HAMPDEN – Most 33-year-olds have to look back fondly at their college hockey careers, remembering the days when their home was the nearest ice.

Kent Salfi certainly has fabulous memories of being a University of Maine Black Bear, especially his time on the 1993 team that took the NCAA Division I championship.

The UMaine grad shows up for every alumni game at his alma mater, but it’s not the only time he laces up his skates.

Salfi is still a hockey player – a professional hockey player who plays left wing for the Linz Black Wings in Austria. In addition, he has played on the Austrian national team in two world championships – and in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

“Winning the national championship here [with the Black Bears] was incredible, but the Olympics is the Olympics,” Salfi said. He had obtained a dual citizenship in Austria the year before so he’d be eligible to play in the Olympics.

Though Austria didn’t take home a medal, the team did win a game over Slovakia. And Salfi played with some prominent players.

“Thomas Pock played on my line, and Oliver Setzinger,” Salfi said, referring to a couple of the Austrian players who have played successfully on the college and professional level.

“The Austrian players just get better and better. Several play [in the United States]”, he said.

But it was a long way to the Olympics for Salfi, who grew up in Clifton Park, N.Y.

He came to the University of Maine the same way countless other hockey players have.

“Grant [Standbrook] and Shawn [Walsh] recruited me,” Salfi said. The young man had played for a prep school and a variety of hockey camps, and was on the U.S. National Team for 16- and 17-year-olds.

Bangor Daily News sportswriter Larry Mahoney was one of those who followed Salfi’s hockey career at UMaine, calling him “an exceptional penalty killer and a speedy, grinding winger.”

In Europe, Salfi played two years in Sweden, and is now coming up on his 10th year in Austria. He’s been with the Linz Black Wings for two years, and just signed on for two more years.

Hampden is home for just a few months of the year, while the rest of the year Salfi lives in Linz with his wife, Bangor native Jennifer (Sanborn) Salfi and their daughter, Lily. The 7-year-old goes to school in Linz and at McGraw School in Hampden.

To live in Austria, Salfi and his family have learned to speak German.

“I studied German vocabulary on the bus,” he explained. “If you want to learn it, you’re going to learn it. He and his wife have a bit of an accent, he acknowledged, “but Lily speaks like an Austrian, no accent.”

During summers in Maine, Salfi always has his eye out for ways to stay in shape, and he likes to play golf.

At the UM Hockey Alumni weekend in 2001, a group asked Salfi to join them in a foursome for the Alumni Golf Tournament at Penobscot Country Club in Orono.

“I was shocked,” Salfi said when he found out the group included movie actor Kurt Russell, friend of coach Shawn Walsh and father of a serious young hockey player, Wyatt Russell. He thoroughly enjoyed playing in the group that also included Russell’s father, Bing.

Salfi himself has been involved in various youth hockey activities, including running sessions for the Walsh camps some years ago.

With encouragement and support from Denis Collins, who has coached youth hockey for several years, Salfi has run the Salfi Skills Clinic the past two years.

“It’s skating, puck handling, shooting – there’s no substitute for good skills,” Salfi said.

“I’m always looking for someone to help our kids get to a higher level,” Collins said. “We’re fortunate to have him around. Kent is a finesse player and a skills player. We believe in that, and that’s what our kids need.”

The clinic will be held July 18-22 this year at T.J. Ryan Arena in Brewer. There will be two sessions for boys, one session for girls. The numbers are limited for each session so that each player gets individual attention and time to play.

Those eligible are hockey players who are Mites, Squirts, Peewees and Bantams.

Collins, a native of Frenchville, didn’t get heavily involved in hockey until he had a child old enough to take part. This year he was a coach for the PVHC Hampden-Winterport Black Squirts, who won tournaments around the state.

“I played pickup hockey on the Canadian border with high school friends,” Collins said.

Collins also has run a number of Learn-to-Skate sessions, which involved “so many kids, it looked like an ant farm on the ice.”

He and Salfi agree that while hockey is competitive, it also should be fun for the kids. And Salfi said he’s amazed at the skill level of many of the young players – girls as well as boys.

When the end of summer approaches, the Salfis will return to Austria, where he is something of a workhorse for the Black Wings.

“I play 22-23 minutes a game – that’s a ton for a forward,” Salfi said. And in 2003-2004, he led the Black Wings with 21 goals and 27 assists over 48 games.

For information or registration for the Salfi Skills Clinic, call 989-3064.