1-On-1: with Andrew Agozzino

Roadrunners Forward Andrew Agozzino joined Jonathon Schaffer and Kim Cota-Robles on this week’s Happy Hour Show. For the complete conversation and to hear about the team’s January birthday madness, download this past week’s show below.

Listen to “Andrew Is Awesome” on Spreaker.

What do you think of your first year in Tucson?

It’s been great. I think it was always a place to come on the road that you enjoyed for the weekend, but you really don’t know how great of a community it is. My family, we’ve really found a home, we really enjoy it. My wife’s very happy living in Tucson. Obviously, the weather’s perfect, but it’s more so the community, the people we met that have really made it feel like home and it’s been a fun team to be a part of so far.

Can you talk about your journey through hockey and your family a bit?

Yeah, I grew up in Kleinberg, obviously played five years in the OHL, was lucky to play all five years in Niagara. It is still a special place for myself and my parents and my wife and we still go back there and visit people. Then after that, I started with Colorado’s organization, spent about six years there, and then kind of moved to a few different organizations since then. I have a wife and two kids. My daughter’s almost 6 and my son just turned 3, so we have a busy household which is great. But like I said, they’ve found a great school in Tucson and we’re very happy and they’re really enjoying it too.

Is there a place in the world that you haven’t lived but you might want to some day?

Tough to say. We’ve always kind of been intrigued with Switzerland, hopefully one day we can go there. We have moved around a lot, but we’ve also been in some great places, which makes it super easy, especially a lot of the place we’ve been we’ve had a real winter.

How has it been being part of the captain’s group on the team? How do you lead a team when we were on the losing streak that we were on?

Yeah, it’s difficult sometimes. Especially when the team’s going through a difficult stretch and you’re not playing and you’re not in the heat of the battle with them. You have a different perspective, so it’s harder to voice anything that that you see. But I think when I’m not playing, I’m just trying to be there for guys as more of a sound board, and if they’re talking to me about something that happened in the game, I can maybe offer a different perspective, give a different view that I had of it. It’s been a tough stretch that we’re kind of working our way out of. So, if I can just be there for guys when they want to say something and then give them my honest feedback, I think that’s the best way you can go about it when you’re not playing.

How is it being back with Egor Sokolov? You guys played together in Belleville.

We had a great chemistry in Belleville together, we played more or less the entire season together, then we kind of picked up right where we left off to start this season. But, he’s a fun person to play with just because any shot he takes at any moment can he go in. He’s just a goal scorer and then when you play with guys like that and stuff starts going in the net, it’s almost infectious. You both feel good about your games, and you just kind of feed off that with one another. That’s a nice part about playing with a guy like Sokolov, is if you get him one or two chances a game, there’s a good chance he’s going to put one of them in.

You played against Matthew Villalta when he was with Ontario and you were with San Diego and San Jose, what’s it like being on a tea with guys that you might have played against in years past?

It’s funny how it works because there’s certain guys where you kind of battle with and get into it with and then once you meet each other at training camp, it’s completely in the past and you realize he’s probably not as bad of a guy as you thought or he’s actually a pretty nice person. So usually when you meet a guy, the ones you battle with the most on the ice turn out to be similar and most like you and you end up becoming pretty good friends. It’s funny how it works though for sure.