2000 Oakes wants to make the most of his final season

Carroll’s star will hang up his skates to concentrate on baseball in college. First, he wants a Flyers Cup.

Gerard Oakes is playing on borrowed time, and the Archbishop Carroll senior knows it. Oakes has loved playing hockey since he was young as young as 3 years old. Anything on skates seemed natural to him. Now Oakes plays with a clock ticking in his head. In March, it will all be over for the 6-foot-4, 184-pound center. Not the end of his athletic career, but the end of playing organized hockey. Oakes is one of the biggest scoring threats in the area, but he is also one of the best pitching prospects, too. Baseball, as a pitcher for Coastal Carolina in the Big South Conference, is what is going to pay his way through college. Oakes posted a 9-1 pitching record and was the Patriots’ winning pitcher in the Catholic League championship game, throwing a three-hit, 3-0 shutout against St. Joseph’s to claim the title. As a junior in hockey, Oakes led the Inter-County Class AA Division in scoring with 48 goals and 32 assists. He does not play with a sense of urgency, but he knows that whenever his last game is, it will not be easy. He has seven goals and four assists in five games this season. The Patriots are 3-2 overall and are 3-1 in the Inter-County Class AA Division. “It will definitely be emotional the last time I step off the ice for Carroll this year,” Oakes said. “It’s just for four years, I had so much fun, and we got better and better. This year, I don’t see why we can’t make it to the Flyers Cup. It’s my last year of hockey, and that’s what makes it a big thing.” Hockey has been almost like a good friend to Oakes. He used to dream about playing in the National Hockey League. He would always tell his parents he loved playing

baseball, but his goal was to play in the NHL. Once he committed to Coastal Carolina on a baseball scholarship this fall, he knew his hockey stick and skates would be left behind. Oakes first played hockey when his father, Jerry, took him to a local rink and put some skates on him. His father taught him how to skate, and from there, hockey came naturally, almost like walking. At 4, Oakes started playing for a midget team. “I remember when I was younger, I always played against older kids,” Oakes recalled. “When I was 9, I played for the Junior Flyers with kids who were 12 and 13 years old. I think that was when I started to pretty much pick things from there. I just got better and better from there.”
Oakes liked everything about hockey. He liked skating, scoring goals, and contact. He has an appropriate name, because trying to move him from out in front of the net is like uprooting an oak tree. He is a physical player in the goal area, depending mostly on positioning to score goals.
Last year was a breakout season for Oakes. He became a faster skater, along with being immovable in front of the net. Toward the end of last season, teams would shadow Oakes with two players and try to intimidate him physically. Those hits, overall, could take a toll. Oakes was hit from behind last year in a game against La Salle 2 in which the Pats were winning 8-0 at the time. Oakes injured his neck. He had to be removed from the ice on a stretcher and flown to the hospital because of a tingling feeling in his legs.
Still, he will not shy away from
contact. “Hitting to me, I

almost kind of like it,” Oakes said. “Hitting doesn’t bother me at all. No one was really able to bang me around. I was able to stand my own ground.” The biggest concern for Pats coach Bill Hammond is how Oakes deals with the contact.
“Gerard will be a target, and he has to understand that that’s because he is one of the forces in the league,” Hammond said. “Whoever we play, he’s going to have to handle that maturely and not lash back. The frightening thing about Gerard is that he can be even better. For the time he spends on the ice, he is a very, very talented kid. He is pretty amazing for what he’s accomplished, considering he’s going against kids who play all year-round, and he doesn’t because of his baseball commitment.” Though he did well individually, Oakes has a bad taste left over from last season. Carroll advanced to the championship of the Inter-County Class AA Division against La Salle 2. All the Pats had to do was beat La Salle once to advance to the Flyers Cup, but Carroll failed to win two games, losing the first game, 3-2, as La Salle scored two goals with a minute to play. The next game, La Salle beat the Pats, 2-1, in a game that went into four overtime periods. That was the closest Carroll has come to reaching the Flyers Cup in the three years Oakes played for the Pats. “My main goal this year is to win the Flyers Cup,” Oakes said. “I think I’m a little more aggressive this year. It’s not going to be good giving up hockey), almost like someone died.