It started with an appreciation of a foreign country and an email to a college hockey coach when he was in seventh grade. Now, Camden, Maine, native Chase Matteo is wrapping up one of the most unique collegiate experiences for a New England hockey player.
Matteo is a senior at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, and a forward on Waseda’s men’s club hockey team. The program has been around since 1923, a year longer than the Boston Bruins, and yet, he is Waseda’s first foreign-born player and the only American in the entire league.
For Matteo, who was a four-year varsity player at Camden Hills High School, it’s been a unique experience — and a great one. “It is pretty surreal to now be a senior on the team,” Matteo said. “Four years seems like a lifetime, but in reality, it flies by. I remember having a conversation with a senior on my team days after arriving in Japan in August 2016: He said that he can’t believe he only had six months left to play and how fast it went by.
“Now that I’m in my last season, I’ve been trying my best to cherish all the moments, including the hard ones, because I know that before I know it, this incredible experience will be behind me.”
Growing up, Matteo was infatuated by hockey around the globe, and he liked Japan because of its unique culture and history as well as the country’s technological developments in recent decades.
“You can’t get much farther away than Maine and Japan, and I think just the sense of such a different culture was just so fascinating to me,” Matteo said.
Matteo, a 5-foot-11, 183-pound forward who shoots left, scored 14 goals and had seven assists in 17 games as a senior at Camden Hills in 2015-16, helping the Windjammers advance to the semifinals of the Class B North playoffs. As a senior, Matteo was named the school’s Hobey Baker High School Character Award Recipient. The award recognizes student-athletes for displaying exemplary character and sportsmanship in their schools and communities.
Looking up teams across the world on EliteProspects.com, he noticed many professional players in Japan had attended Waseda University, so he emailed the then-head coach when he was in seventh grade.
Luckily for Matteo, Takehiko Kusajima spoke English, and the two kept in touch. When Kusajima stepped away from the head coaching job in 2015, he still helped Matteo through the admissions process.
Now, Matteo’s love for the game of hockey has him dedicating his entire life to it on the opposite side of the world from where he grew up.
Japan universities play a 10-month season, from March to January, with a spring tournament, summer cup, fall tourney and national tournament in January.
On an average day, he wakes up slightly before 3 a.m., trains on-ice with the team from 4:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. and off-ice from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. The latter training might consist of agility drills, sprints and hitting the weight room.
“The training at Waseda is significantly more taxing physically and mentally,” he said. “My coaches in high school pushed us hard, but it doesn’t compare when you have a group of guys fighting each day to get pro opportunities and make the U-20 and men’s national team here. It has been an incredible atmosphere being surrounded by that.”
After practice ends, the players shower, eat breakfast and then head to school. For Matteo, who lives in a dorm adjacent to his team’s rink, the commute to school is a 30-minute train ride. Classes start at 9 a.m. and run until 6 p.m. However, there are free periods throughout the day between classes. After his final class, Matteo hurries back to his dorm and tries to go to bed as early as possible. Ideally, this would be around 7 p.m.
For Matteo, the two biggest adjustments to playing in Japan have been the cultural barrier and the time commitment.
Growing up in a small Maine town, he played with the same core group of players from the time he was 6 years old up through high school and developed close friendships along the way.
“My favorite part of ice hockey has always been the bond you are able to create with your teammates, and when I first got here and couldn’t speak Japanese, it was incredibly difficult,” he said. “When everyone in the locker is bursting out laughing and you have no clue what they said, it was an incredibly isolating experience. However that just motivated me to study to get to the point where I can communicate, joke and bond with my teammates, and it has helped me learn a whole new language and culture.”
He also noted there is a hierarchical structure to hockey in Japan where players must speak to any elder players with great respect.
In addition to the long days Matteo endures as a member of the team, his offseason window is incredibly limited. He essentially has one month out of the year off (February) to visit his family and to see friends, who are now scattered across the country.
“I am a big family guy and love my friends and family more than anything in the world, and due to this, it is really tough being over here during the summer and holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said.
Even so, Matteo wants to continue playing hockey abroad when he finishes college. Ethnically Italian, Matteo is working on gaining his Italian citizenship and is considering playing there while pursuing a master’s degree.
He also aspires to play hockey in New Zealand in the future.
“I have always been really fascinated by hockey all over the world in unique countries, and New Zealand stuck out to me because of how beautiful and calm it is there,” he said. “It seems like a place I would enjoy living and be able to experience a new culture. I absolutely don’t want to rule out playing in the NZIHL, which I have considered for a while now.”
Matteo also said he hopes his trek across the globe serves as inspiration for other players interested in taking their careers abroad.
“I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity of playing ice hockey at such a strong school like Waseda,” he said, “getting to play against professionals and national team members and coached by a former Olympian. The experience has not been perfect or easy, but I hope that I can be an example of breaking a barrier to do something new in the sport.
“I am not a superstar player, but I have always just loved the game,” he added. “I do not think I would be in Japan and speak Japanese and understand the culture to this extent at all without ice hockey. This also wouldn’t have been possible without my teammates, family, friends and coaches that pushed me to make it, and the haters that pushed me to prove them wrong.”
