Playing 2 years above his age group and in his second year of Triple A hockey, Nash Katz has been taking the opportunity to play with more experienced players in stride.  Nash’s shooting ability allows him to make an impact at a higher level and his overall hockey sense pairs well with his shooting as he can create scoring chances not only for himself, but his entire team.  Nash is still working on his speed and stamina, but at such a young age there is plenty of time for him to work on these aspects of his game to better himself and make greater contributions to his team.  When you are six years old playing with eight-year old’s, there comes challenges where a player like Nash has less experience, but with two more years of experience he will be a much greater player than he was before.  This comes with patience and learning these skills will help Nash continue to keep up with his competition and potentially surpass them.   Nash plays other sports outside of hockey including baseball, lacrosse, and flag football.  This helps him better his skills in hockey as each of these sports have proven to benefit a player’s overall athleticism and this will let Nash put himself ahead of the game in his age group.  With the Long Island Gulls being able to practice on occasion, they have remained a closely knit group and Nash has been able to use this to his advantage to continue his development.  When he is not practicing on the ice, Nash is rollerblading and shooting pucks in the garage constantly, and now that summer’s rolling around Nash will begin running at the local high school track to increase his speed and stamina.  Although Nash is a forward, he tries to model his game after defenseman Adam Fox of the New York Rangers.  The reason for this is because Fox may not be the biggest or fastest player on the ice, but he is certainly the smartest.  Nash tries to replicate Fox’s hockey sense so that he can make the right decision quickly and put himself in position to create scoring chances.  All this work has paid off for Nash thus far and his most memorable moment may be small to some, but at Nash’s age it is an incredible achievement.  He was learning how to deflect pucks and being able to score his first career deflection goal earlier this season was satisfying for Nash after committing countless hours to his craft.  As Nash plays with the Long Island Gulls’ Mite Major team, an immediate improvement he would like to make is to his backhand as he wants to learn how to do the backhand Michigan like Sidney Crosby has done in the past.  In the future Nash wants to play hockey at the NCAA level specifically at Michigan and eventually for the New York Rangers.  If Nash continues to play well above his level, dreams like these do not seem as unrealistic as one would imagine.