{"id":800124,"date":"2019-10-06T17:00:44","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T23:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=372574"},"modified":"2019-10-06T17:00:44","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T23:00:44","slug":"olivero-summit-hockey-finds-new-opportunity-for-young-players-after-bolts-folding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/olivero-summit-hockey-finds-new-opportunity-for-young-players-after-bolts-folding\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivero: Summit Hockey finds new opportunity for young players after Bolts folding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Once again this year, first-year Summit Mites players (8 and younger) will be able to play for free outside of bringing their own skates.<\/strong>
Courtesy Summit Hockey<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 In a county like Summit where there are so many strong youth sports programs, it can easily go overlooked how difficult it is to build and sustain a program. It\u2019s not overnight that clubs like Team Summit and Team Breckenridge become institutions. It\u2019s far from easy to build something like Maverick Sports\u2019 Summit Mountain Challenge mountain bike series. It takes years for a juggernaut like the Summit High School girls rugby program to become what it has.<\/p>\n

In a lot of ways, the reality here in Summit County is that various sports \u2014 from more traditional ones like Alpine skiing to newer sports like ski mountaineering \u2014 are all interested in recruiting a finite number of young athletes. With long-term plans in mind, the Summit Hockey youth program based in Breckenridge has taken a new, if not novel, approach to bringing in players from around the county.<\/p>\n

And, a year in, it seems to be working.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s rewind to last year. With the folding of the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League, the Breckenridge Bolts \u2014 a league for highly-skilled players between the ages of 16 and 20 \u2014 didn\u2019t have anywhere to play as the 2018-19 season approached. That left Summit Hockey and its director Chris Miller in a tough position. Should Summit Hockey retain the Bolts program at a much higher cost in a more expansive league that travels all over the West Coast? Or, could Summit Hockey save money or reallocate the donated funds devoted to the Bolts in a different way?<\/p>\n

After Summit Hockey\u2019s board deliberated last summer, Miller said the entity decided to go to its donors and ask if they\u2019d like their contributions back or if they\u2019d like to use them in a different way. The program\u2019s idea was to use the Bolts funds to pay for Summit Hockey\u2019s entry-level program, the \u201cMites,\u201d to make it free for first-year boys and girls under 8 years old.<\/p>\n

To Miller and others with Summit Hockey, if their donors agreed to reallocate the funds, the idea would help Summit Hockey in a trickle-up effect. Miller said in recent years the program has struggled to recruit players and retain consistent kids at a younger level. Describing a youth program as \u201cworking like a pyramid,\u201d Miller said when the numbers aren\u2019t there at the lower level, it\u2019s hard to find success at older ages in more competitive divisions.<\/p>\n

With about $30,000 freed up, donors decided to go with the program\u2019s novel idea: to make the Mites program free for any and all who wanted to try out hockey. The program subsequently used $13,000 of the $30,000 saved by the folding of the Bolts to purchase all equipment (except skates) to outfit dozens upon dozens of new players. The program also decided to alter the Mites format, playing at in-house jamborees at the Stephen C. West Ice Arena in Breckenridge rather than traveling to tournaments.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy Summit Hockey<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The idea of an (almost) free full four-month season struck a nerve with many around Summit County. Between boys and girls, Miller said the Mites\u2019 numbers ballooned from 25 to 40, on average, in previous years, to more than 100 last season. With the tripling in numbers, the Mites program separated the players out on the ice into different skill levels and focused less on sheer number of reps and more on putting the youngsters through fun, game-like situations.<\/p>\n

Last year was so much of a success, that come Nov. 4\u2019s first practice Summit Hockey will operate the same free-for-first-year policy again this winter. Miller said this year he expects about half \u2014 anywhere from 50\u201360 \u2014 of the Mites program\u2019s players to be first-years. Miller said that will run Summit Hockey about $17K this year.<\/p>\n

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A Summit Mites youth hockey team takes a photo together on the ice.<\/strong>
Courtesy Summit Hockey<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe took a big gamble if it was going to work or not,\u201d Miller said, \u201cbut tripling our numbers is a good sign of it working. And because of that, we were able to have three teams at the next level, which we\u2019ve never been able to have before.\u201d<\/p>\n

That next level, Squirts, is receiving the trickle-up effect, already sporting one more team of 10 athletes at the 9\u201310 age level thanks to last year\u2019s Mites who have moved up. Miller hopes that trend will continue, in turn making Summit Hockey more competitive up to high school ages.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely more competitive,\u201d Miller said. \u201cIt\u2019s bringing in a different type of athlete that may not have tried hockey before. But now that they can try it for free for one year, and a lot of kids are hooked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think hockey feels like it\u2019s a certain sport for a certain type of person,\u201d Miller added, \u201cbut it\u2019s not that at all. And I think just giving people an open door to try it out for a year, you get all different kinds of people from the community. It\u2019s something that we are focusing on in our new culture, is that hockey is for everyone and we want to involve the entire community. There are no boundaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Summit Mites watch their buddies out on the ice.<\/strong>
Courtesy Summit Hockey<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once again this year, first-year Summit Mites players (8 and younger) will be able to play for free outside of bringing their own skates.Courtesy Summit Hockey BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 In a county like Summit where there are so many strong youth sports programs, it can easily go overlooked how difficult it is to build and sustain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-800124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 01:23:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}