California Dreaming: Hockey Players From California

Much has been made about the first ever "Freeway Series" pitting California powerhouses Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks against each other.

Now seems like a good time to note that there have been 29 NHL players who were born in California, including Long Beach's Emerson Etem, pictured above, who is playing for Anaheim right now.

Here is a list of all the players born in California to play in the NHL:

Mike Lampman - Lakewood
Chris Ahrens - San Bernardino
Roy Sommer - Oakland
Lee Norwood - Oakland
Rik Wilson - Long Beach
Craig Coxe - Chula Vista
Tim Friday - Burbank
Matt Hervey - Whittier
Ralph Barahona - Long Beach
Stephen Tepper - Santa Ana
John Blue - Huntington Beach
David Roberts - Alameda
Craig Ferguson - Castro Valley
Jeremy Stevenson - San Bernardino
Scott Parker - Hanford
John Emmons - San Jose
Brooks Orpik - San Francisco
Noah Clarke - La Verne
Ryan Hollweg - Downey
Gabe Gauthier - Torrance
Brett Sterling - Los Angeles
Garrett Stafford - Los Angeles
Brian Salcido - Los Angeles
Ray Macias - Long Beach
Casey Wellman - Brentwood
Rhett Rakhshani - Orange
Jonathon Blum - Long Beach
Emerson Etem - Long Beach
Beau Bennett - Gardena.

This list is as of May 2014. Expect this list to grow substantially in size over the next few seasons. We can thank the so called "Gretzky Effect" as the generation of kids the grew up watching Wayne Gretzky star for the Los Angeles Kings are now graduating to the NHL themselves.

Here's a few more interesting notes regarding California hockey:

The highest scoring Californian born player: Lee Norwood with 58 goals and 211 points in 503 games. He is also the most penalized with 1099 PIMs.

The most games played by a Californian born player: Brooks Orpik, now over 700 and counting.