Dunedin Thunder centre Paris Heyd has just spent seven months playing hockey for a club just outside Paris, and is looking forward to getting back on some Dunedin ice.
"I only played in one or two venues that were nicer than Dunedin," he said yesterday.
"You appreciate the arena we have got here when you go overseas and realise what venues other teams are playing at. We are pretty lucky.
"There are not many places that have the rink, consistency of ice quality, and the playing area and backboards better than us."
Heyd (21) has returned to Dunedin after playing a season with French division one side Cergy Jokers. The team was based 40km northwest of Paris.
He was a first-line member of the Jokers team and played in all 26 games.
He scored 28 points in the French national league - 13 goals and 15 assists.
Heyd was the first ice hockey player from New Zealand to get an overseas professional contract.
"They play a different style of ice hockey in France. It is a lot faster and not as rough.
"It is typical of European hockey. It is a lot more skill-based rather than physicality and contact."
The Jokers team finished 13th of the 14 teams in the competition.
"But there was only three points between eighth place and 13th. We were only three points off the play-offs.
"We played one game each week and we trained on another three days," Heyd said.
The top clubs had 800 spectators and other clubs had 500 spectators at each game. An average of 300 spectators attended the Jokers' home games.
"The bigger clubs and the more hockey-focused towns had a lot more support than us," he said.
Heyd gave up the chance of representing the Ice Blacks at the world division 2 championships in Reykjavik, Iceland, last month.
He did not want to miss the first four weeks of his second-year business management degree course at the University of Otago.
"It was also the cost," he said.
"I had to save my money for university. I want to advance my degree."
His plan next year is to go to England to gain more ice hockey experience.
"I'm taking the year off international hockey to get my study going and then go over to England," he said.
Heyd got his start in the National Ice Hockey League as a 15-year-old for the Southern Stampede.
He spent 2006 training and watching from the bench.
But a shift to Christchurch enabled him to get regular ice time for the Canterbury Red Devils.
For the next three New Zealand summers he attended an ice hockey school in Montreal, Canada, to work on his game.
Heyd was born in Alexandra but raised in Dunedin. He shifted back to Dunedin to begin a degree in business management at the University of Otago two years ago and joined the Thunder.
He was one of the star players for New Zealand at the New Zealand Winter Games last year.
