The Fort Lewis College men’s club ice hockey team had their games against Colorado Christian University cancelled over the weekend.
Cancellation
“Due to Colorado Christian’s inability to field a full roster for the spring semester, they weren’t able to come down and field a team for our games as scheduled for this weekend,” Tim Dionne, head coach of the FLC men’s club ice hockey team, said.
The games were scheduled to take place at 7:00 p.m. on Friday night and at 1:15 p.m. on Saturday.
The team learned of these cancellations in mid-October of 2016 shortly after they had gone down to play CCU for games in Denver, Dionne said.
However, because the timeslots for the two games were still held by the club hockey organization, the team decided to put the timeslots to use, FLC men’s club ice hockey team captain Tyler Scott said.
“We had to compromise,” Scott said.
Filling the Event
The team’s compromise was to host two community events with one of those being a fundraiser, Brian Alt, assistant captain for the men’s club ice hockey team, said.
The fundraiser was a Disco Skate night that allowed the FLC and Durango community members to join the FLC men’s club ice hockey team on the ice for a night of skating, Scott said.
The Disco Skate was on Friday night from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. and all proceeds went to the FLC men’s club ice hockey team, Scott said.
The team’s goal for the fundraiser was to raise a little bit of extra money, but also to gauge the community’s response to the Disco Skate to see if this could become an annual fundraising event, Dionne said.
Adult League Hockey
Also, the FLC men’s club ice hockey team hosted an adult league game of area coaches and players during the Saturday timeslot at 1:15 p.m., Scott said.
This community game was meant to keep the players fresh and active on the ice by giving them game action, as well as to have another opportunity to interact with the members of the community in a hockey setting, Dionne said.
“We anticipate as time progresses to actually replace that with what we would call the Skyhawks Cup,” Dionne said. “The Skyhawks Cup, we hope as we continue to grow, will be a game between the current FLC hockey team and a team of alumni players.”
For now, this community adult league game is free admission, but as the team develops as a program they hope to make this an annual tradition and use it as another fundraising effort, Dionne said.
Future Games
The FLC hockey team attempted to replace the cancelled games against CCU this weekend with teams from a number of different states, such as Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Texas, Dionne said.
Unfortunately, due to schedules being made way in advance, the team could not find a team to replace the timeslots for the games this weekend, he said.
The Skyhawks men’s club ice hockey team returns to their home ice against Western State Colorado University on February 10th and February 11th.