Soul on ice, part two

By Jim Hollrah

Superb coaching breathes life into the Telluride Lizard Head story, but it reaches its climax on the ice whenever our local junkyard dogs face off against their opponents. The sports pages of this newspaper carry the prosaic details of their exploits and reveal a very impressive win/loss record at all age levels. Taken as a whole, the Lizard Head club is very near, if not at, the top among clubs in Colorado and northern New Mexico which play under similar handicaps, i.e. outdoor rinks, short seasons, general impoverishment. These clubs make up our league, although Telluride is in a league of its own when it comes to locker room facilities. Our warming hut ("hut" perfectly captures the essence of this structure) stands alone, a paradigm of inadequacy, a testimony to the concept of minimalism. How low can you sink in providing a place for players to suit up, pee, etc.? Look no further, for with its warming hut, Telluride has touched the bottom.

I'm not one for prognostication, but, warming hut aside, I'll wager that the Lizard Heads club will prove even more dominant in its league over the next few years. Remember, you heard it here first. But how do they fare against those Front Range hockey mill teams that practice year round, the ones way out of their league? Put another way, how would a competent college hockey team fare against the Colorado Avalanche?

The Lizard Heads had a chance to answer this question when they went to Colorado Springs for a tournament in December of last year. There, after a mere two weeks of practice and no games in their season, the Squirts took on seasoned teams from Denver and Colorado Springs. I won't say their opponents were professionals, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of the better players on those teams didn't get a BB gun or a new bicycle from an anonymous "friend" at the end of their season. And, hey, who pays their laundry bills? Or "You want your skates sharpened, kid? Sure, no charge. And have a popsicle while you're waiting. Or a cigar."

A bookie would have given you very attractive odds that the Lizard Heads would have been stomped into jelly in Colorado Springs. But if he gave you any points, he would have lost money. I watched the Squirts, the 9 and 10 year olds, play four games and it was like ... well, pick your analogy: Americans against the British in the Revolutionary War, Texans at the Alamo, Greeks versus Persians at Thermopylae. The Squirts won one and lost three. When they lost, it was never by much; it was a hard fought contest every time. The team that took first place beat the Squirts 5-3 and it easily could have gone the other way. Based on point spread, our guys took third place, and if Kevin Swain had only come to win rather than give all his kids a hockey experience, he might have made the record three wins, one loss by keeping the King's Regiment, his studs, in for the whole game each outing.

Was the their opening performance against hockey mill teams at Colorado Springs a fluke? The Squirts answered that question with a resounding "no" at a tournament in Flagstaff that was the capstone, the finale of a season that defied the normal laws of probability which govern the world of sports. In Flagstaff, the Lizard Head Squirts went up against teams from Flagstaff, Tucson, Vail and Riverside, Calif., the same type of indoor rink, long season, semi-pro teams they faced in Colorado Springs. Maybe I'm just a worry-wort, but when I see the opposing team walking into the locker room with embossed, personalized game jerseys on hangers, I'm thinking, "What are our hambone boys from the sticks doing in a tournament like this?" The Vail team was closeted in its locker room for half an hour before the game, probably doing meditation exercises with the team psychologist. "What the hell is Swain thinking to schedule our kids for a massacre? Does he like humiliation?"

I should have had more faith because when the dust settled, the Squirts won three and lost two, ending up in third place. In only one game were they out of their league, and even there, the point spread should have been double what it was. (A few bars from the theme song of the movie "Rocky" here.) Our guys went the distance, just as they did all season.

A team's win/loss record is a soon forgotten statistic. What remains are fleeting vignettes that encapsulate the spirit of a game or a team. One such image at the Colorado Springs tournament sticks in my mind. It was of no consequence to the outcome of the game, but it speaks loudly about the spirit of our players. Natalie Brown, a diminutive sprite on the Squirts team, crashed into the boards with two opposing players in pursuit of the puck. About 140 pounds of boy meat smashed into 40 pounds of girl, and I thought, "Oh, jeez." Then, Natalie Brown, not the two big boys, rose out of the crumpled heap, and with a brief backward glance at the prostrate boys, as if to say, "Are you guys all right?" skated back into the fray. Another example: In the dying moments of a difficult game against Santa Fe, Lizard Head Squirts down 1 to 0, Swain pulled his goalie and with 20 seconds left on the clock, J. D. Kirkendoll, a scoring machine with preternatural talent, pops the puck in for a goal and a tie. For the record, this kid repeated the same trick several more times for victory in the final moments of other games. Not without help from his teammates, who were always swarming like flies around the net. If I were collecting autographs, I'd want them from J. D. Kirkendoll, Ryan Roth, the Iron Curtain goalie, and Hurley Kane, the Minister of Defense. As mentioned, I only watch the Squirts, which provides all the thrills I need, but I'm sure indelible snapshots of glory are duplicated at all age levels among the Lizard Heads.

Do I make too much of this kids hockey stuff? Do I dote on dust here? After all, the Lizard Heads play what amounts to a backwater sport in a town where skiing is king. It is only natural that a community emphasizes and encourages sports where its competitive advantage lies. In skiing, Telluride produces kids who go to National this and World Cup that.

It was thus no surprise when recently it came time for the Telluride Foundation to disburse money to worthy local causes that the Ski and Snowboard Club got $5,000. The Telluride Foundation also bestowed $5,000 on the Telluride Soccer Club. That's good; I'm all for supporting soccer, which my son plays with the same enthusiasm and questionable talent that he brings to the sport of hockey. The Telluride Lizard Heads, an independent sports club like the soccer and ski clubs, got zero from the Telluride Foundation. Maybe they didn't ask or maybe they got scratched because of hockey's bad boy image, as in, "I went to a fight last night and a hockey game broke out." Whatever the reason, the Lizard Heads must perform their miracles on the ice without external charity. Once again, something must come from nothing.

I believe I may safely predict that hockey will not play a significant role in my son's adult life. Even in his career with the Lizard Heads, he may never rise above the level of "solid" or "dependable." I'm always open to surprises, but I don't see words like "indispensable" or "key player" being applied to him in his future with the Lizard Heads. That is not important. What he gains, what all of the Lizard Head kids will take with them from their association with this story book sports club, is a memory of how it feels to be part of a well-managed, winning team. That is important and valuable. By itself, it would be enough to justify the commitment. But when your team is also one that dominates the competition within its league and, against impossible odds, plays with distinction and some success against teams well out of its league ... well, then the players create memories filed under "stories for the grandchildren."

Many years from now, the gauzy ephemeral images - frosty nights practicing and scrimmaging on the ice, snippets of exciting games, coaches yelling and cajoling, the pre-game locker room exhortations and post-game analyses, the silent pause in a game when "Doctor" Pete Connick shuffles out on the ice and with some magic incantation raises an injured player and escorts him to the sidelines, traveling to out of town tournaments, personal moments of triumph or failure, bench banter with your buddies, bruises, sprains, freezing toes - all will congeal into a memory of shared glory and fellowship with your teammates, a bond with a band of unlikely ragged warriors from the hinterlands who once upon a time fashioned a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The Lizard Head players will remember the days of their youth when they had the right stuff.

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