French Lesson

1They grow up playing soccer and rugby. The ice is a foreign place.

But if there is one place Stephane Da Costa has always felt comfortable, it's been on his skates. "My older brothers played hockey," said Merrimack College's star freshman, who has five goals and eight points in five games heading into today's game vs. Boston College. "Hockey is not very big at all in France. There aren't many places to play."

He missed the first two games before being declared eligible by the NCAA. When Da Costa finally debuted against Holy Cross on Oct. 16, Lawler Arena was buzzing with excitement.

Da Costa was a highly touted recruit and it seemed that all of a sudden, the team was relevant. The student section was packed long before faceoff against a less than glamorous nonconference opponent.

That night he was kept off the score sheet, but was clearly the best player on the ice. The next night, he put himself on the map in a big way, potting five goals in a 6-3 win over Army.

At a typical Merrimack nonleague game, you might have 2-3 NHL scouts. But there were nearly 20 at last weekend's games.

One guess why they were there.

According to one NHL scout, who requested anonymity, Da Costa possesses all the necessary skills to be not just an NHL player, but a good one at that.

"The kid has everything you want in a hockey player," he said. "He needs to get bigger and much stronger, but he has a skill set that makes you drool. There are some things he does on the ice, with and without the puck, that make me just shake my head."

So how is it that every NHL club passed on Da Costa during his three seasons of NHL draft eligibility?

"Size," said the scout. "Without a doubt, it's because he's not strong enough. To be honest, as great as he has played, he's not strong enough right now. If he were to step on to an NHL team, he'd get shoved off the puck and get beat up all night. He wouldn't be able to do it. If he commits himself to adding some weight and strength, watch out, because he'll turn some heads."

Da Costa is listed at 5-11, 180 pounds but it's doubtful he actually weighs more than 165 pounds. The average NHL player? 6-1, 205 pounds. The Bruins' Zdeno Chara is 6-9, 255.

Long road to North Andover

Da Costa's journey from Paris to North Andover has been long and, at times, turbulent. The 19-year-old center left home at age 16 with not a word of English in his vocabulary, armed with only a dream he shared with his parents — to play hockey while earning a degree at an American college.

He started in Frisco, Texas, playing for the Texas Tornado in the NAHL, a second-tier junior league that sends a modest number of players to Division 1 college hockey every season. He opened eyes by scoring 23 goals with 17 assists in 50 games.

Da Costa's transition to Frisco, which is 4,918 miles from Paris, was smooth, thanks in part to the French-speaking family with which he lived.

"They were from Quebec," Da Costa said. "They made me really comfortable. My team that first year was great, too. They would talk slower and make sure that I understood what they were saying. They were great guys.

"It really took me a year to start to understand people in English. Then to speak it, probably another year. So it really took two years before I felt comfortable."

After Texas, he made the transition to Sioux City in the USHL, regarded as the best amateur junior league in the world. He finished fourth in the league in scoring last season and has impressive two-year totals of 43 goals and 61 assists in 99 games. He also led the French National Team at the World Junior Championships.

Merrimack gets there first

Da Costa heard from Merrimack before any other school. Head coach Mark Dennehy became intrigued while watching tape of Da Costa's Sioux City teammate, Ben Kinne.

"I looked at them and said, 'I don't know what number Kinne is wearing, but I hope he's No. 24,'" said Dennehy. "No. 24 was Stephane. We still recruited Ben, he ended up going to Bemidji State, but we kept talking to Stephane. He was doing incredible things with the puck."

Da Costa was caught off guard by Merrimack's initial interest.

"They were the first team that talked to me," he said. "This was like two years ago."

Soon word got out on the Flying Frenchman and he had a slew of persistent suitors.

"All of a sudden, a lot of teams were talking," Da Costa said. "Too many to count."

But he ultimately chose the small, tight-knit North Andover campus.

"I think our small community had a lot to do with it," said Dennehy. "We're not of overwhelming size. The fact that we have two French-speaking players (Francois Ouimet and J.C. Robitaille) helped as well as one of our former assistants (Darren Yopyk), who was helping recruit him at the time, spoke French."

Earning his eligibility

Da Costa doesn't fit the mold of a traditional college athlete. Between high school classes in France, Texas and Sioux City, figuring out his transcript and eligibility qualifications under the NCAA was the work for a quantum physicist.

"When we recruited him, we didn't know if he was going to be eligible; he didn't know," said Dennehy.

In France, good grades aren't enough to earn a high school diploma and attend university, as the French call it. In order to pursue university studies, students must pass a test known as le bac, a standardized test developed by Napoleon in 1808.

Da Costa, who was taking classes online his final two years while in the United States, wasn't able to pass the exam (according to various sources, 63.3 percent of students passed the test last year).

So Da Costa, who was being recruited by Division 1 colleges, had no way to gain his NCAA eligibility, but the NCAA finally came up with a compromise; they told him to get his GED and score a certain level on the ACTs.

But he had to do both in English.

"It was hard," Da Costa said of the testing. "It was a lot of pressure, having to take them in English. It was hard, but, obviously, I passed."

Not without plenty of sweating in the Merrimack hockey office.

After he missed the first two games of the regular season at North Dakota, the NCAA finally ruled that Da Costa had passed all the necessary requirements to be eligible.

"It was a relief for us, but we were more happy for him," said Dennehy. "If he wasn't ruled eligible, then we would have gone on as a team. We're deeper than we have been. But what is he doing to do? He'd be a kid with a dream of going to college, getting an education and playing hockey and he wouldn't be allowed to do it."

Never misses a game

Merrimack's 7 p.m. faceoffs are 1 a.m. in Paris, but that doesn't deter Da Costa's father, Thierry.

"He watches every game," Da Costa said. "There were games when I was in juniors that, because I was in Sioux City, didn't get over until sometimes 3 a.m. We had games on Tuesdays and he has to work at 8 a.m., so he would go into work beat up the next day with about three hours of sleep just to watch the game."

If Da Costa keeps it up, his father — and opposing teams — had better get ready for many more sleepless nights.

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Sensational freshman import Da Costa teaching Hockey East opposition that Merrimack is no longer a pushover

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