Rob Jenkins has Introduced Hockey to Thousands of Players in Louisville, Earning Him the John Beadle Adult Member of Year Award

Rob Jenkins is driven to make the experience of playing hockey as an adult a memorable one in a non-traditional market.

Due to his efforts, and the significant growth displayed throughout a highly successful adult league in Louisville, Kentucky, in the last 25-plus years, Jenkins is being recognized with USA Hockey’s John Beadle Adult Member of the Year Award.

“It was pretty humbling,” Jenkins said. “It feels real nice. It was definitely unexpected, and I didn’t see it coming.”

The award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions during many years of service to the ice hockey community as an adult player or volunteer. In 2020, USA Hockey renamed the award to honor John Beadle, who served as vice president of USA Hockey and chair of the organization’s Adult Council for 27 seasons.

Tom Cline is the current chair of USA Hockey’s Adult Council and is a vice president for the organization. In 2013, Cline won the Adult Member of the Year Award.

“He’s an example of what it means to be a leader in the sport without a title,” Cline said. “He’s doing our work for us by generating more players to the sport. He’s able to provide a platform where people can play, have fun and meet others. It’s remarkable that someone would do it for that long and at the same time he’s seen the fruits of his efforts.”

Jenkins started the Louisville Adult Hockey Players Association in 1999. It was designed to enhance and improve the four-team, 40-player in-house league. Now, the LAHPA consists of more than 40 teams and 500 players.

Keith Kenitzer plays in the league, and he’s known Jenkins for more than 20 years.

“We have hockey almost every day of the week in Louisville because of what Rob has done,” Kenitzer said. “We have leagues with teams that have a waiting list. This is great and he is very deserving.”

Louisville is famous for horse racing and basketball and hasn’t had a professional hockey team in the city since 2001 when the Louisville Panthers competed in the AHL. But Jenkins has helped carve out a niche for hockey.

There are 17 different leagues within the organization, some which include a waiting list. The LAHPA welcomes players who are true beginners, who cannot skate and don’t understand hockey, all the way to players who have played at the college and professional level.

“He has his ear tuned to the market and he understands how to offer opportunities for people,” Cline said. “There’s a lot of work that goes into it to the point where you have waiting lists for leagues. He’s succeeded in exemplary fashion.”

The Never Ever league is for players who have no hockey experience. The league is 10 weeks, with a half-hour session to learn the basics of the game, followed by an hour on the ice.

“Growing up, I wasn’t a super experienced player, so I injected all of my passion into that,” Jenkins said. “I wanted to help beginners play this game. My biggest challenge with the beginner league is that next year the guys who were beginners are much better, and they don’t belong in that league anymore. I really try to keep it competitive throughout all the divisions.”

Jenkins didn’t play organized ice hockey while growing up in Detroit, though he went to high school across from one of the local hockey rinks. After college, he started playing roller hockey while the Detroit Red Wings were winning Stanley Cups in the late 1990s, intensifying his love for the game.

“Joining a hockey league as a beginner and an adult was very challenging and not a friendly place,” Jenkins said. “I loved the game and persisted through the ridicule from others due to my limited abilities.”

Jenkins later joined a league in Louisville, but it was poorly organized.

“You would show up and your game time would have been changed without your knowledge,” Jenkins said. “You would hardly have a referee and if you had two goalies, you were ecstatic. I didn’t like driving across town and not having a game, or refs, or goalies, so I approached the owners of the arena and volunteered to run the leagues.”

At first, the owners said no, but they eventually gave Jenkins a shot and in 1999, the LAHPA was born. Jenkins published schedules on the internet, organized team captains, referees and made sure there were consistent goalies.

“I loved the game, and I wanted to get better,” Jenkins said. “But I also wanted to bring some organization to something that was second hand to the rink, so I started running the league. I embraced it and the internet was new in the early days back then, but I had websites going.”

After several years, Jenkins improved as a player but never forgot how difficult it was to start playing as an adult. That’s when the idea of the Never Ever league came to mind, a place where somebody with zero experience could learn and play hockey with others just like them.

The Never Ever league started in 2006 and has introduced thousands of players to the game.

“My best days of hockey were yesterday, but this makes me feel like I’ve done something to help,” Jenkins said. “Players feel like leadership cares, and it organically grew.”

As for Jenkins, he still plays at 55-years-old, but he’s currently out of action after undergoing hip replacement surgery in April. No matter how long Jenkins plays, his impact on the game will be felt for years in Louisville.

“If you have a product that is good, that’s organized, well-run and disciplined, the word gets out and people want to be part of it,” Cline said. “He’s been able to sustain that and not lose the culture while expanding. A lot of times, the details get lost, and you lose some of that, but clearly that’s not the case with Rob. He’s still laser focused as if it were a startup operation and that’s part of his success.”

Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.

Source: usahockey.com