it was quite a change from 
the small-town life surrounded 
by friends and family. Suddenly, 
Cecconi went from a town of 
2,000 to a city of 40,000 and left 
behind everyone he knew.
Everything was different. But 
it was for his hockey career, so it 
was worth it. It was an important 
step for Cecconi’s maturity as 
a hockey player, just as leaving 
home to play juniors has been for 
decades of NHL players before 
him.
And it was in Muskegon that 
Cecconi first realized that a 
professional career might be a 
legitimate possibility.
“Growing up, ages like 10 
to 15, I didn’t even know what 
(getting drafted) really was,” 
Cecconi said. “I didn’t know who 
was getting drafted or where 
they were getting drafted from, 
things like that. As I got older, 
I think it was when I went to 
Muskegon in the USHL I kinda 
figured like, ‘Oh, wow. Maybe 
I can do this. I love the game 
so much, why not take full 
advantage of what Muskegon has 
to offer and go from there?’
“Now that it happened and I 
was drafted, which, that was an 
awesome experience, but that 
was a long time ago. Now, I’m just 
looking forward to finishing the 
year and seeing what happens to 
me at the end of the season.”
Going away from home for 
hockey isn’t something that kids 
from Youngstown often do. And 

for most, the NHL is nothing but 
a distant dream.
But now, as his senior season 
draws to a close, Cecconi has a 
chance to take his career to the 
highest level.
***
Regina 
Cecconi 
always 
wanted her kids to be the best 
they could be at their chosen 
activity. Cecconi and his older 
sister Carissa were encouraged to 
be involved in extracurriculars, 
whether that meant playing a 
sport or taking up a musical 
instrument. Cecconi played the 
cello for a couple of years in 
middle school on top of hockey 
and soccer.
His own mother admits that 
he could’ve practiced more, but 
it was important to her that he 
honored his commitment.
Cecconi picked up the cello 
because he thought it looked 
interesting, and when he decided 
he wanted to quit after a couple 
of years, he knew he couldn’t 
tell his mother. Regina believes 
strongly in her kids sticking with 
their activities, so he brought 
the cello home and kept it in 
his room for months — without 
practicing. When Regina looked 
at the calendar and saw an 
upcoming orchestra concert, the 
jig was up. He had to fess up that 
he hadn’t played in months and 
no longer wanted to play.
“She wasn’t thrilled with 
that,” Cecconi said. “I don’t even 
know if I had to pay to return the 
cello for how long I was using it, 
but that was pretty funny.”
And whether it was in the 
orchestra or on the ice, Regina 
always made sure that Cecconi 
was set up to be the best that he 
could be.
Most parents want their kids 
to play sports so that they learn 
to get along with other people 
and be active, and Regina was no 
exception. But she also wanted 
more than that for her son, and 
she made it clear that success 
was a priority.
“My first priority was that he 
was having fun and that he was 
competing with the best kids,” 
Regina said. “He always tried 
out for — I always made him try 
out for the team that was the 
hardest to make. My thing was, 
if he can get a little college out of 
it, that’s a bonus, and the NHL, 
well, that’s always been Joseph’s 
dream.”
By having her son try out 
for the best team and always 
making sure he was heavily 
involved, 
Regina 
instilled 
a 
competitive drive in her son. As 
a competitive person herself, the 
atmosphere in the family was 
one of competition and success.
It’s hard for that not to rub off 
on a young hockey player.
“He’s always been competitive 
when it comes to hockey and 

whatever sport that he was 
playing in,” Regina said. “I’m 
very competitive, I’m very goal-
oriented, so I’d love to say that 
he gets that from me. It’s taught 
in the family and Carissa’s the 
same way. I always tell him, if 
you want to do something, you’re 
just going to have to go after it. If 
that’s what you want to do, then 
just go for it.”
Nowhere has that lesson been 
more poignant for Cecconi than 
when he made the 2017 World 
Juniors team.
After 
attending 
the 
USA 
Hockey summer showcase after 
his freshman year, he knew there 
was a fairly good chance he’d be 
on the preliminary roster for the 
World Juniors. Cecconi wanted 
desperately to be on the team, 
and — just as his mom taught him 
— he went after what he wanted.
And it was there that his 
natural 
competitive 
drive 
began to blend with the inner 
confidence he’d always had. As 
Cecconi moved through the 
World Juniors tournament, his 
confidence continued to grow 
until it became external. His 
ability became more and more 
self-evident as his mental poise 
began to show itself in his play. 
“The first couple games in the 
tournament, I wasn’t playing too 
much,” Cecconi said. “Then, in 
the final couple games, I logged 
a bit of ice time. It just gave me a 
lot more confidence when I came 
back here. I had more confidence 
in my defensive abilities, as well 
as carrying the puck and just my 
poise and control with the puck, 
too.
“I played much better my 
second half of my sophomore 
year and that — going into the 
summer, that just built on. And 
then junior year and now senior 
year, I feel like World Juniors 
really gave me a kickstart to 
being more confident on the ice.”
Confidence 
is 
incredibly 
important in sports, and it’s 
particularly important in hockey. 
One weak pass or tentative move 
to block a shot can change the 
outcome of a game.
If 
you’re 
confident, 
you 
compete harder. If you compete 
harder — and win those battles 
— it increases your confidence. 
As Cecconi’s confidence grew, 
his 
natural 
competitiveness 
increased even more.
It’s been a successful formula 
for the senior as he looks to the 
next step in his career.
“If 
you’re 
not 
wired 
(to 
compete), you kinda just get 
left 
behind,” 
Cecconi 
said. 
“Especially with — in hockey, 
you have to play at U16s and then 
(U18s) and then juniors and then 
maybe stay a couple more years 
and then college. All that.
“You have to be competitive or 
you’ll get left behind.”

BAILEY JOHNSON
Daily Sports Writer

PHOTO COURTESY OF REGINA CECCONI 
Senior defenseman Joseph Cecconi helped grow his confidence at the 2017 World Juniors Tournament, which propeled him to the first line and NHL-caliber defenseman that he’s dreamed of being since his youth in Youngstown, New York.

