NEW ULM — For New Ulm Steel forward Nick Wieben, the game of hockey has taken him almost full circle from Mankato West to Omaha and now to New Ulm.

“I played high school hockey one year at Mankato West and we went to the state tournament,” said Wieben, the youngest member of the NA3HL Steel team at 17 years old. “I just played my freshman year there and then I decided to go to play with the Omaha Lancers U16 team in the NAPHL [North American Prospects Hockey League]. Then I decided after playing in Omaha for a year my best option in my hockey career to develop better would be to come here to New Ulm and play for the Steel.”

At 17, Wieben has potentially four more years of junior hockey left.

Wieben, who is finishing high school online, said that leaving Mankato to go to Omaha at that young age was an adjustment.

“I was living with a family I had never met and I was spending 10 months without my family,” he said. “We traveled every weekend eight to 10 hours for games each weekend.”

He said that he felt pretty lonely for the first two to three months “because I did not have anything to do — I did not have my family with me.”

Wieben said that in Omaha and being away from home, he grew and became a better man and a person.

He said that being the youngest player on the Steel and playing against players as much as four years older than at times has been challenging.

“My biggest reason for playing Juniors was to develop to play college hockey. Leaving high school I felt that I have a better chance of playing college hockey.”

“It blows my mind that I am still doing it and it motivates me to play and that I can play with them.”

And when Wieben came to play with the Steel it was a reunion for him and Jimmy Miller who played for West last year and is now a member of the Steel.

“We played on a line at West — it was exciting when I found out that Jimmy was going to be here,” Wieben said. “He was a great friend of mine in high school.”

Coming to New Ulm also brought him 28 miles from his home in Mankato and also brought him to relation here.

“Nichole Henderson, Alan Solberg and Ed Wieben are my family members here in New Ulm so a lot of my dad’s side lives here.”