ICEMEN COMETH TO SANTA CLARITA PREP HOCKEY LEAGUE BEGINS.

Byline: Gideon Rubin Staff Writer

VALENCIA - Hart High of Newhall senior Kevin Davis is a nationally recognized hockey star, but few at his school know it. Aside from a brief stint on the football team, Davis has never been able to represent his school in competitive sports.

That will change Monday, when Davis and other highly regarded players in the area inaugurate the Ice Station High School Hockey League. The hope is that the six-team league playing what is now technically a club sport will gain prominence and become sanctioned by CIF.

The Ice Station, Santa Clarita's newly opened state-of-the-art ice skating facility, has three rinks.

``We have a lot of pride in our high school and being able to play a sport we love is great for us,'' Davis said at a pre-opening reception for the league Thursday night at which players were issued uniforms and league officials addressed questions from parents.

The league is composed of four teams representing Santa Clarita Valley schools, Valencia, Canyon, Hart and Saugus. Also fielding teams will be Granada Hills, and the Northerners, a confederation of Antelope Valley schools that also has some players from Kern County.

In addition to Davis, the league will showcase several other highly touted players including Saugus senior Joey Howard and Granada Hills senior Pete Peterson.

The first game on Monday is Hart against Saugus at 6:15 p.m. Valencia meets Canyon at 6:45 and Granada Hills and the Northerners play at 7:45.

The 10-game season will be followed by two days of playoffs, which will be held April 28-29, during the facility's official grand opening.

``I've always wanted to play on ice,'' said Quartz Hill senior David Jackson, who plays om a roller hockey league at the soon-to-be-closed Gretzky Center in Lancaster. Until now, the closest ice hockey rinks to him were in Sylmar and Burbank.

Ice Station proprietor Roger Perez is buoyed by the reaction he has received to the new league.

``They're so excited about what's going on,'' he said ``They now are part of a school sport and they're going to be able to play in front of their friends and peers and they'll be able to show their skills.''

Monday night's league opener is a first step, but convincing CIF to sanction the sport officially will be a formidable challenge, according to Larry Bruyere, the Ice Station's director of hockey.

``We believe it can become a CIF (sanctioned) sport if it's run properly and we can maintain interest, but it might take some time because schools don't have extra money in their budgets for a new sport,'' he said, noting the prohibitive cost of equipment and ice time.

--Girls' league: The Ice Station will officially announce the beginning of an instructional program for girls in late April. The clinic will begin sometime in June and is the first step toward creating a girls' league planned for fall 2001, said director of marketing Gary Lane.

--Pure energy: The Ice Station was constructed before the California energy crisis became front-page news, but engineers went through extraordinary lengths to make the facility - which needs to be open 365 days a year to be profitable - uniquely energy efficient.

The facility has 90 skylights to cut down on lighting costs during the day and uses a high-tech thermal storage unit that make ice at night, when energy costs are lower, and keeps the air conditioning running during daytime hours at a reduced cost. Perez heralded the Ice Station as ``the most energy-efficient facility in North America.''