AURORA — High school hockey in this state is growing in a number of ways, but what the sport’s committee did on Friday is perhaps the biggest indication: The group unanimously recommended the addition of junior varsity teams.
The change will need to be approved by the Legislative Council in April. And, even if it does, the move won’t force programs to add a junior varsity team. Instead, it gives them the option to.
“What I see is the opportunity for you to add a subvarsity program,” CHSAA assistant commissioner Bud Ozzello told the committee. “It doesn’t force you to do it.”
If approved, programs will be allowed to field one varsity team and one subvarsity team.
The change would potentially bring in two new members, as well. Yampah Mountain High School in Glenwood Springs wants to add a junior varsity team, but that is pending CHSAA membership. The school has a visit with CHSAA officials scheduled for late May.
In addition, Crested Butte is considering adding a JV team.
Currently, there is a non-CHSAA-sanctioned club league that offers JV-type teams an option to play. Erik Austin, a member of the hockey committee and the coach at Cheyenne Mountain, estimated that “27 or 28 teams” currently play in that league.
“Philosophically, we have to grow the sport of hockey,” said Larry Bull, the district athletic director of Cherry Creek Schools, who also sits on the committee. “The high school piece, that’s what kids want. They want to wear the jersey. And I think we need to encourage and support them.”
The approval of JV would set off a domino effect, of sorts. Because Colorado doesn’t currently offer JV hockey, the sport was afforded certain state adoptions outside of the rules of hockey set by the NFHS. Namely, the maximum roster size was 25 players, and they played 17-minute periods.
Should JV be approved at Legislative Council, the maximum roster size will drop to 20 players. Additionally, the periods would be 15 minutes long — however, the hockey committee will ask to continue a state adoption to try to keep them at 17 minutes.
The committee recommended that players be allowed to play a maximum of 72 periods during the regular season. This really would only apply to so-called “swing” players, or those that play varsity and junior varsity. Football has a similar rule for quarters allowed.
Junior varsity teams will be allowed to play a maximum of 15 games. The hockey committee recommended that JV teams play 13-minute periods and only resurface the ice one time during the game.
Overtime rule changes
The hockey committee met at 10 a.m. Friday morning — or 12 hours after the six-overtime affair between Cherry Creek and Dakota Ridge in the semifinals ended on Thursday night. It meant that the postseason overtime procedures were fresh in the minds of the committee members.
And so they decided to look at them. Currently, in the postseason, teams play continuous five-minute overtimes until a winner is decided.
The committee recommended lengthening the overtime periods to eight minutes — the maximum allowed by the NFHS — and also moving to 4-on-4 hockey after two overtimes. The ice would be resurfaced after every two overtime periods.
This change, too, will need to be approved along with the hockey report at the Legislative Council.
The regular season overtime procedure would stay the same. That entails one five-minute overtime to decide a winner. If no one scores, the two teams tie.
On Saturday, the day after the committee met, Cherry Creek and Monarch went three overtimes in the state title game.
Notables
The new programs at Castle View and Fort Collins were approved by the committee. Castle View will begin next season and play in the Peak Conference, while Fort Collins will start in 2016-17, but hasn’t yet been placed in a conference. Castle View’s home games and practices will be at Colorado Sports Center in Monument.
One reason Fort Collins wasn’t placed into a conference is because the committee is looking at realignment ahead of the 2016-17 season. They want to move to four divisions instead of two conferences.
The committee recommended that teams be allowed to play with four-person officiating crews during the regular season, if they so desire. All postseason games are done with four-person crews, while most regular season games have three-person crews.
The dates for next season’s semifinals and championship are March 4-5, a Friday and Saturday, at the Budweiser Events Center. It’s possible the championship will be moved to a Monday due to conflicts with the Colorado Eagles’ schedule.
Cherry Creek players celebrate the overtime winner. More photos. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
LOVELAND — It’s not often you get a championship that was 25 years in the making.
But after their hockey program was disbanded in 1987, not to be restarted until 2012, that is exactly what happened on Saturday. The Cherry Creek Bruins (19-4 overall) defeated the Monarch Coyotes (17-4-1) by a final of 3-2 in the state hockey championship on Saturday.
After so much time, what’s three overtimes to get it done, right?
In just their third season back as a program, head coach Jeff Mielnicki said he took extra measures to make sure that this team was ready for the season.
“Let’s put it this way,” Mielnicki said after the game, “we graduated basically a whole team last season. So before the winter, I took a bunch of the younger guys up to Chicago and played some of the best prep teams in the country. After that, I knew it would be a good year.”
Cherry Creek’s trip to the championship game was their first in 34 years. In 1981, the Bruins dropped a 3-1 championship to Arapahoe and six years later, the program was done. Their last championship came in 1979.
For Monarch, meanwhile, 17 of the players on their own roster were not on the team during last season’s run to the championship game.
Despite the Coyotes’ talent advantage up front that had been on display previously in the playoffs, the Bruins took it Monarch from the opening puck drop. Within the first 10 minutes, Creek had had a breakaway and two near misses in 10 shots against goaltender Hampus Akesson, who made 26 saves.
After a Blake Bride holding penalty gave the Bruins a productive power play, Monarch appeared to weather the storm. Shots, once 10-2 in favor of Cherry Creek, ended up a much more even 10-8 by the finish of the first period.
It was then that the self-professed “second period team” turned up the heat.
After killing part of an early penalty, Monarch caught a break as Cherry Creek’s Sean DeKramer took a five minute checking-from-behind major that carried with it a 10 minute misconduct. After a routine tripping call a few minutes later, Monarch used the full two-minute 5-on-3 to regain some of the momentum.
Despite their work, the Coyotes were uncharacteristically undisciplined in the second, getting whistled for three penalties in the frame and suffering from a general lack of communication that created scoring chances for the Bruins.
The final chance of the second came in one such situation, when a delayed call on Monarch led to Cherry Creek’s Chris Nitchen streaking down the left side of the ice and firing the puck low short side to beat Akesson for the first goal of the game with 40 second remaining in the period.
Both teams turned up the physical play in the third period, as two early hits by Bruins forwards put their Monarch counterparts on the ice, and the Coyotes responded in kind. Then with just over 11 minutes to go, Cherry Creek put home a second goal when a bad-angle shot by Nitchen careened off of Akesson and into the slot. There, Sean DeKramer buried it over the shoulder of the Monarch netminder for the 2-0 lead.
Monarch finally answered though, scoring two goals in 17 seconds in the final three minutes of regulation.
The first came when defenseman Mattjis Ossorio snuck down the slot and buried a stray puck in front; the second on an excellent effort by the team’s two leading scorers, Andrew Pickner and Blake Bride, with the latter getting the tally on a pretty pass from his linemate.
Both goals were scored with Akesson pulled for an extra attacker.
After Thursday’s six overtime affair between Creek and Dakota Ridge, it was only fitting that the championship would go to overtime as well.
The first five minute stanza was very equally matched, but by the second overtime, the ice had started to tilt towards the Coyotes. Shots were 36-26 in favor of Monarch and the play was becoming one-sided.
But the zamboni break was all Creek would need. In the third overtime, a Chris Nitchen shot again created a juicy rebound, and Nick Chavez sealed it for the Bruins.
“I don’t even play on a line with Chris,” Chavez said after the game. “He was amazing tonight and I just happened to be out there with him and when he took that shot, I knew I just had to clean it up.”
In trips to the state championship game in 2013 and 2014, the Coyotes ran into the buzz saw that is Ralston Valley and fell 5-1 and 4-1 respectively. On Saturday they fell short again, but it was a lot closer than their previous two trips.
“I’m so proud of these guys,” Monarch coach Jimmy Dexter said. “At the beginning of the season, with just four seniors and 17 kids gone from last year, I didn’t think we’d be here.
“They never quit. Obviously we want to be on the other side of (the scoreboard), but these kids will be back.”
This season however, belonged to Cherry Creek. Goaltender Brady Mielnicki made 34 saves in the game, boosting the team as he had all playoffs long. And once it got to overtime, the Bruins knew it was all over.
“We thought if we got it to overtime we would win. It’s as simple as that,” Mielnicki said matter-of-factly. “We knew there were ebbs and flows. But we stayed disciplined, the kids were resilient, and in the end it was rewarded.”
“There’s no loser here. Of course, we won the game, but I’m so proud of these young men,” said Cherry Creek coach Jeff Mielnicki. “They played so hard. We had guys completely dehydrated, drinking whatever they could, but we somehow found a way.”
It is the longest game in hockey game in the 39-year history of the sport in the state, beating a four-overtime affair between Resurrection Christian and Mountain Vista a few years ago. It was so long, in fact, that CHSAA officials were discussing options of how to suspend it due to player safety concerns.
At the time the winner was scored, CHSAA assistant commissioner Bud Ozzello and the athletic directors from both schools were on their way to an impromptu meeting in the hallways outside the locker rooms. It is likely that, had the game continued much further, it would have been suspended and made to complete at a local rink on Friday ahead of Saturday’s championship.
“We were going to discuss it with the athletic directors,” said Ozzello, who oversees hockey.
“These are student-athletes,” said Dakota Ridge coach Alex Hines. “They all played as hard as they could. Both sides were dragging. The puck was bouncing tonight. It took a toll on our boys. It was probably a dangerous situation if it kept going that way.
“You saw that, that was a grind,” Hines added later. “We basically played — that was two games, right?”
It was close. A regulation game is 51 minutes. The teams played five full five-minute overtimes, then 36 seconds of the sixth — making for 76:36 on the ice.
You want long? Mielnicki said he was involved in a game in Canada a few years ago where they would take players off the ice after overtime periods. They eventually got down to 1-on-1. “But it doesn’t match anything like this,” he said, shaking his head.
“That’s the longest game I’ve ever been a part of,” Hines said.
In between the fifth and sixth overtimes, Mielnicki said he told his guys that “it was going to be getting past my bedtime and I wouldn’t mind seeing this things end.”
“I think sometimes a team is going to play off of how the coaches feel,” he continued. “I was just having a good time. I was enjoying this. There was no fear, there was no worry, there was none of that. It was more of, ‘Let’s go out, we can do this. Why not us?’”
It felt like the two teams could play forever. And maybe they would’ve. Ultimately, it was just a shame someone had to lose.
“They’re never going to forget this opportunity to play in front of all of these fans,” Hines said. “They’re not going to leave here with their head hanging at all. … The work ethic, the boys worked their butts off and I couldn’t be prouder of them.”
Cherry Creek players celebrate the winning goal against Dakota Ridge after the sixth overtime. More photos. (Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)
LOVELAND — After their respective performances in the quarterfinals, the stakes were high for goaltenders Brady Mielnicki and Joey Owston. Neither would disappoint.
The two combined for 69 saves in a back-and-forth battle that saw Cherry Creek (18-4 overall) finally defeat Dakota Ridge (18-4) by a final of 3-2 in the unprecedented sixth five-minute overtime period on Chris Nitchen’s game-winning goal. The win means Cherry Creek advances to the state championship game.
Following his spectacular 41-save performance against defending champion Ralston Valley, Mielnicki’s night was no easier against the Eagles, who peppered the Bruins’ netminder with 32 shots.
“He’s had outstanding focus,” Cherry Creek head coach Jeff Mielnicki said of his goaltender. “You know he worked really hard this summer, knowing what the opportunity could be and he didn’t play baseball and instead was on the ice six days a week, working to be where he is now.”
He was matched on the other end by Owston, who made 39 saves of his own in a losing effort.
Chris Nitchen celebrates his winning goal. More photos. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
Despite Owston’s success, it would be Creek that opened up the scoring in a very physical first period, when Bruins’ defenseman James Shelton unleashed a high blast from the point that snuck past the screened Eagles goalie on the short side.
Dakota Ridge would waste little time answering though, as Zach Ross would bury a nice centering pass from teammate Zach Williams behind the net to tie the game at one with just over five minutes remaining in the first period.
And the Eagles weren’t done in the opening frame either. Just a few minutes later, a slapshot by Ross glanced off of a partially screened Mielnicki (who finished with a whopping 30 saves of his own), leaving a fat rebound that was slammed home by Eagles forward Graehm Konsella.
As the second period began, a full two-minute 5-on-3 power play put the Bruins right back in the driver seat. Although they didn’t score during the advantage, Cherry Creek brought their shot total from three to 13 in under seven minutes as a result of their newfound momentum and would carry it through the end of the period.
Ironically, the Bruins’ best chance to score during their dominant second period had very little to do with their overall play. During a race for a dumped puck that didn’t quite make it to an icing call, Sam Harris leaned in to swat the puck towards Owston and away from his defensive counterpart. The bizarre nature of the play may have surprised the Dakota Ridge netminder, but luckily the puck fluttered harmlessly high.
The third period saw the two teams return to equal footing, as the penalties slowed and Dakota Ridge regained their composure at even strength. While the two teams went blow for blow though, the overall atmosphere of the third period was fairly cautious.
Then, with less than seven minutes remaining in the regulation, a flurry in front of the Dakota Ridge net turned into a tie game as Max Tennant slipped the puck past Owston.
It was only fitting that these two teams would end it in overtime. But then a first overtime turned into a second, where early on a hand pass waived off a would-be game-winner by Dakota Ridge. Then a second overtime turned into a third, then a fourth where Nick Chavez of Cherry Creek took a breakaway left to right in front of Owston, who just got a pad on the puck to make the save.
The teams weren’t finished either, and would ultimately play into the sixth overtime before Nitchen of Cherry Creek managed to turn a routine breakout into a partial breakaway with a burst of speed, then fired the puck over a sprawling Owston into the top left corner to seal the win for Cherry Creek.
“I remember that (Nitchen) was in a little video we did,” coach Mielnicki said, “and all he said was, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to win the state championship game?’ And he put us there.”
For the Bruins, their return to the championship marks the school’s first trip since 1981, a 3-1 loss to Arapahoe. Cherry Creek’s hockey program was shut down shortly later and just started up again two seasons ago.
But although the night belonged to the Bruins, few could argue that it was Owston’s outstanding play in net that stole the show. Asked after the game what the future might hold for the senior netminder, Owston seemed content to take it one day at a time.
“We’ll just see what comes next,” Owston said. “I’ve really enjoyed competitive hockey but I don’t know yet if it’s something I want to do in college. Maybe club.”
The guess here is that the kid will find a place to play if he wants it.
As for Cherry Creek, they will face the winner of the second semifinal game between Regis and Monarch. For the Bruins though, it’s all just gravy after the support the hockey team has been shown by the school.
“Our district head, our principals, our assistant principles, our ADs, you know these people are supporting hockey,” Mielnicki said of the support. “We’re going to continue to grow because of that.”
That may be true, but on Saturday, Cherry Creek will play for the state championship, and that has to feel even better.
LOVELAND — When Monarch hockey fell to Regis Jesuit 4-1 just over a month ago in league play, the feeling was there that we hadn’t seen the last of the two-time runner-up.
After the Coyotes (17-3-1 overall) returned the favor with a 5-1 victory over the Raiders (19-1-1) in the state semifinals, head coach Jimmy Dexter says he always knew they’d be back.
“I didn’t know if we’d be playing them or (Ralston Valley), but I know we were always hoping it would be (Regis),” said Dexter. “I thought we outplayed them in the first game.”
The first period took on a familiar air, looking much the same as the last meeting between the two teams. Monarch’s system-oriented attack was on full display early on, with Regis using their depth of talent to simply roll through lines and capitalize on turnovers.
It was Regis’s game plan that paid dividends first when Jack Jordan took a pass from Jack Kilkenny and sniped the top left corner of the net from below the faceoff circle.
As the second period began, it was obvious that this would be a battle to the end. Quality shots were had on both sides, but neither team’s defense had the type of breakdown that results in high-quality scoring chances during even strength hockey.
After Regis’s Connor Brennan blasted a slapshot off the crossbar on an early power play, the teams settled in until Monarch leading scorer Blake Bride would create his own chance by zig-zagging through neutral zone traffic, fighting off a final Regis defender even as he maneuvered a one-handed shot through the legs of Raiders goalie Sam Gardner.
And Monarch wasn’t done in the second either. A few minutes later, Bride would thread a pass through to linemate Andrew Pickner, who picked the bottom right corner at a tough angle, but still managed to score the Coyotes’ second goal of the game.
“We came out the same way in the second period against Mountain Vista,” Pickner said after the game. “We know we’re a second period team. We’d been getting chances, we were as comfortable as they were, and we knew they’d start going in eventually.
The early in the third, the Coyotes would bury Regis for good. Several individual battles off of a faceoff in the Raiders’ end created some open ice in front of the net. As the puck trickled through, Bride managed to find himself in the right place again, and lifted the puck over Gardner’s left shoulder. Late in the period, Monarch would add two more from Adam Tybor and Andrew Pickner sealing the no doubt victory for the Coyotes.
For Monarch, it will be their third straight trip to the championship game, coming up short in each of the last two at the hands of Ralston Valley.
This season, Dexter will take a team into the championship game after losing 17 players from his 2013-14 roster. But for some guys, the new roster is a sense of pride.
“It’s exciting. We got some really talented kids this year,” said Pickner. “Some guys didn’t play as big of a role last year; I didn’t play as big of a role last year. It’s just really cool to see these guys stepping up huge.”
For Dexter though, it’s all about the task at hand.
“To beat Regis like this in three straight years,” Dexter said, “it’s just unbelievable. But those guys in there know we’re not done. We’ve got one game left, no doubt about it. Looking forward to it.”
LITTLETON — They dug hard and battled every step of the way. It wasn’t always pretty, but when the dust (snow) had settled and all was said and done, it was the Monarch Coyotes who would advance to take on Regis Jesuit in the state hockey semifinals.
Mountain Vista, the No. 1 seed out of the Peak Conference, put up a valiant fight, but in the end it was Monarch’s patented discipline and resiliency that would seal the Eagles’ fate.
After a back and forth first period in which the visiting team looked out of sorts, Monarch coach Jimmy Dexter rallied his squad to take control in the second, and they never looked back.
“I think we were a little nervous,” Dexter said after the game. “People forget we lost 17 players from last season. We’re a young team. But after we got in the locker room (after the first period) we got back to good habits and making the easy play, not forcing things.”
The scoring opened just four minutes into the game when Mountain Vista’s Jordan Cox intercepted an ill-advised breakout pass and centered it to linemate Reid Goodman, who wasn’t going to miss with half of the net to shoot at from point blank range. A few minutes later, the two would hook-up again, this time with Cox looking off Goodman on a two-on-one before slipping it shortside past Coyotes goaltender Hampus Akesson.
A late push in the first period saw Monarch’s Andrew Wagner take a full speed rush all the way through the neutral zone and into Mountain Vista territory, but a heads up play by Wyatt Williams saved a goal for the Eagles.
If the scoring opened early in the first period, then the second got underway even faster.
Carrying over a late power play from the first, Monarch wasted little time capitalizing on the game’s first man advantage. Justin White hammered a shot from the point that Mike Van Haute got a stick on to put the Coyotes on the board. Then, again, less than two minutes later, the visitors would tie it up when Jake Young buried an errant rebound past Eagles goalie Tanner Munn.
With just over two minutes to go in the second, the Coyotes (16-3-1 overall) would complete the comeback on the power play again. Off an offensive-zone faceoff to the right of Munn, Andrew Pickner walked in and roofed the puck short side to give Monarch the 3-2 lead.
“We just didn’t play a full three periods tonight,” said an emotional Mountain Vista coach Lev Cohen.
A late penalty and a bench minor at the end of the second period gave Mountain Vista (17-2-1) a 5-on-3 to start the third period, but the home team struggled to maintain possession, giving even more confidence to the rejuvenated Monarch squad.
That kill would be all that the Coyotes would need to hold onto the win, with Vista’s best chance from that point coming on a nice individual effort down the wing from Bryan Hancock, but the puck would sail just high.
The final minutes of the game were marked by chippy play on both sides, punctuated with at the end of the game by frustration boiling over and the referees having to separate the two teams.
“You can’t control how the game is officiated unfortunately, and I don’t think they had their best game tonight,” Cohen said. “But that’s not an excuse. It happens and you gotta stay playing your game. We didn’t tonight.”
It would be tough to discount the role that special teams played in the game. Power play opportunities were firmly in favor of Monarch, but the Eagles also had their 5-on-3 to start the third, as well as the man advantage to end the game.
For coach Dexter’s part, staying out of the box is all part of the grand scheme.
“I’m a coach who played the game my whole life too, so I stress discipline no matter what,” said Dexter. “Sometimes it’s tough, but I’m proud of how my team usually responds, and responded tonight. I mean a couple of those calls were pretty rough.”
No time to dwell on the officiating, though, for Monarch, who draws the No. 2-seeded Regis Raiders in the semifinals next Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Budweiser Events Center. Last time around, Regis beat the Coyotes 4-1 in a game that was closer than the score may indicate.
“We’re definitely going to work on moving the puck around to try and cut down on blocked shots,” Dexter revealed. “I swear last time they blocked like 40 shots. Their goalie is good, but small. I want to make him see as much rubber as possible.”
Monarch, a No. 4 seed out of the Foothills Conference, returns to the state semifinals for the third consecutive season. The Coyotes advanced to the state title game each of the last two years, but lost to Ralston Valley both times. Ralston Valley was upset by Cherry Creek on Saturday.
