John Marshall grad Mason Decker is right at home with Rochester Grizzlies

Mar. 14—Hockey took Mason Decker away from home for a year.

Hockey brought him back.

The 2023 Rochester John Marshall graduate moved away for a year, grew as a player and as a person, developed parts of his game he wanted to improve upon, and turned himself into a player coveted by junior hockey coaches at the Tier II and Tier III levels.

After a season with the CarShield AAA program in the St. Louis area, Decker bounced around a bit last fall, and ultimately settled in Rochester with the North American 3 Hockey League's Grizzlies.

"It was a similar practice style and style of play — a hard, gritty game," Decker said of playing at CarShield. "The coaches tried to teach us that hard-nosed hockey, so I learned that last year and that's translated to this year."

Decker's style and size — the 19-year-old defenseman-turned-power forward goes 6-feet-2, 201 pounds — have fit in nicely on a Grizzlies team that takes the No. 3 seed in the NA3HL Central Division into the playoffs. Rochester opens a best-of-3 Central Division semifinal series against the Wausau (Wis.) Cyclones at 7:10 p.m. tonight in Wausau. Game 2 is set for 7:05 p.m. Saturday at the Rochester Recreation Center, while Game 3, if needed, is back in Wausau at 6:10 p.m. Sunday.

"We have to get that first goal, start off hot and build momentum," Decker said. "And when things don't go our way, we can't get too low. ... The intensity at practices has been bumped up and everyone is really getting into it. We're looking forward to this."

Decker was a do-it-all skater for John Marshall as a senior, when he moved between defense and forward, sometimes playing both positions in the course of a game. He led the Rockets in scoring his final two seasons, and has not only brought a physical game to the Grizzlies, but he's brought his scoring touch, too. He led the team in goals (20) during the regular season, including seven power-play goals, and was fourth on the team with 35 total points.

"I think the biggest thing for him has been seeing him score a lot of goals around the net," Grizzlies coach Tyler Veen said when asked how Decker's game has grown over the past two seasons. "Just using his sizne — and I don't remember him having as much skill as he's shown around the net this season.

"He's cleaned up his skating, too, and just shown that will to get those greasy goals at the net front."

Decker started this season in Texas, going through training camp and the first week or two of the season with the Lone Star Brahmas of the Tier II NAHL. A bubble player with the Brahmas, they released him early in the regular season, giving him the opportunity to find a spot where he'd get consistent playing time.

It's exactly why the Grizzlies used one of their draft picks on him last spring, securing Decker's rights in the event he didn't stick on an NAHL roster.

"We had that relationship with him previously," said Veen, who coached Decker on the Southern Minnesota Bears U16 and U18 teams in the springtime during Decker's high school days. "We got to know him through that, and kept in touch, and we thought — we hoped things didn't fall through for him in Texas — but just knowing the type of kid and player he is, we wanted to protect (his NA3HL rights) and keep him at home."

Decker's return to Rochester has been a reunion of sorts with a couple of his high school teammates. He played one season with Grizzlies defenseman Gavin Black, and two with forward Ole Fevold at JM.

But Decker will share a line with fellow power forward Isaac Flatley (6-3, 195) and with the team's third-leading scorer Tyler Steuck (6-0, 185) this weekend. Flatley and Decker have played together nearly all season, with a handful of players rotating at the other wing position on their line.

Flately and Decker can not only score, but they're the Grizzlies' leaders in penalty minutes, too; Flatley with 93 and Decker with 56. Their line has a combined 51 goals and 94 points.

"We're fairly similar," Decker said of himself and Flately, a Virginia, Minn., native. "He's obviously a huge kid, he's fast and plays the game the right way. We kind of feed off each other and we have good chemistry, so it's been a great fit all year."

While Decker isn't looking too far ahead — he's focused on trying to get the Grizzlies back to the Fraser Cup, the NA3HL's championship finals — he is determined to get another shot with an NAHL team in the fall, and to become an every-night player for a team at that level.

"He's not afraid to get into the dirty areas and battle," Veen said. "We just want him to continue to play at a high level at all times.

"He and Flately are two mammoths when they're out there together, they're hard to play against. The have a natural chemistry and understanding of one another that works."

What: Rochester Grizzlies vs. Wausau Cyclones, best-of-3 Central Division semifinal series

Series schedule: Game 1, Friday, at Wausau (7:10 p.m.); Game 2, Saturday, at Rochester (7:05 p.m.); Game 3, if necessary, at Wausau (6:10 p.m.).

Tickets: $10 adult reserved, $8 students/seniors, $6 military. Available at Tickets.RochesterGrizz.com .

At stake: The winner of the Rochester-Wausau series will face the winner of the other Central Division semifinal series, between the West Bend (Wis.) Power and the Wisconsin Woodsmen, in the Central Division Finals.

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