Hockey in the Heartland

A wide-swept hurricane of detritus pocks the empty Valley County Event Center parking lot on a hot mid-July morning.

Crumpled Wrigley wrappers, beer cans crushed into the loose gravel by indifferent truck tires, and used "human snakeskins" croak inert melodies of their bygone import from isolated lily pads on an ocean of disuse begotten by excitable Northeastern Montana fairgoers too hurried to maintain the plain beauty of the unadorned. The first flutter of torn, spent plastic from between preoccupied fingers tainted the rocky lea. From there, the excess, as all life is wont to do, perpetuated. Who cast the first stone? Does it matter? So often the usual is disgraced merely to test its ephemeral durability. The garbage underfoot becomes the new norm.

In the attempt to add to and adorn oneself in "experience," the value of thing-as-thing drowns under varied coats of makeup, paint, and soap. "Family time" struggles to extricate itself from the obscenity of television; arteries toil to pump to standard under mountains of stagnant plaque and granulated dreams. So it is that intention is clouded when attention is split. 

This phenomenon, of course, applies to more than that which is viewed as "ill". . . .

* * *

Some hours away, in North Dakota and Canada, hockey finds refuge indoors during the summer heat. In Glasgow, though, the Event Center doors are locked; the rink melted until October.

"There's never been a real hockey community in Montana," said Pat Braaten, head of coaching for Glasgow's Hi-Line Youth Hockey (HYLA) and 2015 leader of the Glasgow IceDawgs' Bantam team. "All these little communities in Canada have rinks, and the kids grow up playing. The country has a legacy. North Dakota lives off the fever of Minnesota to the east. Here, it's typically been just a wintertime thing: getting kids off of couches, away from Xboxes, giving them something to do."

HLYH President Tim Volk concurs. "Hockey's been a little slower catching on here," he said. "But interest is picking up."

Volk, whose tenure as a board member stretches back to HLYH's inaugural year, 1995, notes the organization's current $6 million assets, determined by a private insurer, as evidence. "It all started here when Donna Browning wanted her kid to play hockey," he said. "We borrowed the money to build the rink and went from there. One person's desire sparked an entire community, and look where we are now."

Volk's three children have all passed through the program, and he views Browning's efforts as being both instrumental in the program's mercurial rise as well as the barebones blueprint for the activism necessary in maintaining the sport's growth rate in the region.

This not to say the entirety of the arduous road to consistency's potholes have been filled, nor that other ruts and speed bumps have not developed in the interim.

"MAHA [Montana Amateur Hockey Association] used to play in a Canadian league called the Wood River League," said Braaten. "up until seven or eight years ago, we'd head up to places like Rockglen and Glentworth, small towns one or two hours away - cross the border in the morning, play a few games, come home in the evening." 

These "small towns," however, fell victim to population declines in the latter half of the 21st century's first decade, forcing the hockey-bent residents to abandon their homespun programs and leech onto larger cities' teams. This change set the Montana members face-to-face with doubled travel distances, and MAHA acted to eliminate the unnecessary burden. "We got out of the Wood River League," said Braaten, "and focused on Montana versus Montana."

Of course, the Big Sky state is no short-track rink when it comes to putting wheels to pavement. Braaten, though, downplays the thought that distance acts as concrete hindrances to a child's participation. "Travel for young kids is not an issue," Braaten said. "They play at home most of the year, and when they do travel it's usually for a jamboree, where a bunch of teams play at one rink over a weekend. MAHA recognizes Montana's a big state and that people want to minimize the travel as much as possible." 

Even for the older age groups, Volk notes, travel is regulated to "essentially one weekend a month."

Another concern familiar to Braaten's ears is the monetary investment inextricably connected to travel (motels, gas, food) and the constant replacing of equipment as "child" turns to "teen" turns to "I'll be down soon, Mom, let me shave my mustache first." He points to various routes of obtaining skates, pads, and sticks which HLYH has made available to the cash-strapped in their quest to take the ice:

"It's a misnomer that hockey's an expensive sport. For people wanting to try it out, rentable equipment is available at all age levels. Registration costs are as low as we can keep them. As you move up the ranks, yes, costs rise, as with any sport. Through renting equipment, HLYH scholarships where we waive the registration fee, carpooling to tournaments. . .prices get knocked down significantly."

Says Volk, "If you want to play, we'll try to accommodate you." 

With the relative lack of hockey tradition in Montana, much less Glasgow, one would think mothers and fathers to whom the sport is unfamiliar would, if not avoid the rink and its speciously-looming bottomline, direct their children towards endeavors closer to home in an attempt to distract them from the game. Braaten notes this to be far from the case. "To complement the group of parents we have who played the game, there's a burgeoning group of non-hockey parents who have jumped in," he said. Some of the "new-hockeys," he believes, may have coaxed their kids towards the game. "I've seen so many who wanted to try hockey, did it, and loved it," he said. "And once they're in, their support is undying. We've got a strong community." 

Braaten says that while a drop in participation does occur as players progress to higher age groups, he chalks the phenomenon up to the kids' developing their interest in another sport, rather than as an unfortunate result of road-weary, light-walleted families' dissent of the game's demands.

Most all discussion of cost would be mooted if, as in neighboring states and provinces, Montana's "small towns" had rinks of their own. Despite its being the third-largest state by area, Montana's borders house just 11 indoor hockey facilities. "It takes a lot of work getting [a rink] into place," said Volk. "There's the utility cost in the winter, the manpower needed to build the structure. . . ."

Sidney, Helena, Bozeman, Miles City, and Kalispell are among the current locations home to sheets. Bozeman's and Lewistown's hockey associations are in the founding stages of building new ice houses.

The necessary focus on developing youth interest in the game draws attention from the broad community of puck-minded post-adolescents who have found a second home in Not-So-Fast leagues across the state. Traver McLeod, MAHA President, Billet Coordinator for the Missoula Maulers, a Tier III Junior team currently competing in the Western States Hockey League (WSHL), and Canadian ex-pat, estimates 1,100-1,200 adults participate in one of Missoula numerous leagues, a figure which puts the city among the nation's top 20 hubs for "continuing education" in the sport.

Such high interest leads to regional marketability - so much so that puck mavens from an American hockey hotbed, New England, have taken notice.

Scott Crowder, son and nephew, respectively, of former Boston Bruins Bruce and Keith, started the Pond Hockey Classic, "a grassroots sports event management company specializing in organizing and managing pond hockey events in North America," according to its website, after picking up an undergraduate degree in Sports Management from UMass-Amherst in 2009. One event was held annually, in Meredith, N.H., during each of the company's first two years of operation. In 2012, Crowder staged two tournaments - one in Meredith, one in Lake Champlain, VT. 

The events' popularity - a combined 281 teams four-man teams entered those first three instantiations - signaled an expansionary imperative to Crowder, a sort-of manifest destiny whose siren song he could not refuse. In 2014, he looked west and, much as a 19th-century American entrepreneur would have, recognized the boundless opportunity provided by an unsown land.

In February, frozen Foys Lake in Kalispell will play host to the 3rd annual Montana Pond Hockey Classic.

"We want to hold events in areas that are unique and beautiful," said Crowder. "Where better than Flathead Valley?"

The past two years have drawn teams from British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, and Oregon, as well as rogue squads from New England, Connecticut, and Louisiana. In 2014, the "Channel 4 News Team" - perhaps a crew of real anchors, perhaps a mere allusion to "Anchorman" - trekked up from San Diego to join the field.

Crowder sees the state as an untapped lode waiting to be mined. He points to the construction of more rinks as paramount to "creating a hockey tradition," and notes that Montana appears to be taking the necessary steps to accelerate down that road. "The hockey community in Montana is small," he said, "but it's growing. Our goal is to support the growth of hockey in and around the areas of our tournaments."

"There are so many outdoor activities in Montana," he continued, "so much to do. But the population has a genuine hockey interest. If kids watch it, ingrain themselves in what its all about, they'll fall in love. It's the only sport where you really need to learn to walk again. My message to anyone thinking about starting the game is this: don't be afraid to try something new. Hockey taught me a lot, and its great seeing it grow in areas where its not as popular as it maybe should be."

McLeod agrees, and sees the last two decades' popularity jump as more than an ephemeral frenzy. "There's a higher quality of hockey coming into the state," he said. "Good things happening in the realm of Junior Hockey," he added, noting the establishment of Tier III Junior Hockey teams in Missoula, Whitefish, and Bozeman all within the past two years. "And most all the owners are focused on significantly strengthening their programs."

McLeod witnessed the rise of the sport in his adopted home - from the "grassroots efforts" in Bozeman, Missoula, and Great Falls in the early '90s to its subsequent, viral spreading to far-flung sites in the state's less-populous areas later that decade - and sees no present reason indicating that the infection will halt its beautiful assault on Big Sky country, whether prairie town or mountain town.

"The Glasgow rink is by far the best in Montana," he said. "That interest remains high out there is a good sign. We have a strong board [at MAHA], countless volunteers, parental support, strong funding. . . . It's looking up."

In Glasgow, the hockey czars, regardless of profit margins, are happy to perpetuate a love for the game in a community traditionally distracted by the thrills of hunting and afternoon ice fishing on frozen Fort Peck Lake. Braaten puts it bluntly: "People are jumping in now, realizing hockey's a great pastime, a great outlet for everyone. It's healthy and fun - for parents as well. Not to mention the competitive aspect." He estimates over 150 boys and girls have already registered for the 2015-16 HLYA season, and believes, as McLeod does, that that number will only rise in the coming seasons.

Volk, who says he plans to cede his HLYA presidency to "a younger group," and that he's sticking around this year for continuity's sake, lays the boon clear: "It's easy to sit in front of the TV and say, 'I don't want to be involved.' But its been brilliant here. A lot of people have made this work. I'm not looking for a pat on the back for what we've done and continue to do. Hockey's just something we felt was needed."

* * *

A brisk wind sweeps through the Event Center parking lot, animating the dormant assortment of wrappers and cans, dirvishing rocky dust into the clear blue sky. It's a hot Saturday - outboard motors churn in the placid waters of Fort Peck Lake. At the adjacent fairgrounds, a rodeo begins. The announcer's echoing voice jumbles and dies in the breeze. 

The Event Center itself sits quiet, locked, its utilities shut off. But the air around it, despite the dirt eddies and pinwheeling pieces of cardboard divorced from empty Reese's Cup packs, holds a nectarine tinge, ensnaring all five senses, conglomerating them into one. The aura subsumes palpability; one is united with it as one is wholly and fully united with one's own mind. "In two months," one whispers to oneself, "those doors will open. In two months, the puck will drop in Valley County."