Whiz Kid: 14-Year-Old to Play for 19-and-Under Hockey Team

Tori Sullivan

• Age: 14
• School: Farmington Mercy High School
• Achievement: Tori was chosen to be a part of the 2011 USA Hockey Player Development Youth Select Camp scheduled this July in Rochester, NY, where she will spend a week training and living with some of the rising stars of American hockey. Tori’s mother, Maggie Sullivan, of West Bloomfield said that it’s a great opportunity for the girls on the team to make lifelong friends. Tori is a special talent — mostly on the left wing and on point during the power play. She helped lead the Honeybaked Hockey Club 16-years-old-and-under girls team, based in Farmington Hills, to the USA Hockey girls 16U national championship with a tournament victory April 6-8 at the Onyx Ice Arena in Rochester.
  Tori will move on to the 19-and-under team next fall with goals of playing for Team USA in the Olympics and receiving a scholarship to play in college. She hopes to study sports medicine, her mother said.
• Key to awesomeness: Tori is tough. “When she was 2 years old, I remember, she would be climbing really high swingsets,” Maggie said. “We were looking for swingsets at a store one day and she climbed to the top. People were scared, but she had balance then and she still does.”
  
  Rob Robinson, Tori’s coach at the 16U level, said that her work ethic will help the 19U team. “Any time you talk about a younger player moving up, it’s whether she’ll be in the top third of the team. You don’t make that switch just to make it,” he said. “Her work ethic and drive would be things that made her successful at 16 and will make her successful at the next level.”

Do you know a special young person in the community who deserves a round of applause because he volunteers instead of playing video games after school? Or maybe your daughter's science club is trying to challenge the way we think about the energy crisis? Or maybe your son's lacrosse team won its first game in three years? Everyone deserves a little attention, and we want to tell these stories.

So email your Whiz Kid nominations to Editor Tim Rath at Tim.Rath@Patch.com. Please include the name, age, school, achievement and key to awesomeness, as well as a photo. Then come back every Wednesday for our Whiz Kid spotlight; you never know who will be up next.