Dan Angell
Quad City Times
It would be an understatement to say that Quad-City Mallards defenseman Bob Preece's route to professional hockey was atypical.
He didn't grow up skating on frozen ponds like most players. His defensive skills developed on the green grass of the soccer pitch, playing on the back line for his team. In fact, he didn't start playing hockey until he was in his teens.
Such is life for a guy from Bonita Springs, Fla., a city on the Gulf Coast with an average December temperature of 56 and very little ice available.
But in 1998, the Florida Everblades of the ECHL set up shop in Estero, Fla., 15 minutes from the Preece family house. Soon after, Preece's father, John, who had lived in Hamilton, Ontario, before moving his family south shortly after Bob was born, asked his son if he wanted to give hockey a try.
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