KEVIN JOHNSON / Staff

Former NHL player Jason Dawe skates with youth hockey players on Tuesday at one of Germain Arena's recreation rinks. Dawe is holding a hockey camp this week for ages 7 to 15.

KEVIN JOHNSON / Staff

Jason Dawe, who played for four teams in the NHL, carries the puck during his youth hockey camp Tuesday at one of Germain Arena's recreation rinks.

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ESTERO — Thirteen years after his first breakout NHL season, Jason Dawe is back at summer hockey camp — surrounded by clamoring kids with oversized gear and still-developing stickhandling skills.

More than 20 years ago in Toronto, a younger and less-experienced Dawe spent hours at camps just like this one, refining the skills that would lead him to become his junior team’s all-time leading goal-scorer and to back-to-back 20-goal seasons with the Buffalo Sabres.

On Tuesday, Dawe, retired since 2005, went from student to teacher. The 35-year-old is running the first-ever hockey camp bearing his name, at Germain Arena this week. Twenty-eight players from ages 7-15 are hanging on Dawe’s every word, soaking up whatever they can from the closest connection they have to “the show” at the camp, which ends Friday.

Dawe doesn’t mind signing autographs, but during camp, he is just another coach shouting instructions and diagramming drills.

The former Team Canada World Juniors gold medal-winner lives in Charlotte, N.C., now, after playing 49 games for the ECHL’s Charlotte Checkers during the 2004-05 season.

The Checkers play in the same ECHL division as the Florida Everblades, so Dawe knew a little about Germain Arena and Southwest Florida. Plus, his best friend growing up, Roy Roman, has lived in the area for several years. Roman, a former hockey player himself, is also helping at the camp.

“Roy lives across the street. ... He’s always up here, so we thought we may as well do the camp here,” Dawe said Tuesday, two days into the camp.

Joining Dawe and Roman as camp instructors are former NHL players Mike Hartman, an enforcer and Stanley Cup winner with the New York Rangers; Mike Wilson, a former first-round pick who played 336 NHL games; and Rob Tallas, a former goalie for the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks —- in addition to former college hockey player turned entrepreneur Scott Schilling, who owns the Estero-based pro shop: Gulf Coast Hockey Plus.

All are Dawe’s friends and/or former teammates, and he has helped out at their camps in the past. Now, they’re returning the favor, to give Southwest Florida youth hockey a taste of “learning from the pros.”

Former Everblades players Ryan Brindley and Reggie Berg also run hockey camps at Germain Arena each summer, but area youth hockey players rarely have the opportunity to learn from former NHL players.

Dawe grew up playing in Toronto, where hockey took precedence over all other sports, and getting a game was as simple as walking to the local pond anytime from November through March. For local youth in Southwest Florida, hockey is much different — it struggles to compete with football for attention, and the area has just two local ice rinks: Germain Arena and the Fort Myers Skatium.

Dawe said he recognizes those differences, and he added that youth hockey has changed a lot even since he was learning to play.

“Today there are a lot more specialized drills — learning balance, technique — not as much weight training,” he said.

Still, the basics transcend time and location.

“I was on the pond religiously as a kid,” Dawe said. “There’s a lot I missed for hockey. I never went to school dances. If I had a game on Saturday, there was no way I was going to the party on Friday night.”

“I shot around 1,000 pucks in my basement every week,” he told the campers before dismissing them to lunch. “Maybe that’s excessive, but that’s what it took for me.”

Driving him was a simple love for the game, an emotion Dawe said is what he most wants to impart to the young players at his camp.

“We want to give them an experience,” he said. “They need to enjoy it. ... Yeah, we’ll skate them hard, but if they’re completely run down, they can’t learn much mentally.”

Does he see any future NHL players at his camp this week?

“I see a few kids who have some real talent. ... I could see it right away,” he said. “But there are so many intangibles. The kids really have to want it. ... Their parents can push them, but if they don’t want to do it, it won’t work.”

Dawe said he hopes to come back to Southwest Florida next summer with more former NHL players as instructors, in addition to running camps in Buffalo, N.Y., and possibly in Charlotte.

“I’ll be running the camp all week, and I figure, a five-day camp — at least one more former NHLer for each day of camp,” he added.

For more on Dawe’s hockey camp at Germain Arena, visit www.jasondawehockeycamps.com or call Gulf Coast Hockey Plus at 390-7646.