Doug Bonner: Drive To Be The Best Leads Young Tacoma Goalie To Thunderbirds

At 15, Doug Bonner might not be a fan of Dr. Seuss. Still, the late writer's last work might best describe Bonner's past year: "Oh, The Places You'll Go."

Bonner has been to Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and Canada. "I haven't slept in my own bed three nights since school ended June 20," he said.

Yet the Tacoma native looked around the dim, dank cavern of the Seattle Center Arena this week and said, "This is the best place to be."

The rink itself, no. But practicing there as one of the Seattle Thunderbirds' goaltenders, for sure.

The road to the arena and the team was direct enough, up I-5 to Sno-King Ice Arena in Lynnwood where the Tacoma youth hockey association held games and practices. But four or five times a week? For eight months? For six years?

"Mom (Ann, a secretary for the Clover Park School District) would come home from work and drive me every day, wait for me to practice or play a game, drive me home again," Doug said. "It was bad enough when we practiced at 8:30, but for a couple of years we practiced at 6:30. That meant traveling in rush-hour traffic. Instead of an hour and a half each way, it was two hours. I got to know every plane Boeing was working on sitting in traffic on I-5."

That takes care of the logistics. But how did he get to the Western Hockey League?

"Well, I guess it's not the usual thing to see a black kid playing," Bonner said. "My parents are mixed. Mom is white and had relatives from British Columbia. When I was 2 or 3, my idol was my cousin James Horvath, who played hockey. Soon after I wouldn't go anywhere or do anything without a hockey stick in my hand. Mom tells me I used to cry if they tried to take my stick away."

Hockey wasn't his only sport. Bonner played catcher and outfield in baseball, and was a wide receiver for the Curtis Junior High football team. Playing with the Tacoma youth hockey group, he started out as a forward, went to goaltending, played well - and hated it.

"Larry Peterson (former Tacoma youth coach) told me not to give it up. He said he thought I'd be a good goalie," Bonner said. "So I stayed with it."

He stayed with it, although the Tacoma group moved operations to Sno-King, which might have killed the career of a youngster with less determination or a mother with less love.

"To trace the trail that got Bonner to us, you have to credit a patient mother, for one thing," said Jake Goertzen, Thunderbirds player personnel director. "And then you have to credit Doc Blue."

Dr. Alfred Blue is the Thunderbirds' physician. For several years he would come back from watching his son Sean play in the Sno-King youth program and tell Goertzen about Bonner. "He'd say over and over, `He's going to be a good goalie,' " Goertzen said. "And I'd say, `Yeah, yeah.' "

Then Goertzen saw Bonner play in a Super Series tournament in Vancouver in the spring of 1991. "Doc Blue was right," he said. "Doug can play. We put him on our protected list and he has continued to progress even beyond our expectations."

Bonner made the starting lineup for the United States' 16-and-under select team this past summer. "That meant he's the best goaltender in the country at his level," Goertzen said. "And he was in our back yard."

In one stretch he played with that team in Switzerland, returned home and worked at a hockey school for a week, then went back to Europe with an American tournament team for a two-week series, where he was named to the all-star team.

He went to camp with the Thunderbirds. "We expected him to play with our (farm) team in Surrey, B.C.," Goertzen said. "But he played so well in camp and in the exhibitions that he forced us to keep him. One of the things that kept showing through was Doug's love for the game and his commitment to excel."

Bonner shared net-minding duties with Shawn Dietrich and Rob Tallas as Seattle went 4-2 preparing to open the regular season tomorrow night against Tacoma at the Coliseum.

"He is quick, very quick," Thunderbirds Coach Walt Kyle said. "And he's going to get nothing but better. A great kid who's going to be a great goaltender."

Asked about these rave notices, Bonner remained cheerfully noncommittal. "Nice," he said, "but I still have to play well to deserve them."