Former Anaheim Ducks left wing Nic Kerdiles tragically died in a motorcycle crash Sept. 23 at 3:30 a.m.

His death was heartbreaking for a Southern California hockey community that dearly loved him and that he faithfully represented in his pro career.

This edition of the column is dedicated to honoring Nic’s memory.

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Nicolas Kerdiles found hockey as a little boy playing in his front yard.

Kerdiles was born in Lewisville, Texas, but didn’t stay there long. His father was a medical equipment salesman, and his family moved around often when he was a child.

Eventually, Kerdiles’s family settled in Irvine, California. One of his neighbors there would play roller hockey in his front yard, which Kerdiles noticed with great interest. Soon afterward, the two boys began playing together in the other boy’s driveway, and Kerdiles quickly fell in love with the game.

At eight years old, he asked to take his skills to the ice. He began playing for the Los Angeles Kings’ selects program. And he fell in love with it.

When he wasn’t on the ice, he was watching the pros on the ice, avidly rooting for the Anaheim Ducks. He regularly watched games on TV and even went to between 30 and 40 Ducks games growing up, dreaming of playing in the NHL one day.

He would watch his favorite Ducks players, star wing duo Paul Kariya and Teemu Selänne, and then try to emulate them on the ice himself. As it turned out, he wasn’t too bad at it.

Kerdiles was developing himself into quite the talented young player, and the United States National Team Development Program was taking notice.

He was invited to join the NTDP for the 2010-11 season, requiring him to move away from his family to Ann Arbor, Michigan at 16. He saw it for its incredible opportunity and took it on with passion.

He was an incredible asset to the Americans, helping them win back-to-back gold medals in the 2011 and 2012 International Hockey Federation World U18 championships.

His hometown team took notice in a big way. The Anaheim Ducks selected him with the 36th pick in round two of the 2012 NHL draft.

Kerdiles was ecstatic that his draft rights belonged to his hometown team, but he knew he needed to work on his game a bit more before beginning his professional career. So he committed to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He had a productive two seasons for the Badgers, including WCHA championship heroics in 2013 that earned his team the Broadmoor trophy and earned Kerdiles the MVP award of the tournament.

Afterward, Kerdiles began his pro career for the Duck’s AHL affiliate, the Norfolk Admirals. After two seasons with the Admirals, the team relocated to Southern California, becoming the San Diego Gulls.

Kerdiles enjoyed three productive seasons as the local star, scoring 76 points in three seasons. It was enough to warrant a call-up to the big club in February 2017.

That night, Kerdiles became the first person raised in Orange County to ever play for the Ducks.

It was a jubilant moment in Southern California hockey history. The story of a boy who found a love for hockey without needing any ice, rooted passionately for his hometown Ducks, and then grew up to play for the team he loved against all odds touched the hearts of hockey fans everywhere.

Kerdiles’s career was unfortunately cut short by injuries. He only appeared in three regular season and four postseason games in his Ducks career. His one career point was a playoff assist. Fittingly for Kerdiles, he couldn’t go out without making some kind of playoff impact.

After the 2018-19 season, Kerdiles retired and pursued a career in real estate in Nashville, Tennessee. He also got engaged to reality TV star Savannah Chrisley in 2019. The two separated in late 2020.

He was a hockey trailblazer who exemplified the boundlessness of dreams, and he was beginning to dream new dreams and realize them off the ice as well.

The nightmarish motorcycle accident suddenly cut those ambitions short.

It’s always soul-crushing when well-loved young people lose their bright future. For Kerdiles, this tragedy is twofold: first losing his hockey career to an injury, then losing his life in the accident.

But Kerdiles’s friends and family can take solace in the fact that his original dream can never be taken away from him. He will forever be that Orange County kid who made the longshot dream of playing for his favorite team a reality.

Here’s to hoping he and the local kids he inspired can play one big hockey game together sometime in the next life.

Ethan Inman is a junior writing about Los Angeles’ unique hockey heroes in his column L.A. on Ice, which runs every other Tuesday.