Putting In the Good Word

This will be a monumental moment.

The NHL will hold its annual draft -- delayed by a labor dispute that canceled the 2004-05 season -- July 30. Who gets the brass ring will be decided Friday with a lottery to determine who drafts first and lands Sidney Crosby, a prospect dripping with so much potential that he has been the most gushed-about young hockey player since, well, you-know-who.

But in the Long Beach town house where Raymond Macias grew up and lives, the buzz isn’t about the hottest prospect since Wayne Gretzky. In that home, this is considered the Macias draft.

“To be true, we also talk about Sidney, because Ray got to play with him some this summer,” said Helen Alex, Macias’ mother. “But we’re into where Raymond gets drafted. He keeps telling me, ‘Mom, that’s all I want. I know I can prove myself.’ ”

Macias will get the chance. He is expected to go in the first three rounds, which is believed to be higher than any player born and raised in Southern California. But Macias is chasing more than being the answer to an obscure trivia question. This is another marker along a long road, a journey where he already has overcome much.

Macias was born with aphasia -- an impairment of the ability to use or comprehend words -- and did not speak until he was 6 years old. He spent time trailing after his older brother at hockey rinks until one day he simply said to his mother, “I want to play.” Hockey, Alex said, helped accelerate Macias’ speech development.

But it was actions, not words, that carved out respect in Canada, where Macias spent the last two years playing for Kamloops, a junior team. He endured where’s-your-surfboard comments from those who saw little value in a Southern California hockey player and now has the last laugh. He is considered a much-sought-after commodity -- a defenseman with speed and offensive skills.

“I have worked hard to get to this day,” said Macias, who is 6 feet 1, 190 pounds. “Now it is here.”

Macias had to wade through a few difficult months while the NHL and the players’ union haggled over a new collective bargaining agreement. He completed his second season with Kamloops in April, finishing with 12 goals and a team-high 47 points.

As he trained the last three months, Macias rubbed -- and exchanged -- elbows with NHL players and Hollywood celebrities in an exclusive Monday night pickup game.

And although being tutored by Detroit Red Wing Chris Chelios and hobnobbing with actor Cuba Gooding Jr. has been fun, Macias has waited for the draft.

He expects to spend one more season at Kamloops, but waiting to see what team wants his services has Macias on the edge of his skates. He attended an NHL combine in June and came home sure he’d be drafted, provided there would be a draft.

“I was a little anxious,” Macias said. “I knew they were going to have a draft sometime, but when? As much as I tried to just focus on training and getting stronger, it was always in the back of my mind.”

The draft focus has almost entirely centered on a winner-takes-Crosby lottery to see who lands the 17-year old from Cole Harbour, Canada. The lottery is set up with four teams having three balls in the drum, 10 teams with two -- including the Mighty Ducks and Kings -- and 16 teams with one.

Yet the draft will not end with Crosby’s pick, and Macias can expect an early telephone call.

“He will be gone by the first three rounds, probably the first two,” said Alain Chainey, the Mighty Ducks’ director of amateur scouting. “He brings a special dimension to the table: speed.

“I’m not saying he’s the next Paul Coffey, but he’s a great skater who runs the power play and uses his speed well.”

Macias’ talents developed in equal parts through natural ability and hard work. He benefited from being in the Southern California Gretzky generation, which saw hockey become a boom youth sport after the Kings acquired Gretzky from Edmonton in 1988.

The number of hockey rinks in Los Angeles area grew, as did the interest.

“I remember going by a tennis court and seeing it empty and thinking, ‘Back in Canada, kids would be playing roller hockey on those tennis courts, and we’ve got to get this sort of excitement in L.A.,’ ” Gretzky said in a King documentary that the team is about to release.

“One of my great accomplishments in hockey in California is about two years later I went back to that area and there was a sign hanging on the fence that said, ‘No roller hockey on the tennis courts.’ ”

Macias’ first experience in the sport was as a toddler tagging along with his older brother, Anthony.

“He’d go in the locker room and take the tape off sticks to make little tape balls,” said Alex, who moved from Toronto 34 years ago. “I bought him a little hockey stick, and he’d hit those balls off the backboard on the rink. One day, he just looked at me and said, ‘I want to play hockey.’ That was it.”

Words from Macias were treated like gold. Alex said that complications at birth left her son with aphasia, which is more common in older people and is usually caused by strokes.

Macias went through years of speech therapy, slowly gaining the ability to process words and communicate.

“We used sign language for a while, and he qualified for a special program,” Alex said. “As he was growing up, all his friends were hockey friends.... He was an introverted kid, but he became more and more comfortable with his teammates. Those relationships made him a better all-around kid.”

As well as a better hockey player.

Macias had a love for the game that bordered on a healthy obsession. At school, Alex said, any report or story that was assigned always included some reference to hockey. At home, he fantasized about the sport.

“He wanted to be a goalie,” Alex said. “He’d stay in front of the TV, watching a game, with a baseball glove in one hand and a hockey stick in the other, pouncing around like he was making great saves.”

Macias’ hockey skills led him in another direction. His trained first as a speed skater, which left him with quickness on the ice that few defensemen his age could match.

He worked his way through Southern California youth teams, jumping levels rapidly.

“After a while, I was playing in leagues with guys two or three years older than me,” Macias said. “One day a scout [from a Canadian junior league] saw me play, and I got invited to a tryout camp in Vancouver.”

Heading north brought a new set of challenges. Opinions are changing, ever so slowly, but there is still a view that the only ice used in Southern California is in margaritas.

“I’d always get the question, ‘Where’s your surfboard?’ ” Macias said. “ ... I used it to my advantage the first year and people underestimated me. It doesn’t work anymore. Now they know I stick as hard as nails.”

Macias’ talent was hard to ignore.

“I’ve played and coached hockey a long time, and he does things that, quite honestly, you can’t teach,” Kamloops Coach Mark Ferner said.

“He’s the type of player that every time he touches the puck, you know something is going to happen.”

Words that could turn the head of any player, even Crosby.

“I don’t pay attention to those things,” Macias said. “I don’t want my head too big or too small. I just want to get drafted.”