Casey Krasen (left), Michael Tedrow (center) and Lukas Feldbusch (right) fight to score in front of the Johnson & Whales University net during a post season scrimmage.

Skating tough

ASU hockey team works hard as club sport

By Kyle O'Briant
LiveWire

With sore legs and tired bodies, the Appalachian State University Club Ice Hockey team climb out of their cars stuffed to capacity with equipment bags, sticks and themselves. The team is arriving at their home rink, The Extreme Ice Center, in Charlotte for a home game against the University of South Carolina. This has been the scene for the team since the spring of 2000 when the Pinebridge Center Coliseum in Spruce Pines discontinued operation of its ice rink.

Though having a club hockey team has become more difficult for the members of the Mountaineer Club Hockey Team since the discontinuation of the Spruce Pines rink the team has found excitement, dedication, and clever ways of staying in the game while away from the ice.

In the fall of 1997 varsity golfers Todd Whiter and Mike Franz posted flyers around the ASU campus looking for hockey players and a pick-up game. Lucas McGill was the first to respond. He had been playing in pick-up at the Pinebridge Center Coliseum, and together the three began assembling a team to play in the adult league at the Pinebridge Center. They continued to play and build the team throughout the next years until their graduation.

The Mountaineers played happily at the Pinebridge Center until early 2000 when one of the pipes in the cooling system broke. The system was built through concrete rather than sand making the required repairs difficult and costly.

“The guy just didn’t want to spend what it would cost to fix [the rink’s cooling system] it,” McGill said.

The damaged pipes forced the Mountaineers to look elsewhere for their home ice. With three rinks within three hours of Boone the Mountaineers had several options for their new rink, however the longer distances and the need to travel for practices and games has brought new difficulties to the team.

The Mountaineers ended their 2008-2009 season with a record of 12-12 and 4-4 in the Carolina Division of the Blue Ridge Hockey Conference. Originally a winning record of 13-11 and 5-3, the Mountaineers dropped a game to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington due to an in ineligible player.

With a high strength of schedule, playing a number of Division II teams—the Division III Mountaineers went 1-3 against the Division II teams they played—with little practice time the Mountaineers struggled to keep up with teams that have access to ice and larger student populations. Despite this explainable disadvantage the Mountaineers continue to schedule and compete with Division II teams.

Along with scheduling games with teams in higher divisions the Mountaineers also challenge themselves by playing top 10 ranked teams.

Though the Mountaineers have struggled to compete throughout the 2008-2009 season, they are not detoured by the long drives, difficult losses and the extra effort needed to compete against teams that have easy access to ice. They continue to have a large number of new recruits and returning players each year.

The Mountaineers have practiced and played in all of the surrounding rinks in the years since the Pinebridge Center, but has yet to have the convenience and support that come with a home rink in the immediate area.

The Extreme Ice Center of Charlotte, the newest and fourth rink to be built in the surrounding areas, is the current home of the Mountaineers. Though new and featuring high quality facilities, the Extreme Ice Center is still a little under three hours away.

The team’s lack of available ice creates a great disadvantage according to Casey Krasen, President of the Appalachian State University Club Hockey Team.

“We are not able to practice on things we noticed that we need to work on in previous games,” Krasen said, “The lack of ice time just sets us back from our competition because we can't get the team to gel together as one.”

Starting in the 2007-2008 season the mountaineers began practicing in the winter months at Sugar Mountain Resort. Sugar Mountain has an outdoor rink that is about three quarters the size of a standard NHL size rink that operates during the winter months. The rink gives the mountaineers much needed opportunities to be on the ice. Despite the rinks size the rink gives the team plenty of room to work on conditioning and allows the goaltenders to receive shots.

“Even though the facility is smaller than what we play our games on we are able to keep individual skills up but are unable to perform team drills effectively,” Krasen said.

There have been efforts in recent years to bring a rink back to Boone and the surrounding areas. McGill purposed to the university to include an ice rink in their plans when the planning of the new Student Recreation Center or building one into the Holmes Convocation Center.

“I held them up for about two months trying to get them to include a rink,” McGill said.

There might never be a rink in Boone, but the Appalachian State University Club Hockey team will continue to play and do its best the facilities available to them because they love their sport.

“The guys want to play the greatest game there is,” Krasen said, “They just have a love for the sport and will take them anywhere anytime.  

“The players know we have the ability to play with the best of them but they know we are at a disadvantage without having the rink nearby.  Also it is a great way for a new college kid to make some good friends in his first year at school.”