Tag: New Tampa

Tyriq Outen Is Chasing An NHL Dream!

The first time Tyriq Outen skated on ice at the Brandon’s Ice Sports Forum, he was 4 years old and decided immediately he wanted to be a goalie.

A few weeks later, during his first lesson, his promising ice hockey career began…with his pads on backwards.

“Then, he fell behind the net and got his helmet caught in the net,” recalls his father, Ronnie. “It was a comedy of errors.”

That imperfect start, however, soon gave way to success at nearly every level at which “Ty,” as his family calls him, has played since. He went from being entangled in the nets to starring in them, and from being a junior standout to a legitimate NHL draft prospect with a bright future ahead of him.

“I feel like this is where I belong,” he says. “I fell in love with it right away.”

Tyriq grew up in New Tampa, and attended Turner Bartels Middle School. While his friends played Little League baseball and basketball and soccer at the New Tampa YMCA, Tyriq was part of a small but budding hockey community.

He played for one of the best youth hockey teams in Florida, comprised of players from all over the state, but that meant lots of travel. He traveled by plane 2-3 times a month for big tournaments in the northeast and Canada, but mostly spent lots of time in the car with Ronnie driving all over the southeast.

Ronnie, the basketball director at the new Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County, understood the lifestyle and demands for a high-caliber youth athlete. A former college basketball player who played professionally overseas, Ronnie understood it was all about exposure and training. When it was time to choose a high school, Ronnie and Tyriq moved to hockey-hotbed Boston and lived in an apartment.

“When we were in Boston, he was literally on the ice 5-6 days a week,” he says. “No knock on Florida, but there was a rink in every neighborhood. Imagine if Hunter’s Green had one, and Arbor Greene and Live Oak had one, if you had 5-6 rinks in this area, think of the pool of talent you’d have to draw from. That’s how it is up there. That is why the competition was so good.”

First Stop – Foxboro

Tyriq hooked up with the South Shore Kings in Foxboro, MA, and began to take off as a player. He had a 3.08 goals-against average (GAA) and a 90% save percentage in his two seasons.

At the age of 17, Tyriq made it onto the coveted NHL Central Scouting list as No. 19 among all North American goalie prospects. His athleticism, Ronnie says, is off the charts — he can roll out of bed and dunk a basketball — and his skating and stick skills are exceptional. Tyriq’s vision and game management continue to improve.

Toronto Maple Leafs development camp, June 30, 2018. Mark Blinch/Toronto Maple Leafs

Once a growth spurt got him to 6-feet, 3-inches, it completed the package, making him an enticing prospect at a position where taller, athletic goaltenders — like the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Andre Vasilevskiy, who also is 6’-3” —seem to be the future.

In Boston, NHL scouts were watching every game. “It definitely got the heart pumping,” Tyriq says.

Although Ronnie had spent most of his life playing and coaching basketball, he had married Heather, a native Canadian, who came from a family of goalies.

Tyriq was born in Miramichi, New Brunswick, where his grandfather Hugh Moar — Tyriq called him Grampy — was in the town’s Hall of Fame and his uncles were accomplished junior goaltenders.

Ronnie jokes that basketball never had a chance. Which, he adds, was fine by him.

“It wasn’t a disappointment at all,” he says. “I didn’t want him growing up with anyone comparing him to me or anything like that. I was just happy that every time he came off the ice, whether after practice or a game, he had a smile, and five minutes into the drive home, he wanted to talk about the game.”

Dealing With Adversity

After graduating high school in Boston, Tyriq had to choose between pursuing a Division I college career, or signing with a major junior hockey team, which would end his amateur status.

With a chance to sign with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), the former team of NHL stars like Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy and Roberto Luongo, and just an hour north from his birthplace, where his goalkeeping family had built a following, how could he resist?

It turned out to be the first speed bump in Tyriq’s career.

The QMJHL is one of three major junior ice hockey leagues that make up the Canadian Hockey League, along with the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) and Western Hockey League (WHL). Acadie-Bathurst had loaded up the previous season to win the QMJHL President’s Cup, and they captured the Memorial Cup against the winners from the OHL and WHL.

Tyriq says many of the players acquired to win the title in 2017-18 departed after that season. His new team won just eight games in 2018-19, and he finished with an 0-20 record, a 5.89 goals against average and faced nearly 1,000 shots in only 1,364 minutes. After a coaching change, Tyriq was released.

“The fact that it was (so close to Miramichi) made it even worse,” Ronnie says. “The whole town was hurrah hurrah, the hometown boy is coming, everybody was happy for that to happen. So, it made it double the monkey on his back.”

Ronnie worried about how Tyriq would handle his first-ever adversity. “I would be lying and he wouldn’t be human if I said it didn’t get him down.”

Ronnie says he reached out to Tampa Bay Lightning goalkeeping coach Frantz Jean for some guidance, concerned his son might retire his pads. Jean, however, reassured Ronnie that Tyriq was still highly regarded, and that NHL scouts will be watching to see how he reacted to his adversity.

“The ones that are successful come out the other side stronger,” Ronnie remembers being told.

Getting Back In The Pads

Tyriq got back to work. Determined to come back even stronger, rather than give up, he doubled down on his efforts. When he was tired, he thought about Bathurst. When he didn’t want to work out, he thought about Bathurst.

“I’m already up,” Tyriq would say as his dad walked into his room to wake him up early in the morning.

“That showed me just how tough he really is,” Ronnie says.

*The Outen family — (l.-r) Tyriq, Kiana, Heather and Ronnie — has lived in Live Oak Preserve in New Tampa since 2006.*

Tyriq’s bounceback started in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, in the Maritime Hockey League, a league below major junior. If playing near his hometown made the Bathurst experience more painful, then his first appearance at the Miramichi Civic Centre, against the hometown Timberwolves, offered some redemption — he stopped 34 of 35 shots in a 6-1 win.

He went on to beat the Timberwolves two more times at the Civic Centre, and stopped 145 of 156 shots the hometown team fired at him over five games.

Covid-19 ended the 2019-20 season early, so Tyriq returned to New Tampa. He worked out with the Lightning before the team entered the bubble en route to the Stanley Cup. Tyriq continued to grind, ready for his next challenge, which came when he was chosen to play at the prestigious invite-only Beantown Summer Classic in August in Exeter, NH, where NHL scouts handle the coaching duties.

“He was so proud of having some of the Lightning players’ phone numbers in his phone,” Ronnie says. “That was pretty cool for him.”

The NextGen MVP!

Tyriq was the only goalie invited to play for an all-minority team — NextGen AAA Foundation, a nonprofit that offers mentoring to hockey programs in underserved communities.

NextGen, which is coached by NHL players Bryce Salvador and Mike Grier, steamrolled the competition at the annual Beantown Classic in Boston, and went undefeated to win the title. Tyriq was 4-0, and even added five assists — a shockingly high number for a goalie but a tribute to his stick skills — and was named the tournament’s MVP.

“That was a big deal for me,” Tyriq says. “I feel like I’m ready to do bigger things. It was a great experience.”

Tyriq can’t return to Canada right now due to Covid, but was approached by a Calgary Flames scout at the Beantown Classic, who hooked him up the Maine Nordiques of the North American Hockey League. He left New Tampa last month to begin training, and the season began earlier this month.

In three games so far with Maine, Tyriq is 2-1 with a 2.94 goals-against-average and a .924 percent save percentage.

“He was in a bad situation before, but he’s recalibrated now,” Ronnie says. “This is a good situation for him. It’s going to be a good year. He is totally happy — you can hear it in his voice. And, that’s the best thing.”

Sensory Park Has New Home

The New Tampa Sensory & Autism Friendly Park, which originally was earmarked to be built on five acres of land behind the BJ’s Wholesale Club on Commerce Palms Dr. in Tampa Palms., is headed to a new site.

Now, the park will be constructed in the nearby New Tampa Community Park (NTCP).

After concerns were raised by members of the Stafford Place community about parking and noise, Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents New Tampa as part of District 7, began the search for a new site.

The sensory-friendly park has been one of Viera’s pet projects since he was elected to the council in 2015.

Viera, whose older brother Juan has autism, successfully fought to get $90,000 included in former Mayor Bob Buckhorn’s 2018 Tampa city budget for Phase 1 of the project, which was allocated for a study and design of the park.

Now, that design will be used at the NTCP.

Viera said he will make a budget request to finally have the park constructed.

He estimates the cost at $1-1.4 million, less than he had originally anticipated.

“There are sites located in the New Tampa Community Park that not only get the job done, but due to the presently available parking and other infrastructure, reduce the cost of this effort substantially,” Viera says. — JCC

New Tampa sensory vira

New Tampa Business Climate Gets Good News

A standing-room-only crowd packed Compton Park in Tampa Palms on Feb. 3 for the unveiling of the initial results of a New Tampa business study, and while the presentation did seem to assuage some of the concerns of those in attendance, the results of that survey are far from conclusive.

In fact, because many of the area businesses along Bruce B. Downs Blvd. south of I-75 — meaning Tampa Palms — have not reported data, like earnings and number of employees, to the City of Tampa, the study was only based on businesses along BBD from the I-75 interchange north to County Line Rd.

University of South Florida School of Public Affairs director Ron Sanders said the data the study did find south of I-75 “looked funny.”

That meant that the closings of Staples, HH Gregg, Bed Bath & Beyond and Casa Ramos, which played a central role in triggering the study, were not included in any conclusions by the USF study, which included input from New Tampa (morning) Rotary Club and North Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce members, as well as other local business leaders.

“You have to take some of the quantitative analysis (from the study) with a grain of salt,” Sanders told the crowd, which included Tampa Mayor Jane Castor and Tampa City Council member Luis Viera. “It’s limited by the data, and it is what it is. It had to be balanced by some of the real-life observations and anecdotal (evidence).”

While the study was spurred by community concerns about business closings in Tampa Palms that were pointed out to Viera (as well as to Mayor Castor while she was running for office), at least north of I-75, seems to paint a rosier picture.

According to Sam Becker, a USF graduate student in the School of Urban and Regional Planning, a total of 57 businesses closed in New Tampa north of I-75 between 2015-18, losing an annual sales volume of roughly $122 million.

However, in that same period, 94 new businesses opened, generating nearly $181 million in sales.

That produced a net gain of 37 new businesses, $59 million total sales volume and 1,651 employees.

But without data from south of I-75, Sanders says “it is hard to draw any conclusions” about the New Tampa area as a whole.

And, since the study began, the once-vacant HH Gregg and Staples spaces in the Market Square at Tampa Palms plaza have new tenants, and a handful of new restaurants have opened or will be open by the summer, including more than a dozen new businesses in the Village at Hunter’s Lake development.

The study made a host of recommendations, including creating a chamber of commerce-esque Business Retention & Expansion committee, attracting non-chains and marketing and branding New Tampa.

A community slogan — “Something For Everyone” was floated as an example — as well as signage would let people passing through know they are in New Tampa.

“I still think it comes down to having a community identity that is amenable to everybody here in New Tampa,” Viera said. “It’s something we should work on, as the study pointed to.”

The study’s results, while inconclusive, seemed to be met with enthusiasm by most of the 100 or more people in the crowd at Compton Park.

“I still miss my Bed Bath & Beyond, but I do feel better about the business climate,” said longtime Arbor Greene resident Noreen Luetteke. “I think it’s improving. I just hope it stays that way.”

business New Tampa

New Tampa’s Teachers of The Year!

Here are the area’s top teachers as selected by their peers. Congratulations!

Stacy Hoffman
Hunter’s Green Elementary
Math & Science, 3rd grade
STEM lead
“Teaching is my passion! My students become family and together we build a class community. We don’t see differences, we encourage others, and we understand that we learn from our mistakes. Through this, I become their biggest cheerleader, encouraging them to be the best they can be.”

Simon Meshbesher
Liberty Middle
Social Studies/History,
8th Grade
“Teaching is the most exciting and rewarding profession! The extent of enjoying student achievement, watching students learn, offers unlimited possibilities to influence generations of students, imparting to them the excitement of learning, the passion of discovery, and the magic of an inquisitive mind.”

Michelle Payton
Clark Elementary
Math & Science
4th grade
“My favorite thing about teaching is making positive connections with my students and showing them that learning can be fun…each time I see one of my students have an “A-Ha” moment, it means success (for both of us).”

Rachael Trent
Freedom High
ESE
“The students in my classroom run their own business, have jobs on campus and volunteer at an assisted living facility in our community. I love that I am able to facilitate all of this for them in order to enrich their lives and help them become more independent adults.”

Daniel Sturlaugson
Turner Bartels K-8 School
4th Grade
“My favorite thing about teaching is empowering students to lead. Student leadership isn’t something that we are mandated to teach, but it’s crucial in preparing students to be college- and career-ready. It’s a true opportunity to see students grow and change right before your eyes.”

Shane Moody
Benito Middle School
Subject Area Leader for the Language Arts Department, ELA-3 (8th grade) Honors/Advanced classes.
“The best thing about teaching is that I get to invest my time in developing young students on a path to success relating to their life goals…I am so proud to say I am a member of the Jaguar Family.”

Kendall Arnold
Heritage Elementary
2nd grade
“My favorite thing about teaching is making connections with students that last beyond the year they are in my class. I have students who come to visit me years after they leave my second grade class. This is the most meaningful part of my job.”

Carol Lynch
Tampa Palms Elementary
1st grade
“Tampa Palms Elementary has an incredibly talented staff of teachers and support personnel, so it really is an honor to be chosen by my peers for this award.”

Dawn Harris
Pride Elementary
Kindergarten
“My favorite thing about teaching is the growth I see ALL my students achieve. They always make me proud.”

Lisa Keigher
Chiles Elementary
English Language Arts
3rd grade
“My own children, who are now adults, went to Chiles. Their teachers, some who are still at Chiles…inspired me to go into education. To be chosen from my colleagues is the greatest honor I could have ever gotten.”

Elizabeth Glover
Wharton High
Social Studies, AP Human Geography (9th grade) and Student Government Advisor.
“(My favorite thing about teaching?) Working with the students! Watching them have the ‘a-ha’ moments while explaining difficult concepts to them. Teaching them tools to perform tasks, then observing them while they self-start and do (them) on their own.”

New Tampa Teacher of the Year

New Tampa Brew Fest Makes Strides In Second Year

The official numbers hadn’t been tallied at our press time, but according to event co-chair Chris Stennett, there is no mistaking that, once again, the Rotary Club of New Tampa Noon’s second annual New Tampa Brew Fest was a hit.

Hundreds of revelers strolled from table to table in the Venetian Center at St. Mark The Evangelist Catholic Church on Cross Creek Blvd., sampling nearly 100 offerings from more than 30 breweries, both big and small, sometimes to wash down the food being served by three outstanding food trucks outside.

The breweries represented included everything from large companies like Cigar City, Florida Avenue, Coppertail and Goose Island to smaller craftsmen who brew out of their garages, like Krazy Eddie’s Garage (KEG) Brewing, Ignorant Ales and Wiregrass Brewing Co.

“We were really, really happy with the event,” said Stennett afterward. “I feel good about what we did, and we are thankful for the community for coming out to support us.”

The event is the primary fundraiser for the New Tampa Noon Rotary (which meets Wednesdays at noon at Bayscape Bistro inside Heritage Isles Golf Club) and helped the club contribute thousands of dollars to causes like the Fisher House at the James Haley VA Hospital last year.

Few came further for this year’s event than Wisconsin’s Dennis Zweber (above, left), who took his brother Greg (right), who lives in Lutz, up on an offer to fly down for the Brew Fest and enjoy some better weather.

Dennis, who lives in Soldier’s Grove, WI, just east of Madison, found a plane ticket for $67 out of Minneapolis — about four hours away — and said that going to beer festivals was one of his family’s favorite pastimes.

“I figured, ‘What the heck,’” said Dennis. “We always have a great time when we go to these things.”

Dennis said he was impressed by the New Tampa Brew Fest, considering it was only the second year the event has been held.

“I was really impressed with the quality of the beers,” he said. “They had a lot of breweries, a lot of variety. I drank a lot of really good beer.”

Dennis, who tends to enjoy darker beers, said his favorite was the organic Peppermint Porter served by Randy Gailit, who brews his Wiregrass Brewing Co. (page 40) out of his garage in the Meadow Pointe community. “That was a really beautiful beer,” Dennis said.

Wiregrass Brewing Co. wasn’t the only local to draw rave reviews. Double Branch Artisanal Ales (DBAA), which is opening a place in The Grove in Wesley Chapel in January, drew a lot of attention for its offerings, particularly the Orange Suede, a passion fruit, orange peel, pineapple and marshmallow sour.

For DBAA co-owner Ryan Clarke, his first New Tampa Brew Fest was a success. He said the Orange Suede was so popular he had to crack open a second keg of it.“I thought it was a great event, and a great chance to introduce ourselves to the beer-loving community,” Clarke said.