PALMER LAKE – The reasoning behind the Lewis-Palmer and Cheyenne Mountain playing in a foundation hockey game this weekend is quite simple. The teams want to rally their communities around their teams.
Which is the point of athletics anyway.
But this particular foundation game is going to have a bit of an old-school feel. It’s going to take these kids back to the roots of ice hockey and back to how they possibly enjoyed the game as kids.
Crews have been working for months to prepare Palmer Lake for a pond hockey foundation game between the two schools. L-P coach Scott Bradley, a 1995 graduate of Air Academy and former player at the Air Force Academy under Frank Serratore, has been prepping a sheet of ice to hold two teams and a handful of officials for a battle on the pond.
“We started this effort about three months ago,” Bradley said. “We worked with the town of Palmer Lake, with Mayor (Bill) Bass and his team and they’ve been big supporters from the start just to have a high school hockey game on Palmer Lake to bring the community together, that was the vision. To actually execute the vision, that’s the next part.”
That execution will take place Tuesday night at 6:05 when the teams take the ice. Because the game is being held on an unregulated sheet of ice, it must be a foundation game which means that it will not count in terms of official standings and RPI, but Lewis-Palmer can charge admission and use the game as a fundraiser.
“It is a foundation game and acting as our team’s fundraiser as we’re a self-funded District 38 team,” Bradley said. “We’re getting as many people as we can to get out and see an outdoor hockey game under the lights on a chilly, but not freezing night.”
The warm winter weather has made the idea of an outdoor game somewhat tricky. But the work Bradley and his team have done to lay a solid foundation of ice on Palmer Lake will hold up through the course of the game on Tuesday.
Even so, he won’t take any chances when it comes to player safety. At once, six players from each team will be on the ice, along with a couple of officials. Bradley puts the foundation of the ice at a good four to five inches and even with warmer temperatures expected Monday and Tuesday during the day, the foundation will be strong enough to hold throughout the game.
The teams will still take additional precautions to ensure safety, such as keeping the benches off the surface and on the shoreline of the pond just to minimize weight and foot traffic.
The game will consist of two 25-minute stop-time periods and will operate under “pond hockey rules.” An example is it will have a smaller (lower) net and penalties will result in the offending team’s goalie being removed from the ice, leaving a 5-on-5 situation, but with an open net. Also, the player who commits the penalty will not be allowed on the ice.
The look and the feel of the game will be different than a traditional high school hockey game, but the goal of the game is very much in line with high school athletic values. Lewis-Palmer and Cheyenne Mountain are hoping to promote their teams and games to their respective communities in a fun and different light.
